Thank you, 2017

This has been a good year. Not all good, of course. Everyone's life has enough pain to keep it real and mine is no different. My most favorite kitty, Cleo, left this world and many months later, I still look for her in the bay window in my office. I used to squeeze three cat beds into the window and now there are two. :-( 

Redd (Minnie's brother) has taken Cleo's place on my lap. But he refuses to let me read on the couch. I can watch television there, as long as I have a certain blanket on my lap that he likes to lay on. But no reading. Books evidently distract me too much from my petting duties. The cover of the book on attention and technology that I'm currently reading has teeth marks in it.

Cleo

Redd and Minnie

There have been other problems, but I've learned (lately) that sometimes you just need to sit with them and let them be. I'm a doer and that's truly hard. But often, problems are opportunities to see how much you have and what you don't have that you don't want.

I've been thinking a lot about where I was last year at this time. Many people know I have chronic migraines and they're not easy to live with. I didn't realize until recently that migraines can actually do damage to your brain. Nothing I'd done in the last thirty years had really improved the situation, and the pain and other effects became more frequent. The drugs had pretty horrible side effects as well.

This year, in desperation, I started Angela Stanton's migraine protocol (her book is on Amazon). Nothing else worked well so my expectations were low. But only two to three months later, my migraines have lessened by by 90% (and I believe they will be gone, eventually). I am slowly reducing my meds and feel better than I have in years.

Two years ago, I started writing two evidence-based training books. My first efforts were not loved (by any means) by the people who agreed to review them. I was depressed at my results. But after a few months, as my brain subconsciously worked on solutions to the problems the reviewers described, I thought of how to not only start again, but do it better. The result has been two books (so far) that people have valued. As a result, I'm going to start on the next two in 2018.

I have deep gratitude to the early reviewers, who planted the seeds of more valuable efforts. It's not always fun to learn you're on the wrong track. But if you push through, you can learn a great deal from failure. Especially if you're open to what you don't (yet) see.

Most years, there is a song that fits the year (for me). This year it's Happy People by the country-pop group, Little Big Town. Here's the youtube video. (Hope it makes you smile.) My two favorite lines:
Happy people don't fail
Happy people just learn

Thank you for reading what I write, telling me where I need to do a better job, and giving me the opportunity to do just that. I hope your 2017 was also a chance to grow and learn and see what is absolutely terrific. I think that's the key to sanity.

L&D's fake news

L&D has its own version of fake news: fads, made-up theories (and how to implement) in conflict with what research or science says, and people selling ideas using devious means. I just had the latter happen. Just had an email sent to me that said the following (copied directly from the email):

Hi Patti

Just wanted to let you know we featured you in our recent post: 
Why Employers Should Consider Multiple Learning Styles in Their Training Processes
https://www.bobtheba.com/blog/20171128/why-employers-should-consider-multiple-learning-styles-in-their-training-processes.

Someone used me to push learning styles for training? Noooooooooo.  As you likely know, the research is clear that learning styles aren't "a thing." (See Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence by Harold Pashler, Mark McDaniel, Doug Rohrer, and Robert Bjork to learn more.) Like so many ideas in training, it's based on people trying to make money off of the less knowledgeable or made-up insights that have nothing to do with what the research says. In fact, research shows that quite often, what is best for people for learning is the opposite of what they prefer. And this makes sense as isn't what's best for you nutritionally the opposite of what you love to snack on?

I get why they used my name. People are likely to tweet or tell others about articles that include their name. See, I just did! I hope I don't see my name associated with an article about neuroscience and learning.

No, we AREN'T learning a lot from neuroscience that we can use in learning. It's cognitive science, not neuroscience that most of these people are talking about. But calling it Neuroscience or Brain Science gives it the woo-woo factor. Except it's a lie. John Medina, the author of Brain Rules tells us we simply don't know much yet from neuroscience we can use. The research that might help us understand how neurons impact learning (fMRI studies) have been recently have been called into question for having software that creates errors.

What sciences can we count on to tell us what works? Here's a short list to start (there are many others).
Attention science
Cognitive science
Reading comprehension
Education psychology
Behavioral psychology
Information design
Usability

I'm annoyed that L&D practitioners buy the crap that others (including our own practitioners) put out there to part you from your money and gain recognition for their efforts. You must learn to tell truth from lies in order to do what's needed for good training results. But that's a good thing. Thinking for yourself is always a good thing.

I asked the company that sent that email to take me out of the article. Will let you know if that happens.

Evidence-based vs science-based. Is there a difference? (Yep. And it matters.)

As many of you know, I have chronic migraines. Science shows that they aren't headaches. Rather, they're a neurological condition and extreme pain is one (of many) possible symptoms. But most treatments mainly deal with preventing or stopping the debilitating pain. Is that good or bad?

Angela Stanton, PhD, is a science researcher and writer. Her insights about what migraines are, what causes them, and what's needed to live with them are radically different than what we are hearing from most evidence-based medicine. Angela analyzes what science from various fields (neuroscience, nutrition, and others) have to tell us about what could be most helpful going forward.

My own experience with her protocol for migraineurs has been positive and I plan to keep using it. Evidence-based practice for migraine has had little success, according to Angela. I might have to agree. My migraines have gotten worse over time and the treatments are sometimes (almost) as bad as the condition. Evidence-based practice in training, however, has provided great tools for better outcomes. So evidence-based practice is needed when it is effective.

Evidence-based practice is a hallmark of professionalism in any field. It means what you do has been shown to be effective based on well-designed research. No matter what the field, doing what research says is effective typically makes sense.

But there is a gap in evidence-based practice. Science regularly offers new, different-than-expected, and inconclusive insights. There are tons of examples of this in the field of nutrition, for example. Consider the foods and diets we're told are good but are subsequently were found to be problematic. Soy is a good example. Or the foods and diets we're told are bad for us that were subsequently found to be good (eggs, for example). Evidence-based practice is based on what we already know. But science evolves and changes.

Because science is evolving and changing, we need to go beyond evidence-based practice. Science-based practice goes beyond existing evidence to what we are learning from new research and science efforts. Science-based practice is difficult. It means putting together pieces from different studies and making sense of things that don't seem to make sense on their own. It can mean combining cross-domain knowledge (such as learning and usability). It means new theories (based on emerging science) and new things to test (with research).

In my two recent books, Write and Organize for Deeper Learning and Practice and Feedback for Deeper Learning, I selected tactics primarily based on current evidence. There are places, however, where research is not so clear. I analyzed emerging research as well as existing evidence. But since most learning research is not done with a training audience, it took time to find the right research. Schooling and higher education have very different goals than training. Research in these environments doesn't always apply.

Which is better, evidence-based or science-based? We need them both.

Saved by a PDF (The easy way to do complex Kindle formats)

When I prepared my first Kindle version of Write and Organize for Deeper Learning, I spent days trying to format the document so it would look good on Kindle. Amazon's Create Space lets you upload a Kindle document and see how it appears on a Kindle emulator. When doing this, it became clear that weird bullets (like a checked checkbox) didn't translate. So I kept making changes, checking them on the emulator, and fixing anything that didn't look good.
But the emulator can't show you what your document will look like on different sized screens. Since the Kindle app can be loaded onto smartphones, tablets, and other devices, people can view Kindle books on a screen that ranges from small to large. And therein lies the problem. A table or detailed image that looks good on a computer screen Kindle app may look terrible on a smartphone Kindle app. And mine did. Because my books are filled with tables and complex images, I needed another approach. Some people recommended making my tables into images and I tried that. But it wasn't a good work-around, in my opinion.
I didn't know what to do about this so I reached out to Diane Elkins, the author of the E-Learning Uncovered books. And she told me to try the Kindle Textbook Creator. It turns a PDF into a Kindle document. Using reflowable text and images simply doesn't work well with very complex formatting. At least today.
When you buy a Kindle that says: [Print Replica] they used the Kindle Textbook Creator. The Kindle doc is formatted EXACTLY as your book is formatted.

Readability and Instructional Writing

Readability Statistics in Microsoft Word

In my book Write and Organize for Deeper Learning, I discuss how to make instructional writing easier for people to understand, remember, and apply. One of the first steps is making sure your content is readable by the people reading or hearing it. We communicate a great deal in instruction through writing. We use the written word to build information, support materials, scripts for audio and video, and more.

But what if how you write actually gets in the way of communicating clearly? The answer to this dilemma is readability. Readability is a score given to text that tells you how easy it is to understand. It's not the end-all of determining clarity but it's a needed first step.

According to usability expert Jakob Nielson: "Users won’t read web content unless the text is clear, the words and sentences are simple, and the information is easy to understand." Instructional content is similar. When people are frustrated, they will skim or ignore what we write.

I write about how to test readability in my book (Microsoft Word will calculate readability for you > Look under Word Options) and the steps needed to make content more readable. Here are two of the steps:

• Use simpler and more understandable words. 
• Break apart long sentences into shorter sentences. 

Recently, I've run across some good readability resources and wanted to share them.

• Nielsen Norman Group Legibility, Readability, and Comprehension: Making Users Read Your Words: A clear discussion of the importance of usability.
• Readability.io: Explains readability, the types of scores, and how to use them. 
• MakeUseOf  8 Readability Web Tools to Test Your Writing Quality: List of online tools you can use to test readability

Knowing your audience, calculating readability scores, and writing for the needs of your audience are ways to make your instruction more learnable, better for remembering, and application.

No! No. Background. Music.

https://www.pattishank.com/videos

<-- I started building a series of explainer videos this week on the most critical concepts in my Make It Learnable series of books. The first one is on learnability and readability in instructional materials and how they impact learning outcomes. I want to help people understand the importance of evidence-based concepts in building good instruction.

I tried out a number of explainer video applications (or applications that could be used for this purpose) and too many had fatal flaws. I wanted to use Camtasia as I have the application and love its ease of use. But I couldn't get the audio to work right. After two days of trying and working through help files (noting that others had similar problems), I gave up. But I'd like to use it again if I can figure out how to get the audio working.

I looked at other tools and tried them, but most had even larger fatal flaws. The one that worked immediately was Powtoon. There is a serious flaw: No ability to input a transcript for those who cannot hear the video. I'm looking for a workaround. (Let me know if you have one.)

When I bought Powtoon, I had to decide which upgrade to purchase. The higher versions had more objects, backgrounds, and background music. But background music should typically NOT be used in instructional video. The reason is easy to understand and quite clear. Added music makes attending to the important messages on the screen more difficult. In other words, it adds extraneous (harmful) cognitive load.

When people are learning, their mind has to select the important messages from what is shown and mix them with what they know to make meaning. This is. Hard. Work. Adding extraneous (extra) messages, images, and music makes this even harder.  We absolutely should not do anything to make understanding harder.

You shouldn't use background music unless your lesson is about background music. If you want to understand cognitive load better, consider reading Write and Organize for Deeper Learning or Practice and Feedback for Deeper Learning.

The next book in the Make It Learnable series?

I told myself I'd take some time off after completing Practice and Feedback for Deeper Learning. And I am. Sort of. I'm getting other work done and spending time gathering research on two topics for upcoming books:

• What we as L&D practitioners and organizations as a whole must do to support learning and skill building in our organizations
• The tactics that work best for training people in hard(er) skills

Research shows that if we train but don't do what's needed to support learning and skill development, far less learning and skill development occurs. I think many practitioners and especially organizations are confused about this. It's about aligning the myriad things that must be in place. 

For example, if we train people to take initiative with handling customer problems to make sure that customer problems get handled quickly but managers give staff a hard time if they handle a problem that technically belongs to another department, what was trained will fail. Mirjam Neelen and I are working out what to include in the book and are likely to write this one together as it's of interest to us both.

Research also shows that many job skills are becoming more challenging and less stable. Easy(er) and more repetitive work is being taken over my computers and in many cases, AI. But training more complex work like repetitive work doesn't work. What does? And how do we help people learn these types of jobs and tasks in an environment when these skills are changeable? Research has some very good answers, which I think is terrific news.

I also get requests for training on good multiple choice question development and plan to write a book on this topic. Tell me what you think of these topics. I write for readers and most certainly want to write what you need to learn about. Thank you so much for reading my books!