Terminology Tuesday

Somewhere along my social media refreshing this week, I came across the phrase ’embedded learning’, and it caught my eye. I won’t lie, I immediately linked it to Leonardo DiCaprio and inception (a dream within a dream), but it’s not quite the same…and Leo probably isn’t there.

What’s Embedded Learning?

Embedded learning is an instructional strategy that occurs often in early childhood education, and it involves teaching and learning experiences that happen during the course of everyday activities, and is geared toward enhancing the learning experience.

Examples of embedded learning could be following directions (a more complex concept that becomes less complex when the students learn that it’s part of the process for completing a task), or learning to greet people. These are tasks that many of us likely take for granted, but we probably learned how to do both of them through embedded learning experiences (e.g. parents saying hi to neighbours/family/friends, or knowing that reading the directions is usually step 1 in putting something together).

Within the professional context, you the tell-show-do model of training could be a more complex version of embedded learning, as learners are essentially observing the training completing a task until the learner can then complete the task. The same goes with the concept of job shadowing.

Modelling

As an adult, I go back to Starbucks when I think about modelling. Modelling involves displaying the behaviour you wish to see from others. Be the change you want to see in the world. This is an especially critical concept when it comes to training and development, because it’s an easy way to inadvertently train people! If you work in a busy cafe and are constantly cleaning/stocking/preparing for the next rush when there are periods of downtime, the people you’re working with will likely model this behaviour (even if it’s just to seem as though they aren’t being lazy).

Within the higher education context, I often seek out faculty members who are doing fantastic things with their course sites, and ask them to participate in our departmental expos or peer-to-peer sessions. When faculty members share what one another are doing, others are more likely to do similar things!

When this post is published, I’ll be in jaw surgery, so here’s a light read for this week’s Terminology Tuesday.

Reflective Learning

Reflective learning is a very basic concept, one that’s usually happening on a daily basis (maybe without you even realizing that you’re doing it). This type of learning involves reflecting on an experience and either learning from that reflection, or adapting your behaviour for future iterations of the experience. In this way, reflective learning is instrumental in providing you with clarification or additional context.

As an educator, you should seek to provide your students with opportunities for reflection as they may be able to improve their overall learning experience through such exercises. Examples of these activities may include: journaling or peer reviews (and then having individuals implement the revisions).

Stock photos can easily become the bane of your existence.

What Are These Stock Photos You Speak of?

Stock photos are photographs taken and sold using royalty-free licensing, or creative commons distribution rights. Outside of these provisions, stock photos are typically licensed under specific usage rights. You can usually find a stock photo to suit any need within your e-learning. However, the stock photos you may be most familiar with are awful ones, like “woman smiling while eating salad”:

Click for a google image search

Within e-learning, you may have clients who provide you with stock photo options, or you may be asked to source stock photos. In the past, I’ve done this for many photography needs, such as: construction vehicles, stop signs, 18-wheeleers, businessmen and women in varying contexts (one the phone, in an office with a client, etc.).

There are many pay-for stock photo sites, but there are also some really great free ones. Whatever you chose to use, make sure your clients are on board ahead of investing in a subscription.

Free

• Unsplash
• Pixabay
• Freepik

Paid

• Creative Market
• istockphoto
• Shutterstock 
• Stock.adobe.com

Preparing a script for voice over, I thought to myself “have I ever talked about voice over on the blog?” – a quick search indicated no.

What is Voice Over?

Voice Over (VO) is a script-read and audio recorded narration that is often built into a project during or post-production. In e-learning, it is often referred to as audio narration. My stance on VO is almost exclusively “I hate it.”, but that’s because I don’t learn as effectively when I’m trying to read or pay attention to something onscreen while also listening to audio. I get overloaded. However, there are many examples of good VO in e-learning, and it is important to note that not everyone learns the same. Some people may learn better listening to audio. Some people won’t. For this reason, I like to give people options such as a mute button and/or an audio transcript.

VO is also often required to ensure ADA or 508 compliance, so it’s often a necessary evil.

E-Learning VO Tips

• For the love of all things holy, do not use robo-voice (e.g. the text to speech type of audio) in final e-learning projects. Your learners will want to kill you. Using it for scratch audio is fine in the interim, but not for final projects.
• Receive stakeholder sign-off ahead of sending VO scripts for recording – this will save you a lot of money in the event that the reviewers make considerable changes to the script during review. It will also streamline your production.
• Please, please, please, do not duplicate onscreen text and VO for the same slide content. It’s painful and unnecessary.
• Maintain the same voice throughout your script (e.g. active/passive, etc.) to ensure consistency.
• Include prompts to your narration, where necessary. For example, “Click each button to learn more.”
• Aim for brief and concise VO scripts per slide. No one wants to listen to 1-5 minutes of audio. Keep it simple and to the point, and supplement with onscreen text. Not the other way around.
• For complicated content, or content heavy in the acronym department: include a pronunciation table. Everyone pronounces things differently, and your VO artist will likely be unable to read your mind…because they’re humans too.
• For courses containing multiple modules, use the same VO artist for consistency.
• When you receive audio recordings from your VO artist, proof the recordings to ensure accuracy…because again, the VO artist is only human and humans make mistakes from time to time.

I’m not sure if anyone in the Learning and Development industry is really referring to Just in Time Training as JTT, but as a child of the 80s and 90s, I appreciate the reference (you know…to heart throb Jonathan Taylor Thomas of Home Improvement fame)…but I digress.

Just in Time Training (JTT)

JTT is just what it sounds like – training provided just in time. Or, training provided on an as-needed basis. Many employers view JTT as the key to their success – viewed as taking fewer resources than hiring and training someone new who may have the qualifications being trained. Often this is not so much a view as a means of convenience. In reality, it likely takes even more resources (human and monetary) to provide JTT as it takes 1 learner and a minimum of 1 trainer for however many hours required to complete the training. At a minimum, it takes 1 learner of the production floor (so to speak) to complete the required training. In the broader context, if self-paced training materials are available, it would have taken someone time and effort to create those materials.

So JTT is bad? 

No. No. I don’t think that’s the takeaway here. JTT has its time and place. I think JTT can be extremely effective for low-level training. For example, at the university, we teach one format that requires some equipment setup. It’s very basic plug-and-play style equipment, but it can be confusing for some academic types as the last thing they have on their mind when preparing for a lecture is setting up equipment. In this situation, a handy job aid posted on lectern provides enough JTT to be effective for most faculty members.

JTT is also better than no training at all. I used to joke that I once worked for a training company that provided no internal training. We were often awarded a new contract that used a new technology, and it wasn’t strange to just have the new technology installed on your computer, be given some deliverable dates, and be told to figure it out. I mean, we were all pretty intelligent people, so it wasn’t the worst thing in the world, but some of us certainly struggled with some new products over others. This is a situation where spending the human resource hours to provide JTT would have been beneficial.

Where I think JTT does not have a place at the table is in any situation where it takes the learner more time and effort to receive the training than is necessary. For example, for a project that has a 4 week turnaround (or other short deadline), it seems unnecessary to spend 1 week receiving training. I experienced this once with a client who sent me to do data collection. Sure, the added context of sitting in on a week of training was great, but just having all of the client materials would have sufficed. I left the week of data collection feeling like I had received some JTT in an industry for which I would seldom use the information, and when I began working on the project, I found myself consulting the client materials more than I found myself consulting my own notes from that week of training.

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In the world of business, Statements of Work (SOWs) play a very important role in ensuring that you are doing the work you’ve been contracted to do. SOWs exist in most industries, and tend to kick off the project (unless preceded by a Request for Proposal or other similar preceding step).

What’s a SOW?

A SOW is a document that identifies the scope of work included in a particular contract, and typically includes the following elements:

• Parties involved – The organization initiating the contract and the organization or individual(s) who will be completing the work
• Details of work – A descriptive outline of all work involved within the contract, and in order to ‘complete’ the contract
• Non-disclosure agreements – Acknowledgement that the contractor agrees to non-disclosure terms
• Schedule – A schedule identifying delivery dates for the work contracted
• Penalties – Penalties are outlined (e.g. for not completing the specified work within the specified timelines)
• Signatures – Signatures of all parties involved

Why is a SOW Important?

A SOW is important because it can really save your butt as a contractor in terms of combatting scope creep. Signing a SOW protects you when it comes to additional project requests as you will have a signed document to reference when requests extend past the outlined scope of the project, and you can request additional compensation to complete such requests.

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