Mike’s Doc Blog

A meeting last week with my boss yielded a surprising “all in favor” response to asking about doing research within our job family and using resources other than me to complete it. Not that there is anything in the research that warrants a ‘no’ but I was surprised by the enthusiasm and vision of what this could mean for our job family in terms of training. It also beget a conversation about the things that could be coming down the road for this group. We both left equally excited.

Still there are some other hurdles to overcome.

1. Permission from the regional leaderhsip of the geographic location I intended to use. I am using something outside the Northeast United States to eliminate bias and potential other hurdles related to vision and allowances
2. Letters drafted for each leader to showcase to the various committees and boards needed to earn an approved proposal
3. The finalized proposal and executive summary for the various committees and boards needed to earn an approved proposal
4. Finally, some project planning to implement this. I honestly think we can carry out the research in about 2 weeks of time.

I also have to finish updating my literature review and fortunately, an assignment in my current class hits right on the topic I need to research so bingo.

I must say that for the first time in months, I feel good about this. I wish I’d felt this long ago, I’d be done by now. I need to finish this Spring though. There is some celebrations and plans moving ahead for the Spring, Summer and Fall whether I am done or not.

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We’ve all been there. We’ve all argued in circles or been argued with in circles. Talking in circles refers to another logical fallacy known as the circular argument, circular reasoning, or begging the question. Essentially it is an argument that in some way is predicated on itself.

This is a fallacy that I’ve been catching more in my reading and listening. It happens at work, school, and all around me. For example, your function is moving out of the training department because it cannot be effective there; however you must still remain active in with department in many ways so you can be effective. This argument presupposes that effectiveness is not possible in the training department but that being heavily involved in the training department is required for effectiveness.

This is common enough argument that it is becoming almost humorous to find. One word of caution, people don’t like to be caught talking in circles. I tend to keep it to myself but use it to make determinations about whether or not that person has made careful or accurate decisions.

I think on of the reasons this and other fallacies happen is because we are moving so quickly that we can’t take time to think clearly before speaking. Ever notice how academics seem to move at a different pace? Slower maybe? Sure, is it because they don’t understand how it is in the real world? Perhaps, but more likely they are taking the time to be conscious and determined in both thought and response.

Businesses regularly report wanting more critical thinking people on the payroll. Critical thinking requires some prowess for logic and logical fallacies. Like all things, the more we practice the faster we will think critically. We need to be patient while the skills are built.

• What circular arguments to do you hear?
• What circular do you use?
• How can you stop using those logical errors and still get to the outcomes you desire?
• Does knowing more about circular reasoning help or hinder you?

In terms of study and research, being able to spot circular arguments is imperative to determining reliability and credibility in the work. I’ve read several articles that make this error and it is awfully easy to just ignore them to take what I need to make my own argument. Good researchers don’t do that though, they engage in reflective thinking and take care to use elements that make sense logically.

Still, I have more fun listening to people and finding the fallacy in the statements. This is particularly fun when you’ve already determined the argument is bunk. Be careful not to anger them though, people who think irrationally often act irrationally too.

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Clark Quinn, writing for TogetherLearn, posted an interesting response to criticism about the informal learning. Quinn’s point was simply that training is changing and a true professional will include elements of informal learning into the spectrum of services provided for clients and organizations. I couldn’t agree more.

In my research people often think that I am advocating the overthrow of classroom learning. I am not. Like Quinn, and others, I don’t think classroom learning will go away but it does need to change both in purpose and in implementation. Quinn talks about the purpose of classroom learning under the guise of formal instruction (which is more comprehensive than simply classroom learning):

there [is] a role for formal instruction (when you’ve new folks, or are moving to a new suite of skills)

he continues…

Most classrooms (live or virtual) focus on knowledge dump, don’t present appropriate practice, don’t assess in meaningful ways, and aren’t leading to the necessary changes in behavior.  Classrooms persist more because they’re efficient, not because they’re effective!

What you should be paying attention to is that expertise is no guarantee of quality.  Learning designed by listening to SMEs often is fact-heavy, and irrelevant. Experts don’t even know how they do things, and rely on the knowledge they’ve learned.

I’ve lived this all my training life, knowledge dumps, and it only sets me to take the materials and learn it on my own using informal techniques. Personally, this suggests the the role of formal instruction is to convey knowledge. In fact, I tell people this all the time…training closes knowledge gaps not performance gaps. I get a chuckle out of people that feel training is the hammer to fix all problems. It is expensive, time consuming, and according to research not meeting expectations or objectives.

When you think about how and what you learn everyday (and I mean really reflect on it) it is done through other means than formal instruction. Today that looks like website, web communities, podcasts, blogs, talking to people, emailing people, IMing people. Oh yes, people still attend the occasional class but that is to learning something new.

Quinn sums up, in a way I feel is spot on:

Yes, formal is part of the full spectrum, the full ecosystem, the full learnscape of solutions.  But the ‘classroom’ shouldn’t be the standard bearer.  We aren’t calling for the death of formal instruction, we’re calling for a) acknowledging and incorporating informal learning, and b) death of the classroom as a ’showup and throwup’ or ’spray and pray’ proposition.

Being a full spectrum provider means that you have a multitude of tools available that match the situation and need (not necessarily want). Think about where you’d rather shop. Do you want to drive all over town to hit the specializations you need or look for the mall or location that has the most things to offer. As a learning professional, I want to be the provider of as many things as possible, not a generalist but  a specialist in many areas. I also want to know about many things and have the connections to bring them in when needed.

For my dissertation this means that I am providing some further evidence to support one area of informal learning and help organizations make a conscious choice about what to use, when, and how.

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I’ve changed direction, again, on my dissertation. If you’ve been reading along you know that I dropped the blogs and wikis from my research fearing that the science would be messy. Not only that but the environment would also be messy and hard to isolate which factor would be superseding the others. The decision was not an easy one and it came with the cost of continuing to stew about the course change.

Admittedly, this has been a bit disabling. It is not easy to wonder if you made the right decision all the time and more difficult to separate the legitimate rationale for making another change from the invalid second guessing. I finally took some time away from my job to focus on myself and my work vs. them and their work (been feeling a little like they’re leeches lately). My reflections led me to recall an interview I gave recently about Web 2.0 and working environments. I don’t claim to be as much an expert as the few who are but I do consider myself a student of the phenomenon.

During the interview I remarked that blogs and podcasts are often seen together and rarely will you see a podcast without some sort of blogging component. I’ve never heard or used the phrase someone podcasted me back but have talked about people leaving comments or linkbacks to my posts. At the time I didn’t give it much thought but as the month wore on I really thought about that quip. Was there something to that? Could I combine the two and drop, what felt like a third wheel even at the beginning, wikis?

I inquired to my mentor. Our discussions led us to the conclusions that yes I could do anything I like and that the results will simply report what happens when you use blogs and podcasts together. I felt better about that. As such, I revisioned my dissertation to include blogs with podcasting. Now, I am writing up the thinking into a draft form so I can move forward.

The problem statement might need to change too. I am feeling that the problem might not be the ineffectiveness of classroom learning (although I feel that is a problem) but instead be the adoption of blogs and podcasts in corporate learning and no measurement on learning when using these technologies. I see a lot in terms of Kirkpatrick’s Level 1 and little in terms of measuring learning (Level 2), transfer (Level 3), or ROI (Level 4). All of this means, that I will be looking for some evidence to support what I feel is a problem (and of course, weighing the contrary evidence saying it is not a problem).

In working with my mentor there has been many discussions that are clarifying the process of completing the proposal. One of the discussions was around the testing instrument. I am choosing to do a pre and post test for my instrument founded in Kirkpatrick’s Level 2 evaluation of training programs. A related issue is the creation of the testing device.

The nature of the training intervention suggests that a custom test is deployed to target the instructed skills both in the test and control groups. Kirkpatrick, in a speech delivered to my local ASTD chapter, talked about designing such tests to be directly linked to the instructed concepts. In fact, he suggested that instructors use the test as the syllabus and give it out ahead of time to allow students to use it for the learning.

My concern would be the reliability and validity of a pretest and posttest designed by the researcher. Is there an issue with that? I suppose that as long as the test mapped to the learning objective and both groups used the same objectives and test it would be fine but I am still a little unsure.

Using an established instrument would alleviate the bias concerns. How would that established pretest posttest instrument be applicable to the training being delivered?

Lots of questions.

As I delve into the proposal writing, I am finding numerous situations that come down to the chicken and egg argument. To determine the ful study, I need to know this thing, to know that thing I need to know another but to know the last I need to know the first. Frustrating? Kind of frustrating, to be sure.

I feel like I want a template that steps through the process and links to assistance so effective decisions can be made. UPX provides a dissertation checklist but it does not have the you need to know this first, then this. Rather, it gives you what should be included in each chapter.

For now, I need to make some decisions about the statisitical analysis and experiment design. I have a conversation this week with a colleague offering some advice on the study process, experiment population, and working student dissertation issues. I am looking forward to it.

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The March 2009 issue of Atlantic Monthly featured an article titled, “How the Crash will Reshape America” by Richard Florida, a professor at University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada. I caught the interview on NPR and the idea intrigued me to begin thinking about learning and creativity.

Florida’s primary tenet was that the economic reset the world is feeling know will result in a new economy driven by creativity and knowledge workers. As both a creative and knowledge worker, this was good news to me but caused some reflection about how learning can lead the economic reset and the next economic growth area — knowledge.

Tom Gram wrote about his reading of “The Elegant Solution: Toyota’s Formula for Mastering Innovation“, in a post named for one chapter, Let Learning Lead. Gram’s summary and captured points included how important learning was as the predeccessor for Toyota’s innovation, and in fact all innovation.

In it May argues that learning and innovation are intimately linked but that learning must come first–that it is a precondition for innovation. Through learning, ideas are converted into action.

A chief approach I use when leading training or learning interventions is that I want to create a thinking worker who can use learned knowledge, experience, and demonstrated skill to positively impact the organization. In other words, I don’t want robots, I want knowledge workers. Automatons just won’t do and if we heed Florida’s prophecy, automatons will not add value or grow the economy.

After reading Gram’s post, I headed off to Toastmasters, thinking about how learning was important to me. One of the speech’s delivered was titled, “Acres of Diamonds”. The speech, given by Jim Howe, was a throw back to Russell Conwell. Conwell was the founder of Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Jim’s speech summarized Conwell’s Acres of Diamonds speech which Conwell delivered over 6000 times to raise money to establish Temple University. Jim concluded with the primary point of the speech was that learning, knowledge, are the precursors to growth and riches.

Last night, I lay awake thinking about all these things and something Jim said in his speech. Jim said, “Mike knows”. Apart from the dramatic imagery of using knows in a speech about knowing, the point that I have my acres of diamonds, my precursor to growth, my precondition to innovation and sustainability, and the prerequisite skills for a new economy was particularly salient.

Leaders have long known that learning is a foundational skill to leadership itself. Learning is why my research is taking the profession to a new area so that we understand the impact of using technology in learning interventions. With this new (and old) importance shed on learning as the root of the future, I am re-doubling my efforts to complete my dissertation and get onto the next economy.

I begin DOC/733 today, it is the second course with my mentor and one that I’ve been looking forward to completing for some time now. I had to delay the start due to some unexpected circumstances and bills. The purpose of the class is to prepare the proposal or Chapters 1, 2, and 3. This is a monumental undertaking for me. As most of you know, I stepped back on my research to focus solely on podcasted training and the learning impact of using podcasts.

This narrowing of focus should help my research but it does require me to get going and flesh out the research. I also need to get my research methods in order and secure an study group. Apart from that, I need to find a committee in the next few weeks so that my proposal can be thoroughly guided and built. There is a lot to do. Perhaps it is a good thing that I am being certified in FranklinCovey’s Focus Time Management series. I can use all the help I can get.

It feels like I am beginning again. It has been some time since my last class and the bad habits have snuck back in on me. I am breaking them now and it hurts. I know the road ahead is going to be a rough one but no doctoral program would be complete without these rites of passage. There are times that I wish I could be in a physical community of doctoral learners to keep the momentum. I realize, though, that would breed unhealthy competition for favor and attention from faculty. I also know that would mean being apart from my work and family; two things I am not willing to part with right now.

As I look ahead to the next 8, and likely 16, weeks I see clarification beginning to happen and a new sharpness and professionalism coming to this research. I know a lot of people are interested in the outcomes, so am I.

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Last week I was speaking to a few people about podcasting as a form of learning intervention. My research is narrowing to look at the podcasting technology solely and this gives me the impetus to reflect on the tool in terms of learning and other aspects. I began to think about podcasting in the ways the literature I am reading suggests, as a standardized communication of a message to a massive or varied audience. In my experience, though, podcasting serves largely as a 1-way method of communication. I have something to say, I record it, I podcast it, you receive it, done. Podcasting, again in my experience, has not been a 2-way collaborative modality. The quote I delivered twice last week was “no one ever podcasts back”.

This is not entirely accurate. Podcasts often beget other podcasts, some retort from another podcaster but rarely will people interact with a podcast by sending a recorded comment directly to the producer. Instead, podcasts often serve as the front of a large collaborative community filled with blogs, wikis, and other social media. Podcasts alone are like radio stations, you may react but I won’t hear you.

On the other hand, I sit in a lot of teleconferences where I can interact with the hosts. However, I sit in a lot of teleconferences originating from the same source but with different hosts. Along with that, a slightly different message. Sometimes this is valuable and sometimes it is not valuable. Regardless of value, it is interactive and people comment or collaborate back and forth.

Do I see podcasting as an inferior technology for collaborative learning? Not really. Of course, research will bear this out quantitatively. I am truly neutral on this matter; curious really.

I don’t theorize that podcasting needs to be 1-way or non-collaborative in nature. With the advent of microphones, low/no cost recording software, built-in cameras, and the like, anyone can create a recorded comment and podcast back as it were. Podcasts are hot items these days and I wonder about the impact on learning.

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Many years ago I made a decision to go into training and development. I loved the idea of educating job performers at something and watching it come to fruition on the floor (so to speak). A nice side benefit is the feeling of glory and pride when people know you and come to you for advice, counsel, and knowledge. What I quickly realized was that training departments and trainers were just the quickest path to knowledge and not necessarily the keepers of knowledge. It is a lesson I was happy to learn.

Harold Jarche blogged about Close the Training Department. Harold talks about the use of social media, or as I often call it collaborative learning technology, as a tool that is poorly used inside the traditional training mindsets.

I think that social media can be powerful tools for collaboration, working and learning, but they are rather useless inside a training box.

It is a trend to take social media devices and drop them into a training portal as if it were some oracle for people looking for learning services. I just completed a survey that showed a majority of people felt blogs, wikis, collaborative discussion forums, and the like were undesireable in a training portal (SharePoint in this case). However, the same respondent group felt that something being pushed to them would be more helpful. This went to another point Harold made:

Talk to the people at the coal face and find out what they really need. Few will say training. The days of developing & delivering are almost over. Connecting & Communicating should be the focus of learning and performance professionals in a networked environment.

I did and training was part of what they wanted but they wanted it delivered to directly to floor of the operation and not to some classroom. This leads me to believe that training is not a real need but a perceived need. People are smart, they need to know how to find knowledge quickly so it can be used effectively. So Harold’s point is well taken: connect people to knowledge and communicate it effectively for that group of people.

My realization of training as the quickest path to knowledge early on in my career enabled me to hone in my performance and deliver services that are needed. It is a paradigm shift for many training departments but as social media captures the interest of many in the training world, real learning and performance professionals are taking the reigns. We are trying to figure out if the tools impact learning, how the tools are used best, and what is needed by the performers of the job. Most importantly the transition needs to continue so that training departments become performance boosters.

The research I am doing helps address some of the popularity of social media devices with quantitative understanding of impact on learning. This can be expanded by looking at the real impact of using the tools in various ways.

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