The new learning architect at DevLearn 2011

Editor's Notes

1. This project goes back four years or so. I became increasingly frustrated by what I saw as increasingly confrontational stances to learning and development at work …
2. It is taking on the form of a religious war. We have the church of social learning, the church of instructional systems design, the church of 70:20:10.
3. Can architects get religion? You bet. These brutalist structures emerged around the UK in the 1960s. An architectural trend. Not that architects would live in these places themselves of course. They’re snug in their Victorian townhouses. Which is like the instructional designer who inflicts the worst sort of tell-and-test e-learning on their audience but wouldn’t dream of using e-learning themselves.
4. The different sides could be caricatured (rather unfairly perhaps) as rationalists and romantics. Time they got together.
5. I have watched over the last few years at conferences as l&d audiences pay good money to hear their efforts rubbished. They’re bemused how some of the stuff they’re hearing could ever work in their organisations. How do I tell my boss we need to be more agile, immersive, mobile, social and cloud-based all at the same time. We don’t work for Google. We fix drains.
6. As far as they’re concerned, it would be like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Every situation really is different.
7. Less sneer leading … more cheer leading perhaps?
8. A drawing from Jim Potts who attended one of these presentations on an earlier occasion.
9. End of rant. So how do we learn?
10. We learn just by doing, without any conscious effort on our part. It’s our dopamine neurons don’t you know!
11. But we can do a lot more by using our reflective capabilities and by drawing on all sorts of resources.
12. I set about trying to create a dashboard that would help me ensure all aspects of the learning architecture would be covered. For background on this framework, see http://onlignment.com/2011/05/a-contextual-model-for-learning/
13. See http://onlignment.com/2011/05/a-contextual-model-for-learning/
14. See http://onlignment.com/2011/05/a-contextual-model-for-learning/
15. The means: metacognitive skills, tools, skills to use the tools - http://onlignment.com/2011/09/first-they-need-the-means/ The opportunity: culture, access to people and materials, discretionary time - http://onlignment.com/2011/09/then-they-need-the-opportunity/ The motive: intrinsic, extrinsic - http://onlignment.com/2011/09/and-then-they-need-the-motive/
16. So many examples … each one of these is discussed in full in the book.
17. Let’s take four different cases and try and apply the model.
18. What absolutely must be learned in a formal context?
19. See http://onlignment.com/2011/01/architects-for-learning/ Also http://onlignment.com/2011/02/the-learning-architect-is-a-professional/ Also http://onlignment.com/2011/02/what-it-means-to-be-a-professional/
20. We need builders. They’re just not architects.
21. Information about the book and videos at http://onlignment.com/thenewlearningarchitect/