The Art of Knowledge

 

Emotion and Learning

Gord just posted something on emotion and learning. He references an article that outlines basic faults in most educaitonal deliveries.

"E-learning that simply throws cold, hard facts at the learner's feet is fighting an uphill battle. We are biologically primed to identify with stories, not facts

I used to buy into the whole story telling theory about learning. I do believe it's one of the best ways people learn. The problem is, and it's a rather large one, most training doesn't have time to cottle, it doesn't have time to maybe know that a learner got the information. That's besides the point.

The reason I didn't like the idea initially, was that it doesn't address the real issue that I have been struggling with. All people learn differently. Simply trying to find the least abrassive medium in which to pass on knowledge is not the answer. Having everybody drive the safest car doesn't mean everyone will drive safe. Ok, that's not a real good analogy but you get my drift. People learn differently. By trying to apply guidelines and rigor to curriculum, whether it be a CBT or a long story that draws from all aspects of the task, you are setting yourself up for a fall. Accountants learn differently than IT people. An adult wanting to accomplish a task due at CoB needs faster more poignant, exact infromation, then a teenager being educated about the wonders of the Industrial Revolution.

Systems need to be biological and cusotmizable to a user's needs. The needs in which the knowledge or education needs to be absorbed has to be defined before the learning can start. Trying to win points with learners by taking the path of least resistance may work in the short term, but I can almost see the complacent calls of falling ROI after the time elapsed to write a line of code or balance a spread sheet has taken 2 days.
Link posted by JVMM : 6:02 PM