Clark Quinn

JUNE 7, 2022

We interrupt your usual blog fodder with this commercial announcement. Our programming will resume after this break: Ok, well, there actually is some shame. I don’t usually do this, but I don’t think it’s unjustified (and I’m excited). My next book is now out ! In fact, it’s in my mitts. Obviously, it can be in yours, too.

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DevLearn Conference Instructional Instruction 219

Clark Quinn

MAY 31, 2022

One of the things I talk about in my most recent book , Make It Meaningful , is the importance of communicating the WIIFM (What’s In It For Me). I do think it’s important, but in recent work I’ve found an interesting alternative. I’m not sure I completely have my mind around how to address it, so as I’m wont to do, here’s some ‘thinking out loud’ about What’s In It For Them (WIIFT).

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Learner Alternatives Suite Communication 195

Clark Quinn

APRIL 5, 2022

Not surprisingly, I am prompted regularly to ponder new things. (Too often, in the wee hours of the morning…) In this case, I realize I haven’t given a lot of thought to the role of confidence (PDF). It’s a big think in the system my co-author on an AI and ID paper , Markus Bernhardt, represents, so I realized it’s time to think about it some more.

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Clark Quinn

FEBRUARY 15, 2022

Recently, a colleague asked a few of us about our views on critical thinking skills. This is actually a contentious topic. There are broad claims of the need for them, increasingly, even showing up in job advertisements. On the other hand, researchers and others have weighed in against them, saying that expertise is the only lever. I tend to lump critical thinking skills in with the broader issue of generic thinking skills, so what are the issues?

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Clark Quinn

FEBRUARY 8, 2022

As occasionally happens, I was asked a question on LinkedIn. In this case, it was about my thoughts on accreditation. Also, as occasionally happens, I thought that I’d share my thoughts in this forum, and look for feedback to improve my thinking. So here’re some thoughts on accreditation. I welcome yours! First, let’s be clear, I am not an expert on accreditation.

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Pedagogy Quality Course Forum 243

Clark Quinn

JANUARY 25, 2022

I was in contact with a person about a potential book, and she followed up with an interesting question: what’s the vision I have for publishing ? She was looking for what I thought was a good book. Of course, I hadn’t really articulated it! I responded, but thought I should share my thinking with you as well. In particular, to get your thoughts!

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Clark Quinn

JANUARY 11, 2022

On LinkedIn recently, a survey in a post asked whether L&D should simply become performance consulting (Y/N). In the ensuing discussion, a comment was made that the binary discussion was flawed, and that a richer picture was possible. I was extremely pleased when she referred to my Revolutionize Learning & Development book , and posted a diagram from it.

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Performance Support Performance Mobile Informal Learning 282

Clark Quinn

NOVEMBER 23, 2021

I’ve long maintained that our organizational practices are too often misaligned with how our brains really work. I’ve attributed that to a legacy from previous eras. Yet, I realize that there may be another legacy, a cognitive one. Here I’ll suggest we need to move beyond Industrial Age thinking. The premise comes from business. We transitioned from a largely agricultural economy to a manufacturing economy, of goods and services.

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Cognitive Industry Brain Theory 296

Clark Quinn

NOVEMBER 9, 2021

Already this year I’ve done, in addition to podcasts and webinars, The L&D Conference, ATD ICE, and DevLearn. What else? Coming up before the end of the year are a couple more things. So here’s “where’s Clark this time?” First up is the ATD Core 4 conference in Nashville Nov 15 & 16. There’s a real all star lineup in the concurrent sessions.

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Clark Quinn

SEPTEMBER 28, 2021

I’ve addressed ethics elsewhere , but I’m looking at it a different way now. I”m thinking from the perspective of situated cognition, and recognizing that there are certain things we can do. For better or worse. Further, these choices have ramifications beyond the initial impact. I think we need to be aware of the possibilities, and then consider the meta-ethics of learning design.

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Clark Quinn

JUNE 15, 2021

Learning, I suggest, is action and reflection. (And instruction should be designed action and guided reflection.) What that action typically ends up being is some sort of exploration (aka experimentation). Thus, in my mind, exploration is a critical concept for learning. That makes it worth exploring exploration. In learning, we must experiment (e.g. act) and observe and reflect on the outcomes.

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Clark Quinn

JUNE 3, 2021

As I’ve been developing online workshops, I’ve been thinking more about the type of assessment I want. Previously, I made the case for gated submissions. Now I find another type of interaction I’d like to have. So here’s the case for model answers (and a rubric). As context, many moons ago we developed a course on speaking to the media. This was based upon the excellent work of the principals of Media Skills, and was a case study in my Engaging Learning book.

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Clark Quinn

MAY 25, 2021

I was asked a somewhat challenging question the other day, and it led me to reflect. As usual, I’m sharing that with you. The question was “How can IDs keep up with everything, feel competent and confident in our work?” It’s not a trivial question! So I’ll share my response to overworked IDs. There was considerable context behind the question. My interlocutor weighed in with her tasks: .

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eLearning Tools eLearning DevLearn Rapid eLearning 276

Clark Quinn

APRIL 27, 2021

As has become a pattern, someone recently asked me how to evaluate soft skills. And without being an expert on soft skill or evaluation, I tried to answer on principle. So I thought about the types of observable data you should expect to find. And that yielded an initial answer. Then I watched an interesting video of a lecture by a scholar and consultant, and it elaborated the challenges.

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Evalution Skills xapi Lecture 210

Clark Quinn

MARCH 23, 2021

As much as writing books is something I do (and I’m immodestly proud of the outcomes), they don’t always come out the way I expect. And that turns out to be true for almost every one! So here, for the record and hopefully as both mea culpas and lessons learned, are my book hiccups. And you really don’t have to read this, unless you want some things to check for.

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Instructional Design Outsource Picture Brain 238

Clark Quinn

MARCH 16, 2021

I’d cued up a topic for a post, and then a conversation with a friend and colleague moved it to the front of the queue. We were talking about our process, and he pointed me to an article that nicely catalyzed my thinking. So here’s a brief post about how I write my books (written, of course). The article my friend pointed me to was titled: “The Simple Way To Outline A Nonfiction Book”, and it’s nicely resonant, and a bit deeper, than my own approach.

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Google Docs Templates Instructional Design Doc 216

Clark Quinn

MARCH 9, 2021

Sparked by a conversation, I generate some animation thoughts. And, as always, a transcript. In a conversation the other day, my colleague mentioned how she was making a practice of creating animations. I found this interesting, because while I think animations are important, I don’t do them all that much (or so I thought). Particularly intriguing was the notion of what principles might guide animations, including when to use them.

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Cognitive eLearning Tools PowerPoint Audio 218

Clark Quinn

FEBRUARY 2, 2021

This is the second of four posts where I’m talking about the next step beyond trivial engagement. Here I talk about some tips ‘n’ tricks that help us take our learning designs deeper in meaning. And, as always, the text. This is the second post about how to ‘make it meaningful ’. I talked about some tricks to maintain engagement in the previous one, and here I want to talk about what this means for the elements of learning.

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Tips Learner Culture Course 205

Clark Quinn

JANUARY 13, 2021

Just as I did an update on my books , it’s time to also let you know about some workshop opportunities. Together, I think they create a coherent whole. They’re scattered around a bit, so here I lay out how they fit together, how they’re run, what they cover, and how you can find them. They’re not free, but they’re reasonably priced, with reputable organizations.

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Cognitive Mobile Course Performance Support 187

Clark Quinn

OCTOBER 27, 2020

I’ve talked before about the power of ritual, but while powerful, it also seemed piecemeal. That is, there were lots of hints, but not a coherent theory. That has now changed. I recently found a paper by Nicholas Hobson & colleagues (Schroeder, Risen, Xylagatas, & Inzlicht; warning, PDF) titled The Psychology of Rituals that creates an integrated framework.

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Theory PDF Communities of Practice Course 218

Clark Quinn

AUGUST 25, 2020

A person who I find quite insightful (and occasionally inciteful ;) is Donald Clark. He built and sold Epic, an elearning company, and now he leads a learning AI company, Wildfire. He’s knowledgeable (for instance, having read up and summarized centuries of learning theorists), willing to call out bad learning, and he’s funny. And so, when he reported on a new study, I of course looked into it.

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Diversity Training Research Learning eLearning Tools 219

Clark Quinn

AUGUST 19, 2020

In a perfect world, we’d spend all the time we want on learning. However, we don’t live in that world, we live in the real world. Which means our decisions are about tradeoffs. Which means we have to evaluate the case for paying attention to research. So here’s a stab at the case for learning science. Learning is a probabilistic game.

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Learning Learner Design Brain 309

Clark Quinn

JULY 28, 2020

If I’m going to rail against myths in learning, it makes sense to be clear about what learning design without myths looks like. Let me lay out a little of what mythless learning design is, or should be. Learning with myths manifests in many ways. Redundant development to accommodate learning styles, or generations. Shortened to be appropriate for millennials or the attention span of a goldfish.

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Design Learning Cognitive Metrics 245

Clark Quinn

JULY 8, 2020

I reported about a conversation on LinkedIn badly defending learning styles. And, the subsequent post came out. Sad to say, it doesn’t do anything better, and instead is yet another bad example of reasoning. It’s a ‘collective mind losing’ redux! So it starts out saying that those of us who decry learning styles maintain that they don’t exist. That’s not exactly what I said, at any rate.

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Clark Quinn

APRIL 28, 2020

We live in interesting times. And, of course, that means many things have changed. Some for the worse, some for the better. I thought I’d just overview some of ways I’m adapting to change, so you can keep track and take advantage. I was scheduled to do a number of things. One that wasn’t on the list was a trip to Brazil in May, also to give a talk (at least).

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Change Case Study Course Conference 202

Clark Quinn

DECEMBER 3, 2019

In my book Engaging Learning , I had a suite of elements for both effective education practice and engaging experiences. Of course, the point was that they perfectly aligned. However, I’m unpacking a couple of them, and I thought it’d be helpful to ensure that I am clear about them, and so that you are too. So I’m unpacking some nuances in two different groups of elements.

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Clark Quinn

OCTOBER 25, 2019

Kate O’Neill closed the DevLearn conference with a keynote on tech humanism. With a humorous but insightful presentation, she inspired us to strive for good. The post Kate O’Neill #DevLearn Keynote Mindmap appeared first on Learnlets.

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DevLearn Conference 100

Clark Quinn

SEPTEMBER 10, 2019

Occasionally I try to look at the broader swings we see (in a variety of things). In learning technology, there’s been a gross pendulum swing, and maybe smaller ones. I think we’ve swung between craft and commercial approaches to design, and I’m hoping we’re on a return swing. When we first started playing with learning technology, every approach was pretty much hand-crafted.

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Clark Quinn

AUGUST 9, 2019

I was thinking about my next directions, and it led to me to think a bit about my foundations. And I realized I’ve been very lucky (and I’m grateful). I’ve had good parents, mentors, colleagues, and friends. But I’ve also had some fortunate timings, and it’s worth reflecting how I’ve been lucky on foundations upon which to build.

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Clark Quinn

MAY 9, 2019

Ok, so I’m being provocative with the title, since I’m not advocating the overthrow of training. The main idea is that a new area for L&D is facilitation. However, this concept also updates training. It’s part of what I was arguing when I suggested that the new term for L&D should be P&D, Performance & Development. So let’s start with that.

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Clark Quinn

MARCH 20, 2019

I was on a phone conversation and was asked whether I compared my clients against others in the business to help them figure out where they’re at. E.g. do I offer my partners the chance to benchmark. And after a bit of thought, I said that no, I didn’t, and explained why. Moreover, they found my answer intriguing, so I thought I’d share it with you.

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Metrics Instructional Design Performance Support Instructional 146

Clark Quinn

JANUARY 29, 2019

I was listening in to a webinar on trends in higher education. The speakers had been looking at different higher ed pedagogy models, within and external to institutions. It became clear that there was a significant gap between a focus on meeting corporate needs and the original goals of education. Naturally, it got me to think, and one link was, not surprisingly, wisdom.

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Instructional Instruction Pedagogy Embed 151

Clark Quinn

DECEMBER 26, 2018

Someone on Quora asked me about the instructor role: How would the role of a teacher change in this modern online learning world? While I posted an answer there, I thought I’d post it here too: I see two major roles in that of the ‘teacher’: the designer of learning experiences (pre), and the facilitator of same (during/post). I think the design changes by returning to natural learning approaches, an apprenticeship model (c.f.

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Design Cognitive Learner Roles 154

Clark Quinn

DECEMBER 5, 2018

I’m obviously a fan of innovation, and experimentation is a big component of innovation. However, I fear I haven’t really talked about the specifics. The details matter, because there are smart, and silly, ways to experiment. I thought I’d take a stab at laying out the specifics of experimentation. First, you have to know what question you’re trying to answer.

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Portal Social Media Performance Support Lesson 124

Clark Quinn

NOVEMBER 21, 2018

It’s already started! Like Christmas (which morally shouldn’t be even be thought about before Thanksgiving), requests for next year’s trends should be on hold until at least December. Still, a request came in for my thoughts. Rather than send them off and await their emergence; I toss them out here, with a caveat: “It’s tough to make predictions, particularly about the future.” 1.

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Trends Cognitive Social Networks Metrics 169

Clark Quinn

NOVEMBER 14, 2018

I read, again and again, about the importance of ‘content’ in learning. And I don’t disagree, but…I think there’s still a problem about it. And where I get concerned is about what is meant by the term. Just what do mean by ‘content’? And why should we care about the distinction? My worry is twofold. For one, I get concerned that talking about content foregrounds ‘information’ And that’s a problem.

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Content Learning Objects Learning Objectives Interactive 140

Clark Quinn

OCTOBER 31, 2018

Many years ago, I met a guy who worked for Apple. They were allowed to have their own job titles, and his was “Intellectrician” I thought that was a very nice turn of phrase. And, as I just ordered new business cards, I put Intellectricity as the tagline instead of “Learning & Performance Strategy” or other permutations with Technology and such in the title.

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