• As learning professionals we should be ensuring…

There’s a lot of nonsense talked about learning styles.  I have seen otherwise sane and balanced people take to the barricades and proclaim their activism/pragmatism in such a way that to suggest that they reflect or discuss a theory would be tantamount to asking them to sacrifice their first born. The idea that of the four learning styles defined by Honey and Mumford (Activist, Pragmatist, Reflector and Theorist) or, if you prefer those defined by the Kolb Learning Style Inventory (Accomodator, Diverger, Converger and Assimilator) a learner is rooted in one, or at best two, is complete hogwash.

The fact is that in order to learn anything, each learner has to go through a range of learning activities, using each style as appropriate to develop their competence.  The four styles match unwaveringly to Kolb’s Learning Cycle with its four phases of Active Experimentation (a pragmatist preference), Concrete Experience (the activists’ favourite) Reflective Observation (the reflectors’ little oasis of calm) and Abstract Conceptualisation (where theorists come to the fore).  As learning professionals we should be ensuring a balance of activities involving all four phases and – by definition, all four learning styles and preferences.

However, we do have to accept that many of us have one or more preferences for how we learn.  I often describe these as learning skills – which is a more useful description than learning style.  A style seems so unchanging – as though one’s very personality was under question – whereas a skill is something we can develop.  So it is with learning – we may be naturally good at some stages of the learning cycle but that means we need to work that bit harder at the stages of the cycle that are outside our comfort zone.

Recognising these preferences and learning skills, means that we need to find a way to engage with our learners through that learning comfort zone. To ‘accommodate’ in this context means not to pander to their lack of learning skill through some stages of the cycle, but to use their preference as the entry point for their learning journey – sort of breaking them in gently.

Building a range of different start points is of course tricky.  In the world of corporate training we often design a course to address a required core job competence but don’t necessarily design to accommodate different learning skills as a start point.  How can we ensure that we don’t lose learners early in the intervention by enabling the tasks we ask them to perform to be placed firmly in the ‘too difficult’ box?

At the beginning of most training programmes or courses is a section which we could loosely describe as ‘context’.  Essentially this part of the programme answers the question, “Why do I need to learn this?”

Let’s think about how this could be achieved using each of our four learning skill sets.

An Activist might want to be thrown in at the deep end – perhaps with a scenario exercise or on the job activity in which they are asked to do something without the benefit of the training provided.  The feedback session should ask them to outline what would happen if we didn’t do something, or did something wrong?  This is particularly true of anything to do with compliance with legislation or internal policies – the answer is usually “get the sack/go to jail” but it’s important that our thrill seeking activists learn this in a simulated environment rather than through their own experience.

Our Pragmatists might be faced with an exercise with their line manager asking them to design an approach to a particular issue – rather like the activist’s scenario, this is an on-the-job/simulation approach except the task has now been focused on planning how to do something rather than actually going through with an activity.  In both these cases a well designed experience/planning session will lead to the learner figuring out the answer for themselves – or pretty close to it – and they will be in a  much better place to take on board the theories or concepts that underpin the ‘right’ approach.

Our Reflectors are a pretty easy bunch to satisfy.  Give them a case study – including an unsuccessful outcome – and they will understand the importance of getting something right.

Our Theorists are easiest of all – you can send them a copy of the policy or procedure and the rationale for its existence and they will gladly go through the next stages, forearmed and ready for anything.

These start points can often be included in pre-work.  In a typical blended solution, I would include this kind of activity in an online programme – with multiple entry points for different learners.  This gives the learners control which we know from research into effective e-learning is a secret for success with online programmes. It also ensures that a good face-to-face trainer will take everyone around the learning cycle. The course needs to start somewhere and in a face to face environment it’s the same place for everyone in the room – regardless of preference.

The trouble is that e-learning rarely fulfils this function of preparing our differently skilled learners for the remainder of the cycle.  As a medium it has become the theorist’s friend and – on occasion – a reflection tool.  The default e-Learning mechanism is to tell people things rather than create options for them to discover.

Paradoxically, this is not how we use the web – the very technology on which e-Learning is based.  The web is often a tool  which many activists and pragmatists love, simply because it does create options to explore and find out.

Getting people on to the learning cycle is the first step on the journey.  Once they’re there, the trick is to keep focusing on different activities to drive true learning.  For each of the four stages of the cycle, different learning styles and skills will come to the fore and those with a marked preference in one or other of these areas will need more support than some of their colleagues.

This is where the blended solution also pays dividends – either requiring a reflective log to be discussed with a line manager or coach; undertaking a simulation exercise within a face-to-face programme or using a role-play exercise for concrete, but safe experiences can all add to e-learning’s real forte; which is to support the understanding of abstract concepts.  But does this mean that only theorists can benefit from online?  Not at all. 

Well designed e-Learning can use all the learning skills and styles to arrive at a greater understanding and underpinning of knowledge that is required for all competence development.