The Goals of Learning

Written by David Charney
Posted: April 14, 2008 (4 months, 2 weeks ago) | 0 comments

I was doing some research on several learning and training applications that are out there and I started to realize most of them are quite boring. I try to focus but my mind keeps wandering. I would much rather drink my Diet Mountain Dew and ponder what might be causing the strange beeping sound I keep hearing in a distant room. Many of these solutions say they are powerful eLearning applications but all they seem to be doing is shoving text, videos and some multiple choice questions down my throat. Some use words like “interactive” to market their solutions but all this seems to mean is that you can drag and drop the correct word into the blank during one of a series of quizzes and tests. Yawn.

At Illumen, we spend a lot of time developing cognitive learning challenges that use motivating scenarios in subject driven environments to educate the audience. The words educate and learning are important here. The goal to learning is not just in memorization but in understanding and retaining information so it can be applied.

I will get into the topic of motivating experiences in another article. Right now I want to focus on the end goal of a learning solution.

1. Develop the State of Mind
Our ability to think tends to be based on our experiences. Don’t just push facts in our faces, give us scenarios, explain processes, drive our minds to think the way they should on each given topic.

2. Develop Problem Solving Skills
Parallel to the development of our state of minds, being able to use our thought processes to make decisions on each given topic separates us from those that know facts to those that can solve problems.

3. Develop Experience
Being able to to have a strong state of mind and the ability to problem solve stems from experience. Experience stems from the state of mind and ability to problem solve.

I will get into examples in coming articles. For now we must keep open minds and, dare I say it, think outside the box when it comes to these solutions. Speaking of “outside the box”… I figured out what that distant beeping was. Here I assumed it was digital. It turns out it is from a baseball hitting an aluminum bat during a little league game not far from here. Ding! Time to break out the headphones.