Using Measurement to Promote Learning Effectiveness

What’s the relationship between measurement and learning effectiveness? When most L&D practitioners think about measurement and learning effectiveness, they think about outcomes measures. Examples include: Course enrollment and completion -- although, as we all recognize, this metric does not say anything about learning effectiveness, just that the training was completed (or not). Level I (smile …

Using Confidence-based Knowledge Checks to Sustain Learning

Measuring learning immediately following a learning experience (workshops, eLearning, etc.) is standard practice -- but it’s not sufficient. Too often, we perform this immediate measurement, assume that we have achieved our learning goals, and move on. But, for learning to be meaningful it must be persistent over time – it must be sustained. To check …

Neural Alignment and Learning

Neural Alignment and Learning Usually in this blog, we write about ideas and research applicable to our roles as practitioners of corporate learning. But every so often we come across a research study with results so fascinating, we are compelled to share it, even though it is unlikely to impact how you do your day-to-day …

Are Your Learners Cognitively Passive or Cognitively Active?

There was a guy who lived in my dorm in college who spent a lot of time talking about how much he studied. Since his grades weren’t very high we used to joke that he spent more time talking about studying than actually studying. But, giving him the benefit of the doubt and assuming he …

Can Testing Contribute to Higher Grades?

I spent 20 years as CEO of a testing company so I had lots of opportunity to get a very good sense of how our corporate clients were using testing within their training programs.  Of the millions of tests that were delivered on our platform virtually 100% were Summative Assessments. For those not familiar with …

eLearning vs. Print: Is there a difference in learning?

A week or so ago in his column in the NY Times David Brooks mentioned recent research on the differences between how we read on screen versus how we read on paper (here). This got me thinking about what this means for learning. With so many of our courses having transitioned from print to eLearning over …

Early Morning People, Night Owls and Intelligence

Are you an early morning person or a night owl? Did you know that measures of intelligence correlate with which one you are? There is a large body of research literature showing a correlation between chronotype (morningness-eveningness) and intelligence. Here’s a recent one: That’s right. Night owls consistently outperform early morning people on tests of …

When It Comes to Teaching, Knowing and Doing are Not Always the Same

Sadly, it is often the case that what we know and what we do are not the same. What We Know Two well-researched facts we know that help students learn: When students actively engage with the learning material they retain more of the material (usually called, not surprisingly, active learning). To avoid overloading working memory …

Teaching to Learn

Last week I wrote that teaching is also a powerful learning experience for the teacher and that you can use this fact to help your learners by encouraging them to use the process known as self-explanation:  Anyone who has ever taught can relate to this. To figure out how best to explain something to someone …

Encouraging Self-Explanation Among Your Learners

I was a physics major in college. During my junior year I took a course in electromagnetic theory (E&M).  To say it was difficult would be an understatement. The professor seemed so smart and I seemed so, well… not so smart. I remember talking to my professor one day after class and he said something …