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Schank, Roger (1997). Virtual learning: A revolutionary approach to building a highly-skilled workforce.  New-York:  McGraw-Hill.

SUMMARY: in a word, simulation.  Whether by computer or in person, Schank believes that most training should consist of practicing a situation, failing at it, modifying your behavior, and keeping at it until your performance improves.

INTRODUCTION

Incompetence is everywhere.  Despite the fact the most workers receive “training”, mistakes abound.  Why?  Several reasons:

• the world is more complex and technologically-oriented than it used to be
• too much management “knowledge” and not enough management practice.  As great as the latest “management by buzzwords” theory is, understanding it conceptually and applying it effectively in your organization are two different things.
• the “decline and fall of customer service”: over-reliance on paint-by-numbers “scripts” for training has led to a decline in people being able to actually think to solve problems.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH TRAINING?                              

It’s just like school.   That is, most school isn’t about learning, it’s about short-term memorization, not about helping people acquire practical skills.

The GOOD news is that most organizations harbor experts who possess priceless knowledge.  The task is how to teach it to others.

RULE: When learning isn’t fun, it’s not learning.

THE ANSWER: SIMULATIONS

“Learning-by-doing is easier said than done. John Dewey recognized this way back in 1916 when he noted that schools insist on telling students what they need to learn despite research clearly demonstrating that learning by telling doesn’t work and learning by doing does.” p.15

THE THREE BIG TRAINING FEARS (I.E., WHY DON’T MORE PEOPLE TRAIN WITH SIMULATIONS?)

1) It will take too long and cost too much: the old way has had time to be quantified; new ways are uncertain.

2) Its not effective (conventional training, that is): many training departments are second-class citizens whose people aren’t respected, and CEOs sacrifice long-term knowledge gains for short-term profits.

3) It can’t be measured: compared with  the old school-based testing system, real-world learning is harder to measure.

FAILURE IS GOOD

Schank believes failure has gotten a bad rap.  He pooh-poohs  the ideas that people shouldn’t fail or that training programs shouldn’t include failure.  He says “real thinking never starts until the learner fails.”  However, people hate public, humiliating failure.  We should strive to let them fail in private or create an atmosphere where temporary failures are accepted.

BUT SO IS SUPPORT

In using the computer-based training that Schank advocates, chances are, trainees will fail at least some of the time.  When they do, there should be:

• a video-based “coach”
• “war stories” of similar problems that get “told” when errors are made
• an EPSS system that guides them through a task
• a description of the relevant theoretical model
• online documentation

QUOTE: “Never leave people alone and resource-less with their failures.”

MORE ON FAILURE

• “failing in interesting ways should be a goal of training”
• failure should be in private, if possible
• failure produces “teachable moments”; if possible, have your “expert" appear just after they fail.

SCHANK’S RULES FOR TRAINING

1. People remember what they feel the most: use games, simulations and other techniques that engender emotion.

2. Dumb employees aren’t born; they’re made: by bureaucracies that give them lockstep training but don’t give them simulations or training on what to do when confronted with novel situations.

3. Deliver training just in time (or when a learner has just failed and really needs help): in other words, use EPSS.

4. You can fail to learn just about anything: training is full of silly fads.  To learn to be a better executive, you don’t need wilderness survival training, you need practice making tough executive decisions.

5. Learners will teach themselves better than the world’s best trainer or highest-paid motivational speaker.  Give people simulations and let them make mistakes, find and diagnose mistakes, and pick better courses of action.  Teachers aren’t as important to the learning process in corporations as they’d like to think.

6. Memorizing without corresponding experience is worthless: if you stress memorization, back it up with practice.

7. When a company buys a learning system, it should come with options:  Schank doesn’t believe people have different learning styles, but does believe they have different personalities; therefore, training systems should have options that appeal to different personalities.

8. Training should open with a bang: before the “what you’ll learn” part, GRAB ‘em!

9. Trainees should be learning from the world’s best: capture the performance of experts and construct simulations.

10.  It’s better to train the many than the few (Bob’s note: it’s like the 80/20 rule---get the most bang for the buck by improving performance on the 20% of tasks that make up 80% of everyone’s workday).

AN EXAMPLE: SOFTWARE TRAINING FOR CONSULTANTS

SEGMENT ONE: ZED’S DINER

This is a software program designed to teach consultants to improve by using “requirements analysis modeling”.  It uses the fictitious example of an alien who wants to set up an earth-style restaurant in his own galaxy.  Consultants write the rules for waitresses, then view video that implements their rules.  But since people almost always leave out important details, the video will be wrong!  It takes several iterations to get it right.

Why does this work?  It’s immediately involving, failure is inevitable, and the result motivates people to learn.

SEGMENT TWO: S&O CLIENT MEETING

An introductory video segment presents a client describing S&O’s problem.  In this simulated consultant project, 90% of the work has been done---but the remaining 10% contains 17 different problems (ranging from easy to difficult) to solve.  Consultants have two days to complete the exercise.

SEGMENT THREE: STOCK TRACKING SYSTEM

This one is closest to reality:  you’re working in pairs on a client’s stock tracking system.  If it breaks, you get a tongue-lashing from the client.  The client’s workplace is full of emotion and the video clips show that not everyone is willing or able to help you.  Trainees probably WILL crash the system the first time, because a critical piece of information isn’t mentioned in the simulation.

OTHER EXAMPLES: TARGET AND BENNIGANS

Their training for Target Customer Service personnel and Bennigan’s bartenders is full of “real-world” interactions with videotaped “customers”.  Besides teaching correct procedures, they can also spur employees to gain new knowledge.  For example, Bennigan’s video “customers” ask questions about their 300+ beers (e.g, “what is a pilsner?”) that bartenders can’t answer, and the failure motivates them to know the answer next time.

STEPS IN CREATING SIMULATIONS

1) Meet with prospective client

2) Obtain client buy-in

3) Pick a skill

4) Conduct interviews

a) be specific

b) get into the other person’s “indexing scheme” (how they store and label stories); use their language.

c) acquire some domain knowledge before the interview

d) relate questions to likely failures

e) throw in a question that compares apples to oranges.

f) help them to relax

5) Script the simulation

• Remember to include likely failures, but make them interesting failures and not too many of them (i.e., don’t make the person fail all of the time or even most of the time).
• Create dramatic and interesting scenarios
• Be willing to edit
• Consider a sequel (i.e., be modular)
• Get the stars to set on time (in other words, get experts to buy in and participate).

ADVICE ON CREATING SIMULATIONS

• Develop a detailed project scenario
• Create scenarios with failure in mind: surveys solicit data and stories about common mistakes
• Motivate learners with a compelling goal
• Use credible actors to play roles in the simulations
• Monitor, provide feedback to, and tinker with the scenarios

TOOLS FOR SIMULATIONS

1) ASK: these help systems allow users to ask questions of “experts” and receive text and video answers.

2) MOP-ED: used for “hard skill” procedural-type training

3) GuSS: Guided Social Simulation is used for “soft” skills training

HOW PEOPLE WILL LEARN IN THE FUTURE

• companies will buy pre-packaged software that can be modified to fit their unique needs .
• the trainer’s role will change: they “bring training to people instead of bringing people to training” .
• better-trained, more motivated entry-level people: individuals will have access to the same kinds of training that corporations do, and be able to “try” jobs before they “buy” jobs--thus they’ll have a better sense of what a given job actually entails .
• simulations will get better; the best will be virtual workplaces with completely believable encounters.

  Two interesting terms:

• “Expectation-based failure”: “For learning to take place, there has to be expectation failure.  In other words, an employee expects to make a sale but it falls through; he expects a new process to save money but it doesn’t; he expects to meet a deadline but misses the target date…Real thinking never starts until the learner fails.  It is easy to recognize their expectation failures because people insist on explaining them.” p.31 
• “Just-in-time storytelling”