Anyone involved in learning design faces three really tough challenges:

• There are more learning problems around, and they’re more complex. Not long ago, organisations created value and wealth through physical assets like land and machinery. Now, most don’t. They create value through making better use of what goes on inside the heads of their people – through innovating and creating intellectual capital. They do it by learning. Hard data shows this clearly. Look at the ratio of tangible to intangible assets in some of the most valuable organisations, and compare it with 20 years ago. But this poses learning designers a tough challenge. With the world changing so quickly, with value being so tightly connected with learning and knowledge, the kinds of learning problems thrown at learning designers are more complex, less familiar, and they arrive more frequently.
  
• Theories of learning are changing radically. Just as we need to be more certain about how people learn, we appear to be less certain. Beliefs about how people learn have changed drastically over the last 20-30 years. We’ve shifted from mechanistic, industrial views of learning – behaviourism and cognitivism – to more organic, post-industrial views: constructivism and social learning theories. But most of the processes, methodologies and technologies we use are still anchored in the old ways. And it doesn’t help learning designers – practitioners who have to get things done – that practical applications of new theories are often speculative, with mixed results.
  
• Technology has blown our cosy toolkit apart. 10 years ago we had standup training and clunky CBT. We knew where we were. But today the contents of the learning designer’s toolkit are growing exponentially. It’s not just a question of making sure that we understand and exploit new learning methods and technologies (and I’m not going to list some, because by the time you read this I’ll look out of date). Our learners demand that we do, and will ignore us if we don’t.

Ignore or embrace?

A result of the Big Three Challenges is that many existing ways of developing solutions to learning problems – principally the highly structured, purely logical approaches – no longer work. We’re moving from an era of highly structured instructional engineering to one of learning design.

You do have a choice though. In the short term you can choose to refine existing methods, cut costs, improve production methods and processes, and take the money from clients who aren’t measuring the effectiveness of what you’re offering. This is an acceptable short term approach. Until somebody finds you out, or you’re undercut on cost.

But you could also embrace the opportunity that the Big Three Challenges present, and look for new solutions to the new learning problems we face. This will be more sustainable, more lucrative – and more fun.

Can analysis and logic exploit the opportunity?

In a word – no. There’s plenty of research that shows conscious, step-by-step, logical processes have never been very good at dealing with particular types of problem. Some problems are difficult to pin down, to state comprehensively. Some problems involve a lot of subjective interpretation.

Such problems – what David Jonassen calls “design problems” – tend to have many variables and constraints, some of which aren’t known, at least to start with. So, for example, it may not be clear whether a particular performance problem is down to inadequate knowledge, lack of motivation, inappropriate lighting, management style, out-dated technology or a thousand other closely inter-related issues. And you may not find out much more until you’ve started formulating a solution, and sharing it with those who have the problem. With this kind of problem, logical analysis can be unwieldy and deceptive. You may have to go by gut feel – intuition.

Such problems also have many potential solutions, none of which can be easily evaluated objectively. For example, was a particular interface style the best one to use, or was it the information chunking or the model of excellent performance that really nailed the learning issue? How can we objectively prove that the choices made were the best ones?

Finally, such problems tend to involve processes that may change substantially as the nature of the problem is fully understood. As the process evolves, it may have to be changed – perhaps fundamentally – to accommodate new insights.

 Of course, once you’ve got to a solution, logic can be extremely useful in explaining why it works. But logic and analysis is often unable to arrive at that solution in the first place. With some types of problem – design problems – logical analysis is a one way street, and you’re starting at the wrong end.

What’s needed?

So if logic and analysis alone are not enough to exploit the opportunity presented by the Big Three Challenges, what can an organisation do instead?

• Encourage learning designers to adopt inquisitive, exploratory approaches that challenge assumptions and existing ways of doing things.
• Encourage learning designers to keep their minds open to new experiences, technologies, approaches, and the ever-changing needs of learners.
• Create stimulating, risk-taking, supportive cultures and environments that allow creativity to emerge.
• Support learning designers to deepen their knowledge of new developments in learning theory and learning design theory; remember – true creativity is based on expertise.

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