EP 023: L&D Myths
Mar 15, 2020•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast Episode description
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.
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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
