For trainers who do remote, unproctored, testing (e.g. testing a distributed sales force) one nagging question is always: “Are my learners cheating?” Usually followed by the question: “If they are, can I tell?” The answers are (in order): maybe and maybe. It turns out there are three ways to detect cheating: one pretty simple, which … Continue reading How Intela Helps You Detect Test Collusion (Part One)
Recently, we announced the addition of confidence-based testing to Intela’s growing list of learning activities. So, what is the purpose of confidence-based testing? Its purpose is NOT to make learners more confident, as many people may think (and some products claim to do). Its purpose is to make learners appropriately confident. Confidence is a personality attribute. By … Continue reading What Most Trainers Get Wrong About Confidence-Based Testing (And How Intela Gets It Right)
Intela has now added confidence-based testing to its ever-growing list of Continuous Learning activities. This means, that in addition to mastery/certification testing, pre-post testing, adaptive questioning and other forms of assessment, you can now use Intela to measure learners’ confidence in their knowledge. For those not familiar with the concept, the idea of confidence-based … Continue reading Intela ™ Adds Confidence-Based Testing
Continuous learning encompasses a number of learning strategies, one of which is spaced review after the completion of a course. This review can be in the form of adaptive questioning exercises, subscription-based micro-lessons, or some combination of the two. Which raises a question: For long term retention what is the optimal period of spacing for … Continue reading What is the Optimal Spacing for Review?
If you google the term Continuous Learning, not surprisingly, you get thousands of hits. But most of those references are to something like the following: “Continuous learning” refers to the ongoing development of skills, abilities, and knowledge through different means (including work on the job, training, experiences, communications, etc.), and is part of an individual’s … Continue reading Why Continuous Learning?
We are pleased to launch the Intela blog a go-to resource for the latest ideas in learning. If you scroll through the blog you may be wondering how a new blog can already have dozens of postings. This is because one of the principals of Intela Learning has for several years been writing a blog … Continue reading Welcome to the Intela Blog
Aristotle (philosopher), Thomas Edison (inventor) and Jean Piaget (cognitive psychologist) all had similar thoughts about learning. Can you see the common thread? Aristotle: Exercise in repeatedly recalling a thing strengthens the memory. Edison: A man will resort to almost any expedient to avoid the real labor of thinking. Piaget: Thinking is interiorized action. Yes, they … Continue reading Active Learning Through the Ages (Literally)
While working on test validation projects I often get asked: How long should my test be? The answer is pretty simple: The test needs to be long enough to cover all the important content of the learning system. And how do you do that? You do it by writing the questions to the learning objectives. … Continue reading How Adding One Question to an Exam Can Make it Easier to Pass
In our quest to teach and to learn who is the good guy? Remembering, of course. And who is the bad guy? Forgetting, of course. Well, not so fast. While you may not think so, forgetting is an important part of the learning process. Forgetting benefits us in multiple ways: It frees our brains up … Continue reading In Defense of Forgetting
I recently had an article published in the Spring 2016 issue of Focus, the magazine of the Life Science Trainers and Educators Network (LTEN). It's on a topic that is critical to all trainers and instructional designers: How can we build instruction that doesn't overload the brain's capacity to process it? Here it is: http://bit.ly/1QzWLpN
