Adam Taylor

Artificial intelligence has revolutionized how organizations identify and assess talent. H

3 Steps to Balance AI Efficiency and Human Insight: The New Science of Selection

Despite the fact that accessing social media is the number one mobile activity today, according to Adobe, few organizations have adopted these technologies for learning due to a lack of policy. Media theorist Marshall McLuhan foresaw the implications of digital computing in the 1960s. In his book, The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects, he said, “Education must shift from instruction, from imposing of stencils, to discovery, to probing and exploration, and to the recognition of the language of forms” (McLuhan and Fiore, 1967). Social media follows that line of thinking by allowing people to take control of what they want to learn at any time of the day, and from any location with mobile or Wi-Fi service. Here are some other ways that employees can use social media for mobile learning. Curation Using social media for mobile learning helps curate information within a personal learning network or a community of practice. It does this by connecting employees with each other and with employees in similar roles in other companies. Internal sharing Employees within the same company can share information within minutes. Jane Bozarth wrote for Learning Solutions magazine about how an individual from one company shared a conference recap with his colleagues: “Users, armed with phones equipped with video cameras, are increasingly comfortable with and adept at creating and sharing their own videos. Encourage them to be ‘social’ in the sense of contributing to course materials and organizational communication. When ... Craig Taylor was the company’s sole employee sent to Las Vegas for DevLearn, he ended each day by capturing about five minutes’ worth of reflection about the experience: speakers he’d seen, an overview of key points, a few critical takeaways. In this way, he was able to document his day, reflect on new learning, and share it with those back at the office” (2013). External sharing Employees working for different companies but in similar roles can exchange ideas through social media in a variety of ways. They can engage in Twitter chats, for example, using a common hashtag. LinkedIn has discussion groups on different topics that workers can browse throughout the day, participating in the group discussions that appeal to them. Both methods have the potential for employees to expand their networks, ask questions, as well as be seen as an expert by providing answers. Location The combination of social media and mobile devices can give employees an idea of the whereabouts of a colleague. With many employees working from the road, social check-ins on enterprise social networks (and even on public ones) let colleagues know when someone may not be at his or her desk.Columnist Clive Thompson writes about this idea in his book, Smarter Than You Think (2013). He references the term “proprioception,” which is the body’s awareness of where its limbs are located, as a metaphor for our potential awareness of the status of our colleagues. Thompson relates this to the workplace: “When groups of people—friends, family, workmates—keep in lightweight online contact, it gives us social proprioception: a group’s sense of self. Used correctly, social proprioception can make one’s work life less frazzled by reducing the constant stream of interruptions. A group that’s connected in an ambient fashion can—counterintuitively—spend less time on communication, particularly the writing and reading of endless email.” At the same time, the use of social media in the workplace has resulted in a major increase in the amount of information to which we need to pay attention. Social media and networks that feature the ability to organize and store information for later retrieval can be valuable tools for the enterprise by preventing the loss of institutional knowledge through employee attrition, changes in careers, and retirement. For instance, the National Archive and Retired Federal Employees Association calculates that 10,000 years of American federal worker experience is lost every day. According to The Washington Post that is the equivalent of forty-six days every second. Enterprise social networks such as Jive, Yammer, and Tappestry all provide the ability to store and categorize information in their own ways if they are part of your overall strategy for preserving this knowledge. Bottom line The world of work is beginning to embrace the use of social media for mobile learning. To begin, develop your goals for using social media. Then find a network that works for you based on those goals, whether it’s available publicly (like Twitter) or privately (choose an enterprise social network or an internal wiki). Next, find what others are talking about and contribute by answering questions or asking your own. Finally, keep evaluating to see whether you have to make adjustments to your social media strategy, whether it’s for you as an individual or for your company. No matter how you use social media for mobile learning, you’re bound to make some discoveries. Because of how many people use social media, it’s a great first step into mobile learning for your enterprise.Editor's note: The following is an excerpt from  Mastering Mobile Learning: Tips and Techniques for Success, co-published by Wiley and ASTD. This excerpt has been adapted with permission from the publisher,  Wiley, copyright © 2014.

Four Ways to Use Social Media for Learning in the Real World

A common question I am asked when delivering workshops on applying learning science is “what’s the best way to teach someone \[insert topic or skill\]?” Or, “What is the best way to explain a particular topic or concept?”Let’s think about this. If I want to teach someone how to make a new kind of soufflé, what’s the best way to do it? It depends!I need to know things like:Does the person know how to cook at all?Do they want to know how to make this new kind of soufflé?Has the person ever made a soufflé before?Do they know how to separate egg whites from egg yolks?Do they know how to make a water bath in the oven? Do they even know what a water bath is?Do they know how to use a whisk and how to tell when the whites have been whisked just enough?How I help someone make a new kind of soufflé depends on all these things (and more). But what it doesn’t depend on is the person’s “learning style.”Here’s a truth: Cognitive psychologists have conducted in-depth reviews of the literature in search of well-designed studies showing clear evidence of a connection between instruction tailored to learning styles and differences in student outcomes. Their conclusions: “There is no adequate evidence base to justify incorporating learning-styles assessments into general educational practice.”To be fair, the idea of people having different learning styles is appealing because it is intuitive. Just as height, head and foot size, and eye color and shape vary, people vary in their abilities.People are better at some things than others.Some people have an uncanny ability to remember faces, some can hear a piece of music and play it immediately, and others are extremely skilled at hand-eye coordination. Yes, we’re different, and we have certain preferences, interests, background knowledge, and motivations, but that doesn’t mean that the way we actually learn is better depending on our preferred modality of instruction.Back to the soufflé. Thinking about the “best” or optimal way to teach someone to make the new soufflé depends on the content, the context, the learner and their motivation, and how much they already know (their background or prior knowledge). To teach a complete novice how to make the soufflé, a video, an in-person demonstration, and some step-by-step, scaffolded practice would likely be needed. To the more seasoned soufflé maker, I could probably hand a printed recipe with the “innovative” part highlighted, and off they’d go.I am instructing neither person differently based on a stated “learning style.” Instead, I’m meeting them where they are and either starting from the very beginning and going over the basics using some visuals or live demonstrations, or letting them apply their prior knowledge and experience to learning a new recipe or technique.When I plan my workshops, I think about not discussing learning styles. It’s a subject people feel extremely passionate about, and it tends to stir up sometimes contentious, polarizing debates. Most importantly, these discussions can come at the cost of derailing otherwise productive discussions about improving teaching and learning using evidence that we know positively affects learning.Does it matter if some people believe that they have a “visual or an auditory learning style”? Is it really risky or damaging to keep this myth of learning styles alive?I think it does matter and here are some reasons why:Opportunity costs: As educators, we ought to think like scientists; consider the available evidence and tailor our teaching and learning practices to that. Trying to shape our teaching practices around individual learning styles comes at a cost; every moment of educator training or professional development spent figuring out ways to tailor instruction to learners' individual learning styles is an opportunity lost to help support the implementation of practices that have solid scientific support.Growth mindset: As well as costs in terms of time and money, another reason the notion of learning styles is risky is it creates the belief that certain people are unable, or less likely to learn because the material or mode of instruction is inappropriate for them. Talk about slamming the brakes on the idea of “growth mindset” (which interestingly, does not tend to stir up contentious debates and discussions).Telling people they can only learn in a certain way can both shape and constrain the way they approach learning. We have a tremendous capacity to adapt, change, and grow. It matters, therefore, for learners to believe they can grow and learn and are expected and encouraged to do so. Without that belief, people may lack the motivation to put in the mental effort and perseverance required to learn something new or get better at something. Learning is hard, and we do a disservice to learners if we let them believe otherwise or give them an “excuse” to give up on something they find more difficult.Square peg in a round hole: A person told they are a “visual learner” may try and process new content in the mode of their stated “learning style” even if the style does not fit the particular task. Or they might disengage from a high-quality learning experience because they think it won’t benefit them as it’s not in the “right” mode. This is an incredibly inefficient way to learn.Policy and practice reform: Misconceptions and myths about learning can impede education reform efforts at many levels. If a large percentage of people cling to beliefs on the benefits of a learning styles approach, they are less likely to support or engage with initiatives that oppose it. Some have used the analogy of climate change to illustrate this point. Skepticism and debate around climate change serves only to slow down meaningful policy action—even though there is broad consensus that climate change is real and poses a real risk to the future of our planet.Perhaps because most of us have encountered learning in some form, when we discuss ways to optimize learning, it can seem that everyone’s opinion is equally valid and that we don’t need to consider scientific data and evidence of efficacy. We do not all, however, have the same common experience with medical research, quantum mechanics, violin playing, or architectural design. This likely explains why we may be more willing to accept it when experts arrive at a consensus that a certain medical technique for knee-replacement surgery is no longer valid, or that a certain type of bridge design is better than another for a particular climate, than we are to accept that a common belief around learning is not based in evidence.In Think Again, Adam Grant wrote: “Scientific thinking favors humility over pride, doubt over certainty, curiosity over closure. If we believe we have already found the truth, then we stop searching for or recognizing gaps in our knowledge.” Grant uses the term “idea cults” for those who “preach the merits of their pet concept and ‘prosecute’ anyone who calls for nuance or complexity.”An admirable educational goal is to help make people better consumers of information. Equally so is the need to make educators and decision makers “critical consumers of scientific research” and to normalize the practice of evaluating research evidence. Surely this should trump the status quo of relying on personal beliefs and experiences and that which makes us “feel good”?My hope is that I can stop worrying about engaging in fruitless discussions about learning styles. This is because we are aware of and have respect for the wealth of excellent, reliable, robust research on how people learn and how to create effective learning experiences (details of which are outside the scope of this piece). And, perhaps most importantly, that we, in whatever teaching and learning role we play, continue to be open to evidence that calls into question existing beliefs, allows us to recognize gaps in our knowledge, and ultimately serves our goal of promoting long-term meaningful learning for all learners.

Adam Taylor

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