June 29, 2015 The Harvard Report on “General Education in a Free Society” placed first in its list of objectives “training in the ability to communicate orally and writing the results of thought.” To help the student accomplish this objective, the philosophy and aims of an educational institution are concerned with the education of the whole person — mind, body, soul and emotion. All this should culminate with the realization that knowledge...
June 17, 2015 “Individualized instruction is a method of instruction in which content, instructional technology (such as materials) and pace of learning are based upon the abilities and interests of each individual learner.” (Wikipedia) Today there is a growing emphasis on individualized instruction. Tardily, but not too late, we are beginning to acknowledge that there are better paths to learning. An awareness that “Reading-Lecture-Testing” is not the only way is essential if...
June 15, 2015 Those of you working in training or education recognize that students and our younger workforce learn best if the skills presented are packaged around full-motion video, gaming, and/or simulations. So it was not surprising that, with the advent of CD-ROM instruction a couple of decades ago, we had a training-delivery system that was a most effective skills-communicator, but had efficiency limitations. One either had to buy a zillion copies...
June 15, 2015 All training is not equally effective. All courseware titles are not equal in scope or production design. All trainees do not come to you from a single learning culture. Many studies have proven that traditional “lecture/reading/testing” training programs no longer give the payback in skills acquisition that they once did. For individuals born after 1960, their learning culture is enmeshed with video, simulations, and gaming. And, that is why,...
June 8, 2015 I’ve written several times about the “degree bias” that permeates America’s myopic commitment to the myth of “college degrees for everyone.” Some of those previous postings have generated comments from individuals who have experienced employment hurdles as a direct result of “degree bias.” I’ll quote from a few, putting my edits in parentheses: “My boss promised me a promotion but the administrative officer informed me that no such promotion...
June 3, 2015 Yesterday, a colleague asked me to research a particular skills training provider —- a vendor that was previously unknown to me. I always enjoy those research tasks as it allows me to keep up with new directions the skills training world might be taking. So, I happily went about that assignment and started my google search. Imagine my surprise when I accessed that vendor’s website and discovered a vendor...
June 1, 2015 Last week, I read a challenging — and, most welcome — article in the WASHINGTON POST, “PowerPoint should be banned. This PowerPoint presentation explains why” by Katrin Park. As I’ve noted before, Park joins a lengthy list of respected individuals who believe that PowerPoint is neither an effective information or instruction tool. Best known are probably Edward Tufte, Yale University’s professor emeritus of political science and statistics; Scott McNealy,...