Pyramide d'abricot à La bague de Kenza (Paris)

Bite-sized update: higher education in fragile contexts, discovery without analytics, and the epistemology of learning culture

Reda SadkiThinking aloud, Travel

As much as I wish this blog could document my reflections as I read, research, speak, and listen… it cannot. Knowledge is a process, not a product, in this VUCA world we live in. I know that I am doing too much, too fast, to be ale to process everything. Accepting this is part and parcel of navigating the knowledge landscape. So here is an incomplete round-up with some schematic thoughts about where I’m headed.

Higher education in fragile contexts as a wicked problem: Most ed tech conferences I’ve attended are mostly male, and tend to focus on the education of those least-in-need. Inzone’s workshop on education in fragile contexts was at the other end of that spectrum, with a diverse team of scholars and practitioners coming together to tackle wicked learning problems such as how to ensure access to education for Syrian refugees in Turkey (access), what to do when refugee camp conditions are such that the committed Jesuit educators who staff the education program burn out after a few days or months, how to adapt courses to learners who lack resources or basic skills (quality), and  how to teach 21st century knowledge skills (spanning the range from keyboard typing to critical thinking) in such contexts. Workshop organizer, InZone director, educator, and interpreter (that’s a lot of hats) Barbara Moser-Mercer is doing an amazing job of building meaningful connections and collaboration with other teams from universities and international organizations. This is what a 21st century learning network should look like.

What use is discovery without analytics? Wednesday evening, I’ll be one of a jury of twelve for Semantico’s thought leadership dinner in London, which the digital publishing company describes as “as a way of bringing together leading influencers from the scholarly publishing ecosystem to debate a relevant topic over fine wine and food.” Sounds tasty. I read this as the question of epistemology: how do we know what we know about how people discover knowledge (packaged in containers like publications)? Are the analytics you get from publishing (number of downloads, time spent engaging with content) sufficient when education-based approaches can reveal so much more about what people do with our content?

Learning culture as strategy: The more time I spend with organizations and teams investigating their learning culture, the more it feels like a methodology that starts with diagnosis (measuring learning culture using Karen Watkins’s and Victoria Marsick’s DLOQ instrument) and then deepens individual and team understanding of the learning practices that foster continuous learning and connections with others. Asking questions about how we learn (beyond formal training) makes it obvious how little we reflect on experience. The lesson learned is what we tend to keep, rather than the journey that got us there. Without reflection, this is the Achilles’s heel of learning by doing. Epistemology again. The payoff when you figure this out is that actioning learning culture drives knowledge performance.

Knowledge performance: What is the relationship between individual creativity and an organization’s ability to learn? “We should just test people’s IQ and hire only the most intelligent ones,” is probably one of the silliest statements I’ve heard in the recent past blurted out by one of the smartest people (and dear friend) that I know. Leave aside the fiery debates about the biases of IQ measurements. Just consider that an organization’s ability to learn (no, organizations do not have brains but organizations that do not adapt and change, die) walls in your ability as an individual to exercise and productively apply your creativity, serendipity, and invention. In other words, no matter how smart you are, if your organization has low knowledge performance, you may come up with the most brilliant idea, but it is unlikely to translate into practice.

Photo: Algerian patisserie from La bague de Kenza (Paris), a personal favorite.

TC103-Tech tools and skills for emergency management-screenshot

Tech Change

Reda SadkiInnovation, Interviews, Learning strategy, Video

The Institute for Technology and Social Change is a private company based in Washington, D.C. Its web site offers a course catalogue focused on technological innovation. Timo Luege is a communication specialist who has spent the last seven years working for the humanitarian and development sector, a period during which large-scale disasters intersected with the rapid rise in mobile communication. Starting on Monday, he will be delivering TechChange’s course on technology tools and skills for emergency management for the third time.

In this interview he answers the following questions:

  1. What will I be able to do after taking the course that I couldn’t do before?
  2. Why should my manager pay for this, or at least support me?
  3. Why should my staff development or HR people support me to take this course?
  4. How will this help me to deliver for my organization – or to find my next job or mission?
  5. Humanitarian training focuses on technical skills, yet everyone recognizes the need for critical thinking and analytical skills. Do you think that your course can help with these and if so how?
  6. Is TechChange accredited and, if not, why not deliver this course through a traditional university?
  7. How does a communication specialist become an online instructor?
  8. What is your experience of teaching online?

Timo assisted in teaching the first iteration of the course before taking the helm, and dedicates two full weeks to preparation for the course. This is especially important as he covers fast-changing topics. A number of guests are invited to deliver online presentation and contribute to discussions. Although there is no group work, there are many opportunities for interaction. The learning environment is a custom-built job on top of WordPress. The cohorts are typically between 20 and 30 learners, with a broad diversity of people and countries represented.

The fees for the course are US$445, but if you are interested, ping me (or Timo) on Twitter (or use the contact form on this blog) and I will share a code you can use to get a US$100 discount.

From my vantage point, I connected with Timo to chat about this course which I found profoundly interesting for reasons that should not surprise regular readers of this blog:

  • It aims to offer most-current knowledge in an area of innovation where the “half-life” of knowledge is short (and in fact Timo mentions that he finds it necessary to thoroughly update his content each time he runs the course).
  • It has been developed outside of in-service training and of traditional universities, with knowledge based on practitioner expertise acquired through experience
  • It is offered by a private company, leveraging relationships to the technology, humanitarian and development sectors.

On the other hand:

  • It is neither open (free) nor massive (and doesn’t try to be), and therefore difficult to scale up.
  • The pedagogical model appears to contain some elements of constructivist and experiential learning, but still appears very focused on information transmission.
  • The value of the credential remains to be demonstrated with respect to applicability to work, performance outcomes, and recognition by HR departments and managers.
  • It is unclear if or how learners interact during and after the course to form a knowledge community.
  • The cost structure and business model are difficult to determine without first chatting with the TechChange team.

Please note that I have never taken a TechChange course and have not (yet) met their team, so these are only my first impressions, from the outside, looking in.

 

 

 

 

Basketball practice

Practice practice practice

Reda SadkiQuotes

Is there any evidence that university-based continued professional development (CPD) fails when trying to develop competencies needed by humanitarian and development professionals? Or, to reframe the question, are traditional brick-and-mortar universities best equipped to support the lifelong learning journeys of people committed to this line of work? Then again, how could an industry that seldom evaluates its own effectiveness (relying instead on accreditation as a proxy) demand that universities be accountable for quality of learning outcomes?

“Online delivery of education is also expanding rapidly to meet the career-specific education and training needs of adult populations. While such educational opportunities, including many at the sub-degree or certificate level, are increasingly important for social advancement and economic development, they are often not effectively accommodated within traditional higher education governance, financing and quality control mechanisms.”

Source: Tremblay, K., Lalancette, D., Roseveare, D., 2012. Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes feasibility study report  volume 1-design and implementation. OECD, Paris, France

Young man at a vocational education and training center, Marrakesh, Morocco. © Dana Smillie / World Bank

Making humanitarians

Reda SadkiLearning strategy, Thinking aloud

The industry to tackle growing humanitarian and development challenges has expanded rapidly since the mid 1990s, but not nearly as fast as the scope and scale of the problems have spiraled. Professionalization was therefore correctly identified as a major challenge of its own, with over a decade of research led by Catherine Russ and others clearing the rubble to allow the sector to make sense of what needs to be done. The bottom line diagnosis is a now-familiar litany: a shortage of people and skills, lack of quality standards, inability to scale.

Despite the growth of traditional university programs to credential specialized knowledge of these challenges and how to tackle them, young people armed with multiple masters find that they really start learning upon entering their first NGO. They face a dearth of entry-level positions (sometimes spending years as “interns” or other forms of under-recognized labor) and discover professional networks closed to them because legitimacy is based on shared experience, not formal qualifications.

Certified professional development run by universities fail because these institutions are ill-equipped to deliver sub-degree qualifications, and rely on methods that seldom provide experience. This problem is not specific to humanitarians, but may be more acute because of the nature of the work and the knowledge involved.

Meanwhile, specialized organizations that provide training, like REDR in the UK or Bioforce in France, have become increasingly good at developing competency-based certification for behavior that matches real-world needs. Their business model works best at small scale and high cost. They have also succeeded in establishing that the credential of value is one that is defined by and agreed upon by practitioners. However, their efforts remain mired in a legacy of transmissive training and a tradition of “workshop culture” that are difficult to overcome. Also, by the time a competency framework is described, new contexts and needs that dictate new behaviors have predictably emerged but cannot be captured by the rigidity of framework.

A few organizations are trying to organize the online delivery of click-through information modules. Unfortunately, this approach has yet – to put it politely – to show measurable positive performance outcomes. And, admittedly, it is going to be tough to prove that three hours of clicking through bullet points followed by an information recall quiz corresponds to what 21st century humanitarians need to deliver. (Having said that, it is probably no worse than sitting in a workshop with a ‘trainer’ doing the clicking, whether in terms of learning efficacy or sheer pleasure).

Save The Children’s Humanitarian Leadership Academy stands out in a number of ways in the current landscape. Their analysis is grounded in the rock-solid research by Russ and others, and they have assembled a ferociously professional team that combines all of the right job functions, encompassing both folks from the sector and those who are new to it. The project is rightly ambitious, given the scope and scale of the challenges faced, and they have succeeded in securing a large chunk of their funding needs from the UK government. They aim to serve not just Save’s training needs, but to become the connector for a broad set of organizations working together, trying to convert decades of preaching about capacity building in developing countries into practice. Last but not least, they are trying to think strategically about their use of digital technology for learning.

Has the time come, as a defrocked high priest of corporate learning recently suggested, for a “Pan Humanitarian College of Conscience”? Could it be as simple as bringing everyone together to share content, resources, and determine quality and credentialing standards together? I don’t think so, mostly because the existing content, resources, and approaches are not getting the job done. We need to do new things in new ways, not an educational “We are the world”.

Truly disruptive humanitarian education leverages the affordances of educational technology to offer continual learning experiences that foster sense-making and network formation linking young and old humanitarians in global practices, strengthening existing professional networks because collaboration and team work are how you complete the mission. Such experiences could focus on precisely what is unsaid and untaught in formal curricula, and considered unattainable by training. Even formal courses that are about acquiring foundational knowledge can have learners co-constructing knowledge together. These peers then find themselves part of a knowledge community where, as alumni, they are now in a position to provide support – and benefit from the new learnings of others in a virtuous cycle. This paradigm shift occurs when how we learn is aligned to how we work: collaboration, team work and leadership are premised on peer-to-peer relationships, across the diversity of contexts and people that humanitarians find themselves in.

Such an approach fosters critical thinking and practice around specific areas of work but – and perhaps more importantly – around cross-cuting ways of thinking and doing. Yes, you could build courses that tap into knowledge communities around climate change, logistics, or market-based approaches. Focus on an area of work, zero in on its wicked problems, and drive learning efforts where they are most needed, producing knowledge that is directly applicable to work. Going further, new ways of learning foster new forms of leadership and innovation in the face of a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world, through courses that teach and deepen realist evaluation or tap into experiences from outside the sector – linking resilience and sustainability – to help new ways of thinking and doing emerge.

Last but not least, this new humanitarian learning needs to include not just future professionals but also volunteers. As the Red Cross Red Cross Movement has taught us , volunteers are far more than part-time humanitarians. They are embedded in their communities and learn to use the cultural and tacit knowledge from belonging to empower themselves, their families, neighbors, and every member of the community – whatever their status, in a fully inclusive way. Making sense of what happens in your community in this century, more so than ever before, requires that you establish a fluid two-way connection to global knowledge.

While these are admittedly lofty objectives, the science of learning combined with educational technology are poised to make this more than just wishful thinking. Scaling up is currently center stage in both education (thank you, MOOCs) and humanitarian realms. There have been a small but significant number of well-researched, successful, small-scale pilots to foster new forms of humanitarian learning. The learners who participated in such experiments got it – even if some managers and decision makers did not. The missing link remains the network of learning leaders willing and able to think and fund the foundations for such an endeavor, and then to start building its scaffolding. And, who knows, such a group might find that Pan Humanitarian College of Conscience is a good fit to name what we might make together.

Photo: Young man at a vocational education and training center, Marrakesh, Morocco. © Dana Smillie / World Bank

Online learning 101: Costs vs. efficacy

Reda SadkiLearning strategy

Having presented three online learning approaches, here are three aspects to consider together:

  1. What is the cost of developing an online course based on each approach?
  2. What is the cost of delivering the course, per learner or per hour?
  3. What is the learning efficacy (outcome) that can be expected?
Costs vs. efficacy

Costs vs. efficacy

Development costs for modules are comparatively expensive, as they are media-intensive and require complex production and technical skills.

Often this leads to under-spending on the instructional design.

The main attraction of this approach is its low delivery cost.

It scales really well.

Once you have a self-guided module online, the delivery cost is marginal.

All of a sudden, you can abandon the elaborate schemes in place mostly to restrict access to limited numbers of seats.

Unfortunately, the death knell for this approach is its limited efficacy.

It doesn’t work very well and, probably, only marginally better than giving a motivated learner the raw content to prepare.

Developing an online, scenario-based simulation does not necessarily require intensive media production.

We are not talking about building a humanitarian ‘Second Life’.

Combine compelling, well-written prose with a few images.

What matters is the complexity of the scenario’s decision points, the diversity of its cast of characters, and the design of a scorecard that provides rich formative feedback.

Add a time element to put the pressure on.

The development costs can be high, but the investment is in the design of a powerful experience for the learner, not in the bells and whistles.

Best of all, such simulations can be self-guided (while modeling collaboration and team work by interaction with the fictional cast of characters) and therefore have the same marginal delivery cost as the ineffective information modules do.

And, of course, there is a powerful case (and accumulated evidence) that allowing people to make choices and experience their consequences (as success, failure or somewhere in between) generates a virtuous cycle of engagement, retrieval, and retention.

The knowledge community concept starts with an online course in which peer-to-peer relationships are the basis for the co-construction of knowledge.

A learning environment like Scholar, grounded in Bill Cope’s and Mary Kalantzis’s New Learning, can fully align the way we learn to the way we work and collaborate.

Because learners are the ones producing knowledge, the roles of teachers and experts are transformed.

A seemingly absurd parallel can be made between this approach and reality television.

When learners are teachers and teachers are learners, the development costs are low.

The fact that peer review and other forms of learner dialogue require a synchronous cohort implies more-than-marginal delivery costs, but does not prevent scale.

A large cohort can be split into smaller communities, reinforcing bonds of knowledge and collaboration.

Together, I believe that scenario-based simulations and knowledge communities can sustain an agenda for new forms of humanitarian learning and assessment. And, yes, lower costs along the way.

This infographic is excerpted from a comprehensive (65 minutes) talk originally presented to the Assessment Capacities Project (ACAPS) on 22 September 2014. Its content is largely based on my experience in managing a 1.7 million CHF pipeline of online course development.

Online learning 101: Approaches

Reda SadkiLearning strategy

There are myriad approaches to online learning. I’ve selected three. One of them should no longer be recommended. This is the production of information modules that test information recall. In some cases, aware of the limited outcomes using this approach, attempts have been made to encourage reflection or analysis, but then the limitation of the approach leaves the learner with limited or no formative feedback and reductive forms of assessment. We need to stop producing these “click-click” modules, as they are teaching all of the wrong things, even if the subject matter content is spot on. They are purely transmissive, leaving the learner to passively consume information. They substitute multimedia bells and whistle for substance. Their only real usefulness, in the past, was to introduce people in the sector to “e-learning” as a digital version of transmissive trainings in which the slide deck is the pedagogy.

The other two approaches, fortunately, are grounded in more constructive (and constructivist) pedagogies. They have been shown to scaffold, support and promote realistic outcomes that matter for developing competencies around analysis, team work and leadership. Once we realize that how we teach is at least as important as what we teach, these two distinct approaches open up new possibilities for humanitarian learning. They are the topic of much of my presenting, which reviews the evidence, case studies, and practical aspects of each.

Three online learning approaches relevant for humanitarians

Three online learning approaches relevant for humanitarians

This infographic is excerpted from a comprehensive (65 minutes) talk originally presented to the Assessment Capacities Project (ACAPS) on 22 September 2014. Its content is largely based on my experience in managing a 1.7 million CHF pipeline of online course development. The full set and recording are available for LSi.io members via this link. LSi.io is a non-profit talent network for learning leaders from corporate, academic, and humanitarian/development sectors interested in solving wicked problems. (Note: there are some display problems on lsi.io which should be fixed soon. Thank you for your patience.)

 

Online learning 101 mindmap excerpt

Online learning 101: learning objectives and mind map

Reda SadkiLearning strategy

My LSi.io presentation on the foundational knowledge about online learning in the humanitarian context could provide fodder for… an online course. And here are some of the learning objectives that would be included in such a course, together with a mind map showing some of the items addressed by the presentation.

  1. Summarize the challenges of adapting to constant technological change in learning design
  2. List humanitarian learning problems that can be addressed by online and distance learning
  3. Distinguish between three evidence-based learning approaches relevant to the humanitarian context
  4. Explain the main criteria used to distinguish these approaches
  5. Distinguish development costs from delivery costs
  6. Compare cost vs. efficacy for three learning approaches
  7. Explain the relevance of blended learning for humanitarian learning
  8. Distinguish between self-guided and cohort-based learning
  9. Scope the complexity of an online learning project
  10. Identify possible sources of funding for online humanitarian education
  11. Identify factors to consider when developing a learning system
  12. Evaluate when scaling up is relevant to developing online learning
  13. Relate humanitarian training needs to the affordances of New Learning
  14. Summarize the benefits of scenario-based simulation for humanitarian training
  15. Compare the learning outcomes between distance learning and face-to-face
  16. Summarize changes in the nature of knowledge
  17. Reflect on the significance of changes in the nature of knowledge for humanitarian learning
Online learning 101 mind map

Online learning 101 mind map

This post is based on a comprehensive (65 minutes) talk originally presented to the Assessment Capacities Project (ACAPS) on 22 September 2014. Its content is largely based on my experience in managing a 1.7 million CHF pipeline of online course development. The full set and recording are available for LSi.io members via this link. LSi.io is a non-profit talent network for learning leaders from corporate, academic, and humanitarian/development sectors interested in solving wicked problems. (Note: there are some display problems on lsi.io which should be fixed soon. Thank you for your patience.)

Learning Strategies International

Online learning 101: Criteria to distinguish approaches

Reda SadkiLearning strategy

The table below summarizes criteria that you should consider to identify the appropriate approach for your online learning needs. At the top is the pedagogy and specific learning architecture. The key question is to ask: What does the learner get to do? Key decisions include the choice between self-guided learning (which scales up easily as it does not require synchronous interaction with other learners) and cohorts (which enable synchronous peer-to-peer relationships between learners).

Criteria to distinguish approaches
Criteria to distinguish approaches

For a long time, a ferocious debate was waged between advocates of face-to-face learning who fetichized the value of IRL (“in the real world” interaction and advocates of online or distance learning. The evidence fairly definitively demonstrates that distance learning delivers slightly better learning outcomes, and that there is no learning efficacy benefit when you blend. However, your professional network is how you find your next job. It is also how you learn from others. Face-to-face contact is necessary for cultural reasons, at least for the current generation of humanitarians over 30. The bottom line is that in the humanitarian context, social relationships are so important that they provide the sole justification for a blended approach. Distance technology (read: Skype) can help scaffold, grow, and sustain these relationships and their value for learning, as can a well-designed online knowledge community.

Next in the table are outcomes. The industry standard is Kirkpatrick. It really is that simple – and comprehensive. What is staggering is the dearth of learning evaluation in the sector. Training is assumed to be inherently good. This is no longer good enough, hence the necessity of not only reactive evaluation (the “happy sheet”) but the impact of learning on performance at both individual and organizational levels.

When considering costs, one needs to distinguish development costs from the expenses associated with delivery and evaluation, as well as ongoing quality development. Often, an organization will budget for development without considering what training will cost to deliver.

Last but not least, and I’ve written and presented on this extensively elsewhere, is scaling up. Self-guided learning scales up at low cost and cohorts do not (very easily). This intersects with the question of pedagogy.

This post is excerpted from a comprehensive (65 minutes) talk originally presented to the Assessment Capacities Project (ACAPS) on 22 September 2014. Its content is largely based on my experience in managing a 1.7 million CHF pipeline of online course development.

Complexity in humanitarian and development

Online learning 101 for humanitarian managers and decision makers

Reda SadkiLearning strategy, Presentations

I’ve just posted on LSi.io a comprehensive (65-minute) presentation intended for humanitarian managers and decision makers working in organizations without prior experience in online or distance learning. It includes numerous practical examples and case studies, as well as a description of the best available learning theory and best practice approaches most appropriate for the humanitarian learning context.

Here are the 10 questions addressed:

  1. It’s not about technology. Really?
  2. What learning problems do you want to solve?
  3. What kind of online learning can prepare humanitarians?
  4. What do you need to know about costs, time, and complexity?
  5. Where’s the money?
  6. Do you need scale?
  7. Can you do more than transmit information with e-learning?
  8. If experience is the best teacher, how can e-learning help?
  9. Does e-learning work at all?
  10. How does all this fit together?

This slide set was originally presented to the Assessment Capacities Project (ACAPS) on 22 September 2014. It is available for LSi.io members via this link. LSi.io is a non-profit talent network for learning leaders from corporate, academic, and humanitarian/development sectors interested in solving wicked problems. (Note: there are some display problems on lsi.io which should be fixed soon. Thank you for your patience.)

 

Bookshelves

Thick knowledge

Reda SadkiContent strategy, Learning strategy, Quotes

Toby Mundy on books as thick knowledge:

“[…] Books have a unique place in our civilisation […] because they are the only medium for thick descriptions of the world that human beings possess. By ‘thick’ description, I mean an extended, detailed, evidence-based, written interpretation of a subject. If you want to write a feature or blog or wikipedia entry, be it about the origins of the first world war; the authoritarian turn in Russia; or the causes and effects of the 2008 financial crisis, in the end you will have to refer to a book. Or at least refer to other people who have referred to books. Even the best magazine pieces and TV documentaries — and the best of these are very good indeed — are only puddle-deep compared with the thick descriptions laid out in books. They are ‘thin’ descriptions and the creators and authors of them will have referred extensively to books to produce their work.”

I’ve found myself going back to searching for well-written, comprehensive, in-depth books for sourcing both foundational and most-current knowledge. This notion of ‘thick knowledge’ makes a lot of sense.

Photo: Rainbow (Katey/flickr).