Engaging learners

Stayin’ Alive is savin’ lives?

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 Old Song Finds a New Purpose

In the Offbeat department, I am inspired by a disco song’s new-found purpose—saving lives:

Under most circumstances, it’s best to keep the beat of the Bee Gees song “Stayin’ Alive” out of your head, but heart specialists have come up with one good reason to remember: It could save someone’s life.

Turns out the 1977 disco hit has 103 beats per minute, a perfect number to maintain — and retain — the best rhythm for performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR.

A small study by University of Illinois College of Medicine researchers in Peoria has found that 10 doctors and five medical students who listened to the “Saturday Night Fever” tune while practicing CPR not only performed perfectly, they remembered the technique five weeks later. See the rest of the story at: http://blogs.usatoday.com/betterlife/

Shake your head if you want; it’s just plain cool to see that the BeeGees served a higher purpose after all.

How does the BeeGees’ CPR thing relate to leadership and training?

Here’s what this has to do with leadership and training. As leaders and trainers, we must find a way to tie new concepts to that which is familiar. Everyone knows the song. Not everyone knows how fast to compress when doing CPR. Add Barry Gibb and POOF, you can make a decent attempt at saving a life.  Does it get more magical than that?

Ah – Ah – Ah – Ah…

Susan Hendrich

Learning styles

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Looking for information on learning style inventories?

After years of facilitating learning styles workshops, I offer you the following perspectives/ideas:
 1. The Learning Styles Online inventory is good. The “Learning and techniques” section that they provide as feedback for the quiz results is solid, and the detailed combinations of style results are powerful.
2. The Hay Group has developed the robust “Kolb Learning Style Inventory,” based on David Kolb’s ground-breaking thinking, doing, experiencing, reflecting. The inventory and detailed individual and group feedback reports cost $15.00 per participant. This inventory is empirically validated and is widely used among corporate training groups. Check out the PowerPoint pdf they have on their information page.

3. A free quiz offered by AES does a very nice job of targeting participants’ learning styles and offering concrete action steps to help optimize learning.

4. VARK (Visual, Aural, Read/Write, Kinesthetic) is an often-used system that provides good feedback and tangible recommendations. A very detailed and more instructive feedback report is available for $28/participant. Whether you use VARK or not, the FAQ page (http://www.vark-learn.com/english/page.asp?p=faq) on the vark-learn site has some useful answers to common questions your participants may be asking.

One suggestion, regardless of the inventory you choose…

“Map out” participants’ results on a chart the whole class can see. People love to compare their own learning styles to that of their peers. This referential data provdes an answer to the eternal “how do I fit in to this human puzzle?” question. I have used PowerPoint slides to map out peoples scores as data points. You also can take a sheet of newsprint and draw a grid to map out scores using participants’ initials. It can be instructive for trainers to see any trends that a particular group might demonstrate.

I would be delighted to visit with you further about learning styles if you think it might be useful. Feel free to contact me at any time to discuss.

Take care, and happy learning!

Susan Hendrich 

 

 

 

Learning maps

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How do you enable strategic organizational change?

More and more these days, I’m being asked to find ways of facilitating meaningful and successful change in organizations.  Invariably, leadership needs a strategy for bringing about desired change. And there are millions of strategies out there (just google “Change management strategy” and you’ll see). So, I try to keep a pulse on change management efforts that are working out there. Today I came across Root, a forward-thinking group making interesting use of learning maps.  Their concept is simple. Their process is fun. Their results are amazing.

What is a Learning Map?

The gist of these Learning Maps is that they use visual mapping to enable rapid communications within organizations about new strategy execution. These visual depictions of a new process or strategy tap into a collaborative process and help every employee to see beyond their own job functions to the bigger picture that is “where we are going.”  These learning maps engage their workforces by communicating an understanding about the industry and internal business.

Let me see this for myself

Take a “look” at ROOT’s Learning Maps and let me know what you think: http://www.rootlearning.com/www/index.htm

Susan Hendrich

Visual storytelling

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Connect Using Visual Storytelling

It’s time for another golden e-Learning design tip! Today we’ll focus on visual storytelling. 

We’ve heard over and again that the power of visual imagery is unbeatable in instructional design. Yet, we struggle to find and use images that accurately capture and evoke the kind of emotion that connects audiences with the story we are trying to tell.  Perhaps you’ve seen the famed YouTube video series, “In Plain English,” where the CommonCraft geniuses show us (rather than tell us) the essence of Web 2.0 technologies. It is this kind of visual storytelling that captures our attention and ignites our imagination.

So, how can you show, rather than tell, your story?

Now, here’s your homework:

Take a look at Veronica Rusnak‘s Article on “Visual Storytelling and Moments in the Human Condition.”

“Remember: story, not data. Rather than talk about your topic, find a way to show it.”

Looking forward to your ideas!

Susan Hendrich

Information Overload

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“All at once vs. Piecemeal: How shall we deliver training?” 

Help me answer a question, Dear Reader…

What is your formula for choosing a timeline to roll out a new training initiative?
 
  • Should all modules be delivered/presented in one fell swoop?
  • Should we roll out training components on a basic-intermediate-advanced continuum?
 
Too often we gauge our training delivery timelines on business needs, meaning, “We need this training now, and I mean business!”  But how often do we carefully plan the rollout of a new course or set of learning materials based on instructional design principles of graduated introduction?
 
Many learning experts would agree that rolling out training over time usually is optimal, and allows learners to integrate, apply, and assimilate new information more readily than by “cramming.” However, I wonder if a training series can be rolled out effectively in a short period of time if proper measures are taken.

 

Share your thoughts!

Below are a few references that may be useful:

 

Thanks,


Susan Hendrich