Blended learning is bunk: Informal learning the future

If Jay Cross is a guru then I'm a banana

Jay Cross is so sagacious that he coined the phrase 'elearning' when all the technology ever delivered was etraining. He also fails to define what he means by informal learning,demonstrate how it works for organisations or provide evidence of its relevance, validity or impact. If this is what Web 2.0 is all about then if we are to take it seriously it needs to demonstrate its worth.

His prediction of the demise of the trainer might well be accurate but the role of the true learning professional, using an evidence-based approach, is just starting.

What about accreditation?

In theory I agree. I have learned more than I would in a PhD in e-learning in the last 12 years - informally. However, no-one will believe me. It seems that having the letters after your name is very important. Here's a quick theory:
e-learning is driven by accreditation which is in turn driven by employment legislation:
If employers could easily get rid of employees that did not cut the mustard, they would be much more inclined to hire those without qualifications who would be exxpected to demonstrate knowledge and ability after they were hired. However, they generally can't, so they cautiously hire those with the accredited qualifications and cross their fingers. Employees know this, and are therefore interested in attending courses that will give them a qualification - the more convenient the better - hence the popularity of online 'course'. Because of this, I predict they will have a great future, even though I agree that perhaps they should not.

Informal Learning Is Not New

Over 10 years ago, I completed my Masters and read numerous studies that indicates that informal learning was the way most people (70%) learn. You learn best from those around you than from someone standing in front of you. Technology now has provided a way for people to reach through cyberspace and learn from each other (social networking).

What I read but did not see was that self directed learning where access to the Internet and other resources is becoming more apparent. However, trainers and teachers still must provide some resources as well as develop the higher order thinking skills necessary to maximize the self directed learning experience. High order thinking skills do not happen on their own. Development is required.

Training or learning appears to be coming full circle and returning more to the Socratic approach by asking questions causing the person to be comfortably uncomfortable. Until awareness is created, change (learning something is a change) will not be sustainable (actually performing what I learned). This may help to explain the explosion of successful coaching models that are really Socratic dialogues.

Finally, the reluctance to change has far more to do with beliefs than anything else. The status quo remains because this is how we have always learned (belief) no matter how innovative the organization is.

informal learning will happen anyway but how can you make it work better

Hi
I found this article very interesting and very frustrating at the same time. I totally agree that informal learning is vital and it's happening, and has always happened, anyway but this article implied that it all happens on the 'web'. Yes - many of us do learn a lot whilst blogging, surfing etc etc but it's not the only way for the future. People will still meet formally or informally and learn from each other and I think harnessing that process has just as much relevance as what Jay Cross describes, which is effectively informal 'web-based learning' - so a subset of all learning. As Paul Kearns says it's important to measure what works before throwing out all the other forms of learning. Learning needs to be focused on what the learner needs to know, and how they prefer to learn, and if it can be timed right too then it's going to be even more effective. When you learn to walk and talk you usually have a fully dedicated supporter as well as a strong genetic predisposition to learn that particular skill. Can the same be said of e.g. IT skills, health and safety skills etc?

Structured Approaches Are Often Preferred

Over the last 15 years of working with a whole variety of learning technologies as part of blended learning programmes (although they weren't called those 15 years ago), I have seen plenty of evidence that they work and work well.

Time after time, when I've worked on projects that tried to encourage self-started learning or pointing people to more informal methods, the constant feedback I've received has been "can't you just give us some direction...we're very busy...give us head start." So much so that in one organisation I worked with, we coined the term "managed self-managed" learning for a while.

I agree that lots of learning is informal - and that is can be very rich - but I've been careful too in not trying to "formalise" informal learning too much, which is the risk when you try to major in on it.

Organisationally, I think we do need to determine learning paths and programmes of learning and development so that we can provide our employees with the opportunities they need to develop.

Alongside these, there is a role for facilitating informal learning approaches, but it's all about the blend.

Whereas I'm sure we wouldn't see anarchy, I'm worried that too much emphasis on informal learning could result in some very confused results.

Jay some of the way

I am with Jay's starting point about school systems but from there we start to part company.
Jay appears to assume that everybody knows how to learn and everybody is motivated to learn - assumptions I would question.

As a coach my starting point is the person or persons in the room at that moment. My questions begin the change process. I bring my experience and knowledge, they bring theirs and from there we find our starting point. Now maybe I am back with Jay but the process I have just described invariably bighlights people's inner-critic - people's sense of not being good enough. That is where one has to work.

how did you learn to talk, eat or walk

Hi

An interesting article from an individual passionate about their particular area of interest; can't fault that.

One comment that brought doubt to the foundation of the premise expressed was to do with learning to talk, eat or walk.

My understanding from documentaries, journals and books (mostly my partners for her psychology degree) is that without assistance and guidance a child will not naturally (or infomally) learn to talk, eat or walk. Unless of course the programme was a hoax there are the investigations into children who were held captive, without stimulus, support or instruction and as I understand it lost the ability of language (a switch in the brain is turned off if not used).

And for my own studies; there is no way on this earth that I would have got my degree in Management and IT via informal methods; all a matter of attitude; I for one exist in a comfort zone and will allow myself to be instructed formally to enable me to re-enforce the learning by informal experience. Granted there will be others who will push the envelope but I (and many others) am not one of them

Is the trainer a soon to be extinct dinasaur; no. Instruction (the foundation of the delivery of learning or the transfer of knowledge from one to another) has been around since the first human learnt something beneficial and taught it to someone else (not the oldest profession in the world but in my mind the oldest disciplin). And agreeing wholeheartedly with Paul Kearns; the evaluation took place in that the person taught benefited and the instruction spead.

Informal learning is in my view an addition to a raft of knowledge, skill and behavioural methodologies and just like all the other methodologies introduced in the past will not replace any particular one of them.

But then again I might be a dinasaur:)

Peter
Chief Executive
TrainerBase
The Association for Learning Practitioners

Quick to condemn?

There’s a lot to dwell on here and my first instincts are that some of the responses here seem unnecessarily defensive. I don’t agree with everything that Jay Cross talks about but his views are interesting and could give rise to debate about what motivates people to actually want to learn something new, how they choose to access that learning when they are able to decide for themselves the methodology and what our role could be in that process.

I didn’t read in the article that he was proposing that we end traditional methods of learning delivery, I read that he doesn’t agree with the phrase “blended learning” and how it has been adopted/ interpreted and that he doesn’t believe that elearning has “lived up to its early promise”. I don’t find either of these positions unreasonable.

There seems to be a broad acknowledgement that “informal learning” does take place on a wide scale and is an important part of the process of acquiring new skills and knowledge, but what we don’t always acknowledge as learning professionals is just how important it is, perhaps this is because it lies outside our point of direct intervention and is therefore not within our control, or it’s too difficult to apply a meaningful measure to. I know that when I need to educate myself on a new topic, whether that’s research for a new course, learning a new recipe or working out how to defeat someone in a video game, my first port of call will be Google 90% of the time followed most of the time by informal discussion with my peers. Incidentally, I managed to find his definition of “informal learning” in three clicks from the article

It would appear to me that the vast majority of learning takes place without any intervention from a learning professional at all, and the questions I am pondering are around; How do I make that process more effective? Would it help if I could facilitate access to these informal networks/ methods for people within my organisation, or does that intervention break it by definition? How do I measure the extent and effectiveness of informal learning? What does this mean for instructional design if anyone is allowed to create formal “informal learning” spaces? These aren’t new questions but I do feel the direction I am approaching them from is different.

For me acknowledging the scope and importance of “informal learning” doesn’t ring the death knell for classroom training, elearning or any other form of traditional training intervention. What it does is add an interesting new dynamic to how I think about tapping the learning potential in my organisation.

1-1 motivation

You certainly sparked a heated debate Jay!
I am very much with Sir Ken Robinson on what happens in schools. My experience (taught in schools and youth work)is that most children arrive at school bursting to learn but by the onset of puberty many have lost all interest in learning.
Rekindling self belief and a desire to learn is doable but it comes from human interaction usually.
Keep keeping us thinking Jay!

The future is not quite that simple

Walking and eating are psychomotor skills that are acquired and automated after hundreds of thousands of repetitions at a young age.

Talking, on the other hand, is a complex, cognitive skill with a psychomotor component. It, too, is acquired and automated only after hundreds of thousands of increasingly complex repetitions over months and years. And to acquire more than a rudimentary ability to employ language competently and appropriately in a modern, technological society requires, for most of us, additional formal learning of a quite rigorous sort, extending over several more years beyond childhood. To lump this advanced skill together with walking and eating is to invite confusion. To imagine that it can be acquired, at an advanced level, other than through formal learning and some training, is facile.

The question should not be, “how did you learn to talk, eat or walk," but “how did you learn to replace a hip joint, fly a helicopter, install a transmitter atop a 110 metre-tall tower, or calculate EVA for a multinational corporation?”

Let’s see how far informal learning, on its own, will get you with acquiring those, or any other, highly complex skills.

I’m not knocking informal learning. It is, and should be, a vital component of most learning environments, for most learners. And that also applies to the helicopter flying and other scenarios mentioned earlier. But, like all learning and teaching approaches, informal learning has its pros and cons, and its very specific strengths and limitations.

As for schools frying our brains: I agree, many schools manage to extinguish the joy of learning in children. And some don’t.

I was fortunate to attend both a primary school and a high school that provided high-quality learning environments, which encouraged independent thinking and learning. High standards were expected of each student, and less able students were supported (“scaffolded” in constructivist jargon) to aspire to and achieve those standards. To lump all schools together in the same head-frying basket is to do many of them, and the hardworking teachers in them, an injustice.

Will we, I wonder, as a community of instructors, ever get to the point where we recognise and admit that there is no single silver bullet, no magic solution, whether it be formal, informal, blended, e-something or whatever, sage-on-the-stage, or guide-by-the-side?

The future is anything but simple

Wise words Johan but I think Jay is actually asking even bigger questions than those you pose. For example, 'how did you learn to replace a hip joint' is a skilled operation but a very specific task. A bigger question might be - is the obesity specialist working with the hip surgeon to reduce the incidence of hip replacement? This would only happen if the NHS was structured to enable, allow and encourage this dialogue to take place. And what about the hip surgeon (actually a knee surgeon in real life), who suggested parallel operating theatres to increase patient throughput, who faced stiff opposition from other surgeons (and the BMA) who don't want surgery to become a 'production line'. Also what about the policy makers, the politicians and the managers in the NHS? Who is learning to produce the most holistic, coherent approach to long term healthcare. I think Jay does have a vision that is way beyond the purely operational - so the question is are we going to progress better through formal learning (training the surgeon)or from learning in a more informal setting that allows everyone who has valuable knowledge to share it? The 'sage on the stage' doesn't know everything and neither does the medical profession - or any profession for that matter.

Look at your grandchildren

Marvellous article which has attracted some strange and interesting comments as well as some which seem to be unduly defensive of the writers beliefs. We are not taught to talk, we have an instinct to talk and learn it language largely by imitation as anyone who has observed their grandchildrens growing up will have seen. And it seems clear that humans have an instinct to learn, some of which can be stimulated by parents , teachers and natural curiosity. It can also be supressed. In management we should be facilitating learning by providing personal example and opportunity to gather knowledge. We should encourage the 'learner'to explore and experiment with it and apply it under guidance. Teaching the 'Five principles of management', or the '17 Keycompetencies'( I am quoting )by whatever means seems a poor way of doing things.

Bigger issues (part 2)

A concept that is useful in this regard is that of dependent versus independent learning. Dependent learners see the instructor as being responsible for their learning; they have poor metacognitive skills and inadequate learning strategies, and they often require or even demand external motivation to learn.

All learners are somewhere along a spectrum, with regard to their ability to engage in self-directed, autonomous learning. Of course, a major part of our role as instructors is to promote greater learner autonomy. However, this is often a long, time consuming journey.

In the Middle East, as an instructor in a banking environment, I encountered many adult trainees whose schooling had relied 100% on rote learning. They were accustomed to extrinsic motivators and to highly-structured, teacher-directed courses with frequent, explicit tests and assignments; and they tended to fiercely resist the sudden removal of “formal learning” structures and approaches.

Instead, such students have to be gradually and carefully introduced to new and (to them) unfamiliar ways of learning – including informal learning – that employ more inductive and less structured teaching methods. I’m by no means uncritically defending formal learning approaches, but merely pointing out that, in some environments, it’s the students, not the trainers, who insist on them and who have to be weaned off them over time.

Jay, thanks for your thought-provoking comments, and for highlighting the importance of informal learning.

Bigger issues (part 1)

Thanks, Paul, you're right: Jay is asking bigger questions than the ones I picked up on in my earlier post.

He stresses, at the outset, that learners have numerous options available to them these days, and many of these are "informal". This is a very valid point.

I also agree that when it comes to training there is an "incredible short-term focus" in many businesses. I have observed this first hand in many companies.

Another important point Jay makes is that e-learning has not lived up to its early promise. This is pretty much part of the "hype cycle" that accompanies the introduction of most new technologies. As someone once pointed out, the impact of new technology tends to be overestimated in the short term, but underestimated in the long term. Thus, as time has passed, we have seen e-learning (as mere electronic page turners) morphing into a blend of face-to-face learning and electronically facilitated online learning communities (which is how I have always understood the term "blended learning").

And now, as Jay points out, students are increasingly gaining access to "unsupervised" and "democratised" -- informal -- avenues of learning. I agree that many training departments lag when it comes to recognising the importance of these forms of learning.

To quote from Jay’s clarification: “The evidence that people learn informally is all around us.” True. But I would caution that reports of the impending death of formal training might be overdone.

Justification

Whilst I do not always agree with Jay, I feel the need to defend him against bigoted people like Mr Skarrat.

Jays work has not been an overnight publicity jaunt but something that I have now followed for some 15 years. There is validity, thoughtfulness and rigor in his research and he shares his results with a vast number of professionals, peers and organisations.

Mr Skarrat sounds like a typical trainer, justifying his existence without knowledgeable contribution. He is proabably more than this and I think that opinion needs more than inflammation to be considered seriously.

More power to you Jay.