A New Book Is on the Way

Informal Learning Basics, my newest book from ASTD Press, should hit bookshelves at the end of May. 

This book, which explores one of the hottest topics in training today, describes how training and development and other Human Resources professionals can better harness informal learning.  By some accounts, informal learning—in which learners define some combination of the process, location, purpose, and content of learning and may or may not be conscious that learning occurred—provides as much as 70 percent of all learning in the workplace with little or no involvement of training and development professionals.   

So readers have realistic expectations and plans for the application of informal learning in the workplace, the book first describes how informal learning works and identifies how to use it effectively at key touch points in the life cycle of a job.  Then, to help readers harness the power of informal learning, this book describes how readers can support 22 specific types of group and individual informal learning,  how social, enterprise and other instructional technologies can assist in those efforts, and how to evaluate informal learning.  Each chapter includes exercises that help readers apply the concepts presented in the book and worksheets that readers can use when planning informal learning efforts in their organizations.

Keep checking this blog for updates on the publication.  

New Case Study about Training Evaluation

New Hire Scorecards at Discover Financial Services, recently published in Training Magazine online and co-written by my student Alexis Belair and I, describes how Discover Financial Services (the Discover card people) developed a series of scorecards, reports that visually report the progress of their new hire training programs.   

Written with the close cooperation of Jon Kaplan, a training director at Discover, and Doug Anderson, manager of this project, this case study not only describes the report, but also describes the challenges, costs, and development resources needed to prepare these reports.  

Read the entire case at  http://www.trainingmag.com/article/case-study-new-hire-scorecards-discover-financial-services.

Ranking and Choosing Online Degrees

U.S. News & World Report, the pioneer in college rankings, is in the midst of conducting a new first-of-its-kind study: rankings of online universities.  But according to “The Online-College Crapshoot” (by Laura Pappano, New York Times, November 4, 2011at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/education/edlife/the-online-college-crapshoot.html?ref=edlife&pagewanted=all) some of the biggest online universities, including Capella and Kaplan, aren’t participating.  

Among their concerns is the concern that the criteria one might use to rank a traditional university do not apply to online universities.  For example, because many of the students in online universities are non-traditional students, some of the information about class ranking in high school is less relevant.  

Some of the issues are that the strengths of traditional and online universities differ.  According to the article, traditional universities focus on research and promote the expertise of their faculties; online universities focus on teaching and learning support.  (I think that sells both groups short; nearly all traditional universities have units that promote teaching and learning; some online universities focus on research).  

In a related article, Pappano suggests some tips for choosing an online university now—before the ratings are available (Before Signing On: A Checklist, New York Times, November 4, 2011, at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/education/edlife/before-signing-on-a-checklist.html?ref=edlife). 

To get information, speak to someone who “isn’t hawking courses, like a program director” rather than a recruiter.

Check: 

• Course quality (what you’ll learn, assignments, and whether the instructor is qualified to teach the course)
• Educational support—that is, someone who will provide advice on courses and preparing for work after graduation—and do so on a timely basis
• Technical Support—that is, if the technology fails, how quickly will the problem be addressed (some programs only have support during normal business hours; most online students sign onto their courses on weekends and evenings
• Credit transfer, that is, if you decide to switch to another university later in your studies, will they accept your credits
• Accreditation—that is, will anyone recognize your degree?  Most employers and universities only recognize degrees from accredited institutions.  
• Costs, jobs, and other indicators—that is, the likelihood that your degree will translate into a job afterwards, based on the experience of previous graduates 

Caught My Eye: A Plateful of Healthy Eating

For those of you interested in communication about diet and health (especially of the visual kind):  The U.S. government has unveiled the replacement to its food pyramid: a dinner plate.

Both the pyramid and its replacement, the plate, are supposed to provide a visual representation to guide healthy eating.

Given the high levels of obesity in the U.S., the pyramid wasn’t doing its job.  According to the New York Times article, Goodbye Food Pyramid, Hello Dinner Plate,  (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/28/health/nutrition/28plate.html?hp), the pyramid “basically conveys no useful information.”

Originally intended to communicate the building blocks of healthy eating by showing food groups in horizontal bands in roughly some relation to the proportions in which people should eat them, the pyramid was reworked before its first introduction to address concerns by the dairy and meat industries that it under-represented those types of foods (as was the intention).

Later, the proportional horizontal bars were replaced by vertical ones that present all food groups on an equal footing (which diet experts say, they’re not).

The replacement image, a plate, is like a pie chart (the pie reference is not intended as a dietary suggestion) that roughly shows foods in the proportions that people should eat them.

Check it out for yourself.  

As a professional communicator, I empathize with the challenge facing the people who designed the plate: how to clearly convey useful technical information while acknowledging some difficult political choices.