Are We Returning to the Middle Ages?

Educators have known since Socrates that maximizing exchange with and between students while encouraging conversation and debate, to be a key to improving learning.  

Today's teachers are frustrated by the fact that they cannot pursue those and other effective approaches because of a myriad of reasons.  The bottom line is that we do design Learning Events, but they are only partially effective at allowing or encouraging learners to function interactively.  

Students all too often, aside from their immediate circle of friends, are not involved with nor do they have any desire to know what their classmates are interested in or what they have found to be easy or difficult.  In college lecture settings with lecture halls full of students, Learning Events are more like concerts than classes.  In those settings learning is very much an individual affair.  

The current trend in education is toward less emphasis on dialog between learners.  Teachers today must rely on what test results tell them.  Some experimental schools are taking this model even further as they encourage independent study and self-paced learning.  Computer Managed Instruction models use algorithms to make decisions as to what the student needs next and when they have reached competency in a particular subject.  Technology has allowed teacher span-of-control to increase reducing costs, but with a corresponding reduction in time available for one-on-one instruction.  

In these new schools teachers use their time to manage learning problems, as signaled by the Computer Managed Instruction algorithm.  Typically small group sessions are only conducted with groups of students having similar challenges. 

I find it interesting that in this model the students who have the easiest time learning the content are the ones that get the least opportunity to work in groups, a destructive archetype.  

Yes, our current education systems and new innovations do create "Learning" although more self-contained.  

We need to look very carefully at the impact being made in the area of Online Education. 

Albert Einstein said: “I fear the day that technology will surpass or human interaction.  The world will have a generation of idiots.”

Each new program struggles with Einstein’s humorous insight currently being demonstrated by the contradictions being created.  For example; How to be online or distant and meet the need for contact with the teacher and other students?  Such contradictions create complicating concepts and new terminologies emerge in the vocabulary of training design.  We now have descriptive terms like Distance Education, Residency Requirement, Asynchronous and Synchronous Learning, Online Education, E-learning, Computer-Based Training, Computer Managed Instruction all provided to help describe available options.  

The process of choosing a college or degree program has become more complicated than ever.  Those in the process of making those decisions today have begun to realize that having a degree means little if the holder does not have true competence in the subject.  No successful company is going to compensate us for incompetence, at least for long.  

It is true that technology has opened many new avenues in education, but has also impacted the quality of training effectiveness and the dynamics of interpersonal relationships. 

Impact of Human Capital

The importance of having people in the right assignments cannot be over stressed.  Developing and positioning people are key responsibilities for all managers.  When we focus on “people” we learn quickly that it is important to see them as “individuals.”  Successful companies have started to look at the competency requirements in their organizations and matching the competencies of its individual people to those roles.  The result of this approach is predictable in that each person is found to have a unique set of abilities and learning needs leading to establishment of individual training plans with ownership and responsibility for execution of those plans being shared between the employee and their manager.  Today’s managers many times do not have the time or expertise to handle these new important responsibilities.  

Transitioning to this type environment and making it work is extremely difficult, particularly for older well established organizations.  Training and development organizations also are challenged to change and must adapt to a model resembling a cafeteria format from what was probably more like a home style restaurant.  The need for competency evaluation becomes critical and those evaluations must be timely and accurate.   As the need to create Project Teams, Change Management Teams and other small organizations with specific progress missions emerge we start to see the importance of accurately understanding the learning needs of each individual and how to balance their abilities and needs within each organization.  The question becomes: “Does the team have the balance of skills needed to accomplish the mission?”  Each person is actually a unique System offering unique sets of explicit and tacit knowledge that ultimately define their ability to add value.  The ultimate question becomes, "What can you do?” not, "What can you discuss?"  Adding value is the ultimate requirement of us all. 

Value Creation is the joint responsibility of each employee and management.

We used to think that the best way to train people was to make them all alike.  We would test against a standard set of criteria and then train to make everyone equal.  We would not focus on what we already knew, but work diligently on what you did not know.  Everyone would work on things that did not know or like while and not devoting time to work on the things in which they excelled. 

Imagine an orchestra being managed in that manner.

Variability in knowledge is one of the components of diversity.  The question becomes: “Is diversity extra weight or GOLD?”  We must not forget that with great diversity comes great opportunity.