Book Review - Microlearning Short And Sweet

In today's talent development circles, everyone wants "microlearning," but it seems that so few actually know what "microlearning" means!

As companies cut training hours and professional development budgets amidst a lengthening economic recession, more cash-strapped people leaders will demand more microlearning to meet employee skill development needs.

But these people leaders won't really know what they are asking for.

What is microlearning? Is it merely shorter learning? Is it the same learning in less time? Or is it the same amount of learning that's stretched out into smaller increments across a long period of time? Why has it become so popular? Does microlearning even work?

These are among the many microlearning demystification questions that Karl M. Kapp and Robyn A. Defelice set out to answer in their 2019 book, "Micorlearning Short And Sweet." Succinct and approachable, Kapp and Defelice's work is a useful survey of the microlearning landscape, one that connects this trendy buzzword to theory and research.

While their recommendations and prescriptions are ocasionally vague ("it depends" appears to be a favorite response of theirs), their work lifts microlearning from a platitude to practice, from jargon to meaningful job support.

"Microlearning Short And Sweet" rescues this rising instructional design practice from the gutter of ambiguous corporate-speak, making the book an important read for instructional designers, talent developers, and HR leaders of any organization.

Kapp and Defelice begin by tracing the origins of microlearning. While educational researchers have explored the principles of microlearning under various names for decades, the concept has only recently gained popularity within talent development circles.

Google Trends: Microlearning's 4x search volume growth since 2013

Accordingly, the book is a high-level survey of the microlearning landscape: when it's best used, how it's best designed, and even where it's least effective. The book is strongest in its warnings against microlearning mismanagement: using it as a "panacea" to the learning needs of a resource-constrained organization, or using it as a shortcut to skills development. Microlearning might be small, but it's no silver bullet. Throughout the text, Kapp and Defelice remind the reader that the time to master a skill remains constant, whether you teach that content in an eight-hour workshop (meso-learning) or 48 ten-minute simulations (micro-learning).

As an instructional designer, I was most intrigued by the book's suggestions on using microlearning to "augment" educational experiences. By strategically spacing interactive content, the instructional designer can eliminate forgetting, increase buy-in, and facilitate practice. While I took much away from this short book, my most immediate insight is to build post-workshop microlearning campaigns that combine quizzes, videos, and other pieces of digital content to reengage the learner's attention and memory after the learning event concludes. I look forward to soon deploying microlearning as a means of mitigating the "forgetting curve."

Other instructional designers may find intriguing the ideas of using microlearning to enhance buy-in around a change. In effect, microlearning can be used as a tool for change management, provided the content is high-quality, persuasive, and collaboratively produced. As we continue to navigate the pandemic with all its disruption and volatility, organizations will be forced to make major changes to their operations, mission, and vision. Microlearning can motivate learners to rally behind such changes, by communicating the need for change and by enabling team members to develop new competencies.

At times, "Microlearning Short and Sweet" wanders through unnecessary contextual detail, for example, expositions into theories of Cognitivism and Behaviorism. This tends to be the case with many well-intentioned business books. It's simply more ironic and noticeable when such contextualizing ladens a book on truncated learning techniques! And at times, the reader is left to wonder when the authors will move from the theoretical to the practical. If the book suffers from any deficiencies, it is a lack of concrete recommendations on how to immediately put microlearning to use in one's organizations. Still, the authors provide valuable tools and templates that any instructional designers and educators of any skill-level can use. The templates keep the book at a sufficient level of applicability, providing just enough urgency and transferability to retain the reader's attention.

"Microlearning Short and Sweet" is an important contribution to the field of talent development, one that invites further study, conversation, and debate as more business leaders are drawn to this increasingly popular concept.

Book Review - Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning

The way we're learning isn't working.

And conventional wisdom about learning is wasting our time.

Whether we're a student, a business professional, or a lifelong learner, we likely aren't succeeding at the type of intentional skill development that will lead to lasting impact, at school, in the workplace, or in our personal lives. Cramming for a test might make us feel as though we've mastered something. Attending an expert presentation at a conference might help us to feel more adept at a career-related skill. Even reading a book may lead us to feel more intelligent in a particular domain. These sentiments are common, but they are illusory. We feel like we are learning, but in actuality, we are wasting our time. New advances in neuroscience and psychology, the subject of "Make it Stick," reveal that true learning requires a different tact from what is commonly practiced in our schools, workplaces, and organizations.

In "Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning," Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, and Mark A. McDaniel dispel the most pervasive "learning myths" of our time. Seeking to disprove the patently false assertions that we have come to believe, Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel tactfully deconstruct learning myths so that we might become more wiser, more skilled, more adept at the art of learning.

The book begins with a blistering attack on the notion that learning ought to be "easy." Citing numerous peer-reviewed studies alongside compelling anecdotes from real-life learners, Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel establish that all learning is effortful. Through science and story, the authors describe how most information only makes it into our short-term memory. When learning is easy, the brain doesn't encode information into longterm memory for future retrieval and application. When learning doesn't include "desirable difficulty," it is quickly forgotten. Easy learning, though desirable to some learners, is in fact not learning at all.

After deconstructing "easy" learning, Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel proceed to establish a framework for learning with "desirable difficulty," the level of challenge needed to transfer information in short-term memory to long-term intelligence. While the book introduces several strategies that are specific to schools, organizations, and life-long learners, their framework consists of three insights that scale to any learning exercise: quizzing, spacing, and reflection.

Of the three, quizzing (a.k.a. self-testing) is perhaps viewed as the least favorable in today's learning communities. Still, the authors convincingly argue that recalling information in response to a topical question is the surest way to encode information in long-term memory. While corporate trainers (myself included) tend to view quizzing at times as somewhat juvenile, the research data proves that no method is so effective at cementing skills for future application. Today's instructors have an obligation to quiz their learners and to quiz them frequently, but the authors don't leave the burden for learning with the instructor. They argue instead that learners ought to take responsibility for their own learning, committing to self-quizzing after readings, lectures, conferences, and meetings if they want time spent learning to turn to be time well-invested.

The spacing of learning material, specifically the spacing of quizzes and effortful recall activities, is also critical to crystallizing our knowledge as intelligence. When we effectively space learning materials, we repeatedly return to review important subject matter. The authors contend that learning is never a one-time event. If we want to teach a skill in a college lecture or a corporate classroom, it ought not to be a one-time event. We need to follow-up on the event with micro-learnings and quizzes so as to eliminate the "forgetting curve." Similarly, today's learner is most efficient when they study multiple subjects simultaneously, so as to "interleave" study materials. When we explore multiple topics at the same time we naturally space out our study, and we remember more of what we sought to learn. For example, if we want to teach computer programming, we would do well not to teach programming languages in bulk, but to trade-off between content areas. Rather than teaching all of HTML before teaching CSS, we would teach some HTML, then some CSS, then quiz on and learn more HTML, before returning to CSS and beginning the cycle anew.

Of the ideas in the book, I found their thoughts on reflection to be the most compelling, particularly for adult learners. Reflection is a process of elaborating on experience that asks us to remember what happened, evaluate what happened, and plan for improvement during subsequent experiences. While reflection is important to all learners, it may be especially critical to busy workplace professionals, who likely need fewer lectures and conferences and more opportunities to debrief and discuss.

The book isn't perfectly applicable to life in 2020. It avoids the subject of equity in education. If quizzes and test are so important in our schools, the authors should have suggested how to use them in a way that does not disadvantage those with less frequent access to technology or study materials. The book also describes a case study in which police learn to use lethal force to stop perpetrators, a passage that comes off as callous and upsetting after a summer of racial injustice. Future editions of the book would do well to omit this example, focusing instead on how we can learn to make our organizations more inclusive and equitable.

Still, the book offers an approachable, science-based framework for learning more effectively. Whether we are a student or someone who makes their living teaching others, we would do well to read "Make It Stick" closely and carefully. We would do even better to quiz ourself on its subject matter, read it alongside other books on learning, and reflect on how we might transfer its contents to our daily practice.

The New Importance of Coaching Circles

This is the sixth post in the Training in Turbulence series, insights on developing talent amidst the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Accelerating coaching through communities of practice

In a time of crisis, a combination of microlearning and nudges will prove to be the most efficient way to teach coaching skills. But it's not enough to teach these skills. As talent developers, we must also look at how to catalyze continuous skill improvement, which can only be achieved through consistent practice.

To consistently practice coaching, we would do well to join a community of coaches, known in the talent development industry as “coaching circles." In a coaching circle, a peer group gathers on a semi-regular basis for a facilitated meetup.

A coaching circle is a “meta-coaching” exercise - a fast-paced discussion to coach about coaching. While ICF suggests an hour for such conversations, I’ve facilitated coaching circles that move the proverbial skill development needle in as little as 15 minutes. The purpose of this brief meetup is to collaboratively determine the best way to leverage coaching in highly specific circumstances.

Running a coaching circle

Each coaching circle consists of a "coaches," a "coachee," and a "facilitator."

Whether in-person, on the phone, or in an online setting, a coaching circle typically begins with one individual, the “coachee” for the day, sharing a coaching challenge. The coaching challenge could be scenario-based, such as trying to keep their team productive during a time of layoffs or trying to keep their team collaborating effectively after the departure of a key contributor. The challenge could be individual-based, such as an anonymous individual who needs to bring their productivity up to match expectations or an individual who needs to improve their presence. The “coachee” who supplies the coaching challenge describes their scenario in detail, providing contextually-relevant data and insight into their past coaching efforts. Whoever supplies the coaching challenge initiates the next step of the meetup either by explaining their ideal end-state, or what they would like to achieve from their coaching efforts.

Next begins the facilitated group discussion. Here, one member of the coaching circle takes the role of discussion facilitator. Their responsibilities are simple - keep the questions circulating, maintain privacy, and keep a record of action items. All others take the role of coaches, who are obligated not to provide advice or statements on “what I would do if I were you,” but to ask powerful coaching questions. This format has three primary benefits - first, it provides a setting in which we all can practice our coaching skills, integrating what’s working for others in our group. Second, it gives us practice at limiting the advice we offer and increasing the questions we ask. Third, it ensures that the “coachee” is empowered to determine their way forward, building their confidence, and increasing the likelihood that they will act on the next steps. The conversation adjourns whenever the coaches and “coachee” have agreed on and documented the next steps.

As an L&D employee at both Google and Zendesk, I have seen many different coaching circle formats, applications, and success stories. I’ve seen especially strong engagement in coaching circles amongst new people leaders, who are often more proactive in developing their managerial skills. To keep the conversation grounded in plausible scenarios, the coaching circles should focus on bringing together peers at approximately the same level within the org chart.

Global businesses should aspire towards cross-regional representation in a coaching circle, as this promotes global alignment and mitigates groupthink. From what I have observed, the most engaged coaching circles at the executive level tend to be gatherings of peers from several different organizations, which ensures a level of candor that may not be possible for an internal coaching circle. Just as talent developers have long-supported pairing senior leaders with external coaches, the talent developer in a time of turbulence should work to convene senior-level coaching circles that bring several organizations together.

However, we should not think of coaching circles merely as manager meetings.

Organizations that create a coaching culture will have many peer-to-peer coaching circles. A peer-to-peer coaching circle provides individual contributors with the space to develop their coaching practice, though the format may differ from that of their management counterparts. While “meta-coaching” or coaching about coaching, is a useful format for leader-level meetups, few individual contributors will have “coaching challenges” that they feel called to discuss in a group context. Talent developers should pivot these coaching circles away from “meta-coaching” and towards group coaching interactions. In an individual contributor coaching circle, members bring a workplace challenge on a rotating basis - something that is inhibiting peak performance. The talent developer facilitates a question-driven dialogue, tamping down “advice” when needed. All other participants serve as “coaches,” asking thoughtful questions to help the “coachee” discover their next steps. As a caution to L&D professionals, my experience suggests that peer-to-peer coaching circles can, at times, devolve into senseless complaining, or what my high-school physical education teacher referred to as “pity parties.” These meetups don’t need to have “supervision,” but they do need to have a trained coaching expert who can recognize and course-correct when the conversation becomes counterproductive.

Coaching circles, but faster

In a crisis-laden workplace, not everyone has a spare 15 minutes to gather for a CoP. Here are some efficient ideas for such organizations:

Training in turbulence begins with coaching. It’s the foundation upon which we build the critical capacities of critical thinking and change resilience. With certain changes on the horizon, it’s time to pull coaching from the exclusive grip of coaching practitioners (no offense to coaching practitioners). It’s time to stop imagining coaching as the exclusive domain of managers and executives. We need a revolution in talent development that ensures that 100% of our organization can achieve meaningful progress through coaching. Once established, we can turn to our second pillar of training in turbulence, our second core capacity in the recession-ready workplace: critical thinking.