EP 023: L&D Myths

Instructional Redesign Podcast

Myths in Learning and Development There are many pervasive myths in the field of learning and development. Despite most being disproved, some continue to be promoted as fact. Some are even dangerously counter-productive to learning. In this episode, Cara and Joe discuss some of these common myths and share their perspectives. Connect with Cara & Joe Support the show Music created by Jahzzar. Show Transcript: North, Cara A. 0:01 They tickle our imagination. They invite others to make their own. They even create community around those who appreciate them. So why is it that myths in learning and development space aren't as beloved as tall tales, folklore and pop culture? Well, the answer is quite simply that they are dangerous to the profession that many of us love. Welcome to the Instructional ReDesign Podcast, stories and conversations about the modern learning experience. Suarez, Joseph 0:30 Is that the right one, about designing? North, Cara A. 0:42 I'm Cara North and today Joe and I are going to dive headfirst into some of these pervasive myths and explore their origins and what can be done to slay them. Now want to start with one that I kind of fell across in 2014 when I took a graduate class called adult learning. Now you have to remember, this was my first graduate class in the master's program, and I was eager to learn all about it. Now, about halfway through the course, I learned about a gentleman named Malcolm Knowles, who explained this term called andragogy. And andragogy is essentially kind of like the opposite of pedagogy. Andragogy is about how adults learn. And for him, this breakthrough was kind of again about that the adults do learn differently from children. Now, he used this approach of self directed learning. And he said that that was kind of the way that you should implement andragogy. He helped groups of students kind of take responsibility for their learning, they were able to be a part of the subject matter for the course. And he kind of had these four principles of andragogy that I just want to touch on really quick. So the first is basically that the adult learner needs to be involved. So they need to be involved somehow and kind of the planning and evaluation of their instructio. Two would be that adult learners experience also comes into play in the way that they learn. So experience and that can include, you know, good or bad provides kind of the basis for learning activities. Three would be relevance and impact into their lives. This would be classified as the what's in it for me effect. So why should adult learners care about this? And four is problem-centered. And so how is it that they're going to learn through a problem centered curriculum versus a content oriented. So this is more about applying what they already kind of have in their brain. Now, again, kind of going through this, there's kind of two ways to kind of understand this. So there was kind of these different resources and studies that were done that basically said the andragogy is more like the science and art of helping adults learn whereas pedagogy is like the art and science of teaching children so it's more on kind of your spoon fed you're telling of you know, this is the way this is. Two plus two equals four versus in an adult classroom it's more, okay, two plus two equals four. Why is that? Like, why do you think that is? How do you know that's true? So more kind of critical thinking cap is kind of the way that it was initially kind of put out there. So I'm in this class, Joe, and I'm like, okay, sure. I think that makes sense. I mean, it's coming from, you know, scholarship. It's coming from all of this Suarez, Joseph 3:25 Sounds logical. North, Cara A. 3:26 Yeah, seems logical, right? But let's think about this a little bit further. So for me, a couple things that I want to talk on about why this maybe