Snake Oil?

Well, ok, Sam Adkins is having a bit of fun with his article on Learning Circuits. Go read it, but before you fill the bathtub with warm water and cut your wrists in despair, ask yourself:

1. If you believe that we don't know what we're doing in training/learning/knowledge/etc., why do you believe we are doing a better job in measuring the results?

2. Does management work? How about religion? Why are training and e-Learning "snake oil" and Accounting isn't? Can you prove to me that Accounting "works"?

3. If formal teaching/learning are only 2% as effective as one-on-one tutoring by experts (and if you for some reason forget to ask what the 2% signifies), why don't we all go get tutored by an expert?

I say we are asking the wrong questions. Yes, a lot of learning goes on in informal settings. But how much of what is learned is just plain wrong? A tutor may be very effective, but a tutor can also be leading people down the garden path to disaster.

In my opinion, we actually can be quite effective in teaching and in shaping behavior toward the desired performance.  Being pessimistic about failures doesn't improve anything. Learning from them does.

P.S. I did a little more homework, wondering what Sam Adkins would propose as an improvement. Here it is, summarized on Cognitive Horizons:

Sam Adkins discusses the future of online learning. He states that learners are moving away from "course-based, eLearning products" and adopting "real-time embedded work-flow products" Huh? A translation would be that learners desire real-time simulations that can be swallowed during lunch. Out? Gange methods of instruction. Actually ensuring learners understand relevance and have opportunity to practice are obsolete. No time for this in the "real-time workflow workplace."

Adkins believes that workflow will always win over courseware. I think that believing we can swallow bits of training simulations to the point we wouldn't even realize we were receiving the training is against all current learning theories trainers are currently following.

Adkins, S., (June 2003). The brave new world of learning. [Electronic version]. TD. (57)6, 29-37.

Which is to say, understand his bias and realize that you don't have to agree with it. For my money, "real-time embedded work-flow products" sounds more like snake oil than "blended learning" (another bit of jargon I haven't got much use for). Caveat emptor.

1:42:06 PM