E-learning: The Next Generation

Company X has embarked on a training program to develop its top management talent in the hopes of seeing them turn into the company's future generation of business leaders. During one study course, 25 managers, working in smaller teams of four or five, engage in a problem-solving exercise. Each team member presents to the group a key business problem that they've been wrestling with, then the group works together to come up with solutions to each member's problems.

The in-person interaction is supplemented with an e-learning tool that enables each member of the team to learn more about how to deal with their specific work problem. The e-learning tool formats the information into courses of self-contained "learning objects" which the user can customize and go through at their own pace. Additional exercises focus on how to best apply the information learned to the user's own particular problem. All this information is also shared with others on the team, either electronically or in face-to-face meetings, as they work collaboratively on the problem-solving process.

Welcome to second-generation e-learning in action.

Organizations are slowly but surely warming up to the promise of e-learning, whether it's reducing the cost or training and education, increasing accessibility to content and courses or improving the quality of the learning experience.

The first generation of e-learning tools were characterized by the development of the infrastructure to deliver content based in traditional media like textbooks or classroom materials. The result: a more linear approach to learning, focused more on providing the information and moving to the next screen. With the second generation of products now becoming available, e-learning providers are taking a more learner-centred approach that focuses not only on learning that new knowledge, but applying it within the learner's own specific context.

"Research shows that over 80 percent of learners prefer non-linear approaches to learning. Our experience is that if you can create a structured environment in which this can happen -- for example, by linking the learning to specific objectives or programs of study -- it's possible to create major new value for the learner and his or her team and organization," says Gareth Morgan, chairman of NewMindsets Inc. an e-learning company with dual headquarters in Toronto and Chicago.

Morgan describes NewMindsets' approach to e-learning as one grounded more in the principles of pedagogy than technology, combining a learner-centred approach with infinite customization and performance support that realizes the full potential of the Web as a learning tool.

A pedagogue himself, Morgan is a research professor at York University's Schulich School of Business, as well as a consultant and author of best-selling books on change management. The idea for NewMindsets evolved from Morgan's own search for a way to take his management seminars and books and present them through the Web so that individuals could access his work.

NewMindsets' research on e-learning states that, in order to be effective, e-learning must:

* Provide situation-based, just enough, practical learning at the point of need;
* Support each learner individually and uniquely through personalized learning paths;
* Encourage and facilitate team e-learning and knowledge sharing; and
* Deliver content in a way that focuses on real business issues.

"In order to make second generation e-learning work, you have to go back to the basics and configure the content so that you anticipate, in everything you write, multiple paths or multiple needs for the learner," he says. "What we've done is to create a system whereby you take a learner into a learning experience and give them multiple options at any point as to where to go, knowing that they're going to get a coherent learning experience wherever they go that doesn't depend on a missing piece of the puzzle (which would have to be there if you're talking about linear organized content)."

"You've got three things at work when you've got a learning situation -- the content, the context and the learner. Somehow you've got to pull all these things together."

That kind of learning organization is what helps puts the emphasis on performance learning as opposed to compliance learning, says Morgan. "Compliance learning is when you are studying material to pass a test. Performance learning is 'I have learned the message here and I can now apply it in a way that will make me more effective.' We seek to push the learner back to their situation, to think about what they are doing, what the requirements are so they can act differently."

Take delegation, for example, a course topic in the NewMindsets curriculum. Users can start learning about delegation by selecting any one of seven subtopics, such as overcoming one's own barriers to delegation. A short message in blue highlights the subtopic's key point, followed by several links that drill down into the various barriers to delegating. Click on one of these links and up pops a number of bulleted points of advice to address the specific barrier to delegation.

The user can either copy and paste the relevant advice into a notebook or make his or her own notes in that section. Another link guides the user through exercises that requires the user to provide their own solution to a delegation problem within the context of their own work environment.

All these questions, tips, personal worksheets, job supports, and exercises are meant to provoke what the company refers to as "double loop and triple loop learning." What that does, says Morgan, is it pushes the learner "back on themselves. The learner has to answer the questions, and so they bring a new content relating to that context. It's very different from just putting expert-oriented text out there."

Morgan describes the challenges of e-learning this way: "You've got three things at work when you've got a learning situation -- the content, the context and the learner. Somehow you've got to pull all these things together. We try to drive content in a way that gets the learner to think in that type of context to which that content relates."

First Generation

Performance learning
Totally granular content designed for a Web environment
Self-contained learning experiences
Learner in control
Linear and non-linear learning options E-learning

Second generation

Compliance learning
Content sourced from other media
Chunked text-based content
Full-course orientation
Linear "teaching" design
Instructor in control

E-learning: 12 must-ask questions

If you're planning an e-learning initiative, you need to properly assess the strengths, weaknesses and applicability of different offerings. Getting proper answers to the questions below will help provide you with a solid basis for evaluating online learning and education products that tap the true potential of Internet technology in upgrading knowledge and skills and providing comprehensive performance support.

1. What services does the e-learning supplier or application that you are considering actually provide?

2. What type of instructional content is being supplied?

3. How granular is the content?

4. Is it possible to customize the product or service being offered?

5. How flexible and focused is the learning experience provided?

6. How interactive is the learning system?

7. Is the learning system intended to complement or replace face-to-face styles of education?

8. Is the learning architecture open or closed?

9. Does the system allow you to enrich learning through complex behavioural simulations?

10. Does the desire to assess and evaluate learning dominate the learning process and end up getting in the way of real learning and the enthusiasm with which users will embrace the system?

11. To what extent does the learning product or service result in the creation and sharing of new knowledge?

12. How secure and confidential is the learning system?

Reprinted from: Information Highways

Source: Twelve "must ask" questions about e-learning products and services, a white paper by Gareth Morgan, co-founder, NewMindsets, available at www.newmindsets.com