Learning Technologies Magazine has published part 2 of my article Nothing is Written. (For part one, see here.) I continue my exploration of the limits of explicit learning, and take pot shots at the old “conscious competence” model. I squeeze in some inspiration from Monty Python and a story about a milliepede.
The core argument is that training for complex situations needs to be:
designed on the assumption that people are smart and inquisitive, which means avoiding the standard training props and pretending there are explicit answers. And it means training for a network rather than a hierarchy: people can learn from anyone in the network, not relying on a central authority. The trainer is more of a facilitator asking interesting questions but resisting the urge to give the answers. Like the expert tennis player, her answers could be wrong anyway. You want people to be interested, curious and experimental,something that conventional turn-to-page-94-of-your-manual training discourages.
Here’s a pdf of Nothing is Written, Part 2.
