I must have answered this question a million times but when presented with the question today I drew a blank. The argument goes something like this. In order to get true behavioral change, you have to engage your learners in a live classroom with live people and live instructors. Help me to understand how online self-paced learning can impact behaviors in the same way that live classroom instruction impacts behaviors.
I generally give this answer. It’s not the modality, it’s the design and the delivery. We have all sat through very poor classroom instruction, poisoned by 100 slide presentations. Most people have only experienced poor e-learning design and as a result it’s their point of reference. Most e-learning asks you to read, or listen or watch and them take a memorization based quiz. The skeptic is absolutely correct. You will not get a behavioral change from poor design.
Whether you deliver instruction online or face-2-face you have to apply sound instructional design principles. You need to ensure that you first define measurable behavioral learning objectives. Then you have to provide demonstration of the desired behaviors followed by realistic practice and feedback. When I say realistic feedback, I mean what would happen in real life if you were to take the wrong actions or behave incorrectly. Finally the complexity level of the practice has to match the competency level of the learner and adapt as the learner progresses.
In a cognitive apprenticeship you want to provide high levels of demonstration and coaching on the first practice round and as the learner becomes more competent, you need to remove the coaching. This builds expertise.
These principles apply for both live instructor led training as well as online self-paced or multi-user based cognitive technologies. The research of Skinner’s operand conditioning, Merrill’s (1994, p. 55-56) push-down principle, Kolb’s experiential learning model, and Keller’s ARCS model can be applied in both modalities. There are several other design principles and strategies to consider but these are sufficient to make the point.
When online learning is designed properly it can impact and change behavior. The first step is to (a) identify the performance gaps both at the individual as well as the team or organizational level. For example, are you trying to increase productivity, efficiency, quality? What are the gaps in skills and knowledge? Next, you need to articulate these gaps into (b) measurable behavioral learning objectives as well as business impact objectives. What change in behavior do you want to observe in the learners, following the instruction? What impact to you want to see in the business organization or on the team as a result of the learning intervention?
Now that you know what the goals are you have to design the appropriate instructional strategy in the form of an (c) adaptive challenge. By adaptive challenge I am suggesting the challenge presented to the learner has to provide realistic problems that get increasingly difficult as higher levels of competency are achieved. According to Merrill’s (1994) push-down theory, you have to keep the instructional challenge at the appropriate level of complexity. This also supports learning motivation theories. The challenge should as realistic as possible and presented in the right context. As the learner is going through the challenge they should have appropriate support in the form of (e) demonstrations and (f) supporting media. Cognitive apprenticeships require coaching at the right time. Behavioral operand conditioning (Skinner, 1971) suggests that immediate feedback is needed for conditioning the desired behavioral change.
Finally and this is something missed quite frequently and has been referred to as “informal learning” although I never understood the term “informal”. Learning is learning. Following a challenge we tend to discuss the experience with others, swap war stories, and even record our lessons learned in some format. This helps to solidify the experience in our long term memory.
Now can we please stop trying to compare the modalities and get to work on designing good instruction!
References
Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
Merrill, M. David. (1994) Instructional design theory. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Educational Technology Publications, Print.
Skinner, B. F. (1971). Beyond freedom and dignity. New York: Bantam/Vintage Books