The other day I was shown some web content from a vendor touting the greatness of face to face, cohort-based learning programs. They made it sound like the changes in the workplace due to the pandemic have given rise to this great new way of training and sited several benefits to the business by using this approach, which in my opinion were more related to what was being training, not how. But it was coming across as this was the future of learning.
Wait! What? Face to face learning is the future of learning? Hmmmmm….
So what is the future of learning?
These days, we’re being bombarded with AI and VR and AR and a plethora of other two and three letter acronyms that tout the future of learning. My observations are that while these are cool and interesting ways to deliver training and learning related activities, they are, in fact, based on tried, true, researched models of learning that have been around for a long time.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a curmudgeon. I love new shiny L&D things as much as the next person. Frankly, I want to see us get to a Matrix moment when we plug people in and they learn instantly! Although that “hole” in the head thing is a little off putting.
Regardless of the technology (or anatomy), I think it’s important to consider the roots from whence they come.
Achieving Business Goals Using VR
I am personally enthralled with products that provide content/reminders/reinforcement/guidance to learners after a learning event. I think most experienced L&D professionals have experienced the frustration of designing and delivering training (regardless of method) only to have the learner not use it right away and, of course, forget it, or remember it incorrectly. And they’ve experienced having the business come back and say that the business goal wasn’t achieved because the learning didn’t work.
This reinforcement technology provides a way to overcome the fact that the training’s not coached to or reinforced well, that a gap between learning something and doing something can be overcome, that the business can finally get closer to real and lasting behavior change, the point of most of the learning in the first place.
But don’t forget, pun intended, that it’s based on the Ebbinghouse Forgetting Curve and research done in the late 1800’s (yes, a century and a half ago!) by Hermann Ebbinhouse, a German psychologist who, interestingly, experimented on himself.
Experiential Learning and Behavior Change
I also think VR has great potential to really impact the learning and associated behavior change for non-hands-on tasks like sales. What better way to experience what it looks/feels/sounds like when a customer states an objection, the salesperson responds in what they think is an appropriate way and then sees how the customer reacts to that response. The look on the customer’s face, the sound of their voice, the hand gestures and words they use, all help bring a layer of emotion to the exchange that no role play can ever achieve. That emotional level is so important for lasting learning/behavior change. That’s when a salesperson learns that what he/she said, how it was delivered, how it was interpreted has a REAL impact on how successful they are going to be in using that approach and consequently on making the sale!
The Bottom Line
So what’s my point? The future of learning is rooted in the past. Many of the new shiny things we’re seeing today are, happy to say, based on sound learning theory, well researched (although we can always do more research!) and tested hypothesis, and years of application by experienced learning and development professionals. Yes, advances are made all the time, heck I’m from a science background so I get that, but don’t let the new shiny blind you to what’s really happening. These new shiny things are simply technologies that can make it easier to accomplish what we’ve always known was needed for meaningful, impactful, and effective learning that helps achieve important business goals and objectives.