September 12, 2016 American colleges and universities are no longer fully dedicated to the liberation of the human mind. They are no longer as interested in challenging the young minds they encounter. Rather, American higher education has turned inwards, on itself, in an attempt to quantify — trivialize — and, formulaize — the human intellect and the human spirit. Informed passionate advocacy has historically characterized the exceptionally educated citizen. Unfortunately, today’s typical...
September 7, 2016 Last week’s news item in The Wall Street Journal tells a tale I’ve seen before: “Amid growing anxiety about the disappearance of factory jobs, thousands of them are going unfilled across the U.S. The number of open manufacturing jobs has been rising since 2009, and this year stands at the highest level in 15 years, according to Labor Department data. Factory work has evolved over the past 15 years...
August 31, 2016 This past weekend I came across a brilliantly conceived opinion piece by Andrew Russell and Lee Vinsel, “Hail the Maintainers: “Capitalism excels at innovation but is failing at maintenance, and for most lives it is maintenance that matters more,” published in AEON. While the article concerns itself with a broad definition of “maintenance” it certainly applies directly to the individuals who read this post and to the worlds of...
August 29, 2016 Those organizations that desire to get the most out of their training initiatives will routinely begin with an appropriate Skills Assessment! Skills Assessment testing comes first! “Skills are the most important assets your employees possess. Well-honed skill sets give them the opportunity to master tasks and improve their work performance. This is why skills assessments are an essential part of a successful online training program. They allow organizations to...
August 24, 2016 “Just how big is the universe, how small is an atom, and how long have we humans lived on Earth, compared with dinosaurs? Such answers are better learned with an iPad, according to a new study that shows just how tablets tap neurocognitive abilities that help students understand enormous scale and other difficult concepts. Students saw learning gains after as little as 20 minutes of study on the...
August 22, 2016 Actual experience from users is the best test of any training program. Media-based learning has passed that test for the past three decades —- first with IVD (Interactive Laser Videodisc) followed by CD-ROM and today’s e-Learning examples that are NOT word-based or PowerPoint conversions. Media training programs that are rooted in full motion video, animated graphics and optional full audio have been passing the test, for many reasons. Here...
August 17, 2016 It seems pretty clear that corporate America has decided to embrace e-Learning as the training medium of choice. The advantages of cost savings, 24/7 availability, and easy conversion of existing information are all winners for the decision makers charged with profitability responsibilities. What is lost, however, in this rush to adopt e-Learning, is the historical emphasis on retention and transferable skills acquisition. And, today those can only be attained...
August 15, 2016 Industrial Skills Training is a branch of training designed to develop the skills and knowledge required of workers in the process and manufacturing industries. Skills training in the process and manufacturing industries has grown in importance as processes within the plants have become more and more complicated. The Manufacturing Institute in a recent “Manufacturing Skills & Training Study” provides some statistical insight: U.S. Manufacturers Continue to Experience a Skills...
August 10, 2016 As you well know, typical media courseware has an exam at the end. The courseware with meaningful exams has a bank of questions that are randomized but, at the same time, asks at least one question for each of the learning objectives. And yet, that “final exam” will not be sufficient to measure the results of your training initiative. In addition to formal testing, you need to follow up...
August 8, 2016 “According to ASTD, the overall spending on employee training in the US is $165 billion and the average employee receives 30.3 hours of learning per year. The average cost to train each employee is $1,195. What do these numbers tell us? Organizations care about training. Period. With so much effort devoted to training, the real question becomes evident: Did anyone really learn? It’s clear that learning and development professionals...
August 3, 2016 Last week we learned that, “Early education across the United States is a mishmash of day care, Head Start and preschool programs with a wide range of quality and effectiveness. But a federally sponsored program in 20 states has been effective at giving those states a way to assess and quantify early-childhood education options and make that information available to parents, educators and legislators, according to a study the...
August 1, 2016 We all know that a solid background in industrial fundamentals is essential to a well-trained industrial worker. Work practice, tool use, mathematics, reading and writing are the necessary foundation skills that are, too often, essentially ignored in most training curricula. Of that list, reading, writing and math training are the most often omitted simply because we assume that those skills already exist in our employee population. An incorrect assumption!...
July 27, 2016 We’ve come a long way down the technology trail in the past four decades. The training challenges for our industrial workforce have been immense. And, the trade-offs involving instructional design, production values, plus cost and efficiency issues have complicated the entire process. Maintenance and Operations training for our workforce has never been more necessary. And, the opportunities for more effective learning have never been greater. E-Learning has made more...
July 25, 2016 Regular readers of these posts know that I spend a lot of time praising the virtues of visual-based e-Learning. I think that it is the master key designed to fit most effectively into today’s dominant learning culture. What do others say? Here’s a couple of examples: “We are now in the age of visual information where visual content plays a role in every part of life. As 65 percent...
