BLOC Podcast

56: Learning Myths with Dr. Kuva Jacobs

August 09, 2022 Episode 56
BLOC Podcast
56: Learning Myths with Dr. Kuva Jacobs
Show Notes Transcript

In this episode, Dr. Kuva Jacobs and I break down 4 major learning myths: the learning pyramid, the Forgetting Curve, learning styles, and microlearning as the answer to the world's problems. If you've encountered any of these on social media lately, you should tune in!

Kuva's passion for learning design seeded from a PhD in mathematics when she created visual, interactive, flash based modules that brought complex mathematical equations - like sorting algorithms and spring oscillations - to life.

This drive to create innovative learning solutions has led Kuva into the corporate space, where she's had the excitement of contributing to a wide range of learning & development projects, across all stages of their lifecycle.

Feel free to connect with Kuva on LinkedIn, where she regularly sparks controversial learning debates. Or come bust some myths at- https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14108260/

Check out Kuva's company at www.emergentlearning.com.au

Connect with Heidi on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidiekirby/ or on my website: www.heidikirby.com

Thanks for listening to the BLOC!

Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidiekirby/

Or check out what I'm working on over at https://www.getusefulstuff.com/

Kuva Jacobs:

The message needs to be we need to read question what we're being taught and decide what is the grounds for it in terms of research? Is there anything that's emerging? And is it making sense to me?

Heidi Kirby:

Hello, friends, and welcome to the block the building learning and organizational culture podcast. I'm your host Heidi Kirby and on today's episode, I have my good friend, Dr. Kuva Jacobs here to talk about all of your favorite learning minutes and to talk about the LinkedIn group that we've started to have an open forum about learning myths. So whether learning styles are your jam or your pet peeve, we have something for you. Hi, Kuva. How are you?

Kuva Jacobs:

Thanks, how you doing?

Heidi Kirby:

Good. I'm so glad that we finally get to meet on video. So why don't we just start by you telling me a little bit about you, how you got to where you are today, what you're currently working on anything fun, you

Kuva Jacobs:

want to share? Sure. So I started my career, way back in the day, I did a degree in maths and a PhD, and then went on to do a PhD. So the reason why I decided to do my PhD was because during my degree, I actually found that I was really challenged by the maths that I did. And sometimes I felt like I didn't quite understand what they were teaching me. And I felt like there was a better way. So yeah, I started it was back in the day when Flash was around. So I started building all of these really cool flash modules, where I'd get the mess, and I'd bring it to life. So I'd have for example, a mess in the spring and you'd see it animating or you know, different different things like that, where you can actually visualize what was happening. And I also explored, what did that mean for the learners? How can we use these types of visual tools, and, you know, interactive online assets to be able to help people to understand more deeply. From there, I decided that I had enough of academia. But

Heidi Kirby:

I failed.

Kuva Jacobs:

So I went out into corporate. My first role was in a telecommunication company. So I got the joy of writing telecommunication training, which was yeah, very challenging. And, and then I've literally worked in almost every industry you can imagine. So yeah, currently working with health clients banking, I love my NFP clients, because I think that they're amazing the things that they do. So I've got a disability client at the moment. And for me, the big thing, though, is finding those clients who have projects where they want to make a real difference with their learning, and they want to build something that's actually going to have, you know, a profit impact. So I'm always trying to look for those ones. I have had a, you know, very small learning consultancy for a long time and have just recently launched a new consultancy, called emergent learning. And with my business partner, Charles, and our goal for that is really to build that consultancy model where we look for those clients that do one learning that's aligned to the business outcomes.

Heidi Kirby:

Yes, I love it. Good for you. Awesome. So let's dive right in and talk about the learning pyramid probably my least favorite of the learning myths, the learning pyramid for the listeners who maybe haven't seen it, but if you have ever been on LinkedIn, you probably it's the one that says like, how we retain information, like 90% of what we retain is by teaching others, and then it like goes through other methods. And then it says like, at the at the tippy top. It's like 5% of what is taught to you through lectures retained and then it says also that 10% of what you read, is retained as well, which that's the first thing I take issue with. But anyway, I'm gonna let you talk about the learning pyramid and why it's a myth and what is wrong with it.

Kuva Jacobs:

Okay. Well, first of all, whenever you've got statistics like this nice round numbers. I'd really like to know where these statistics actually came from. Yeah, like, is there any research behind this or is it just something that sounds good, apart from the fact that the way that it's presented in the pyramid is is actually visually not lining up. So 90% of the pyramid doesn't have 90% of teachers in it. So I'm really confused.

Heidi Kirby:

Yeah. Yeah. And it doesn't add up to 100. I

Kuva Jacobs:

don't know if that's how much you attain of the information. So that kind of makes it so it shouldn't. It should be like, so if you teach Oh, sure, yeah, if you teach others, then you remember 90%, which I do somewhat agree with, in that. I think that teaching others really is a great way to retain information. So Oh, absolutely. No arguing with that. But I'm still not sure if you retain 90%. Because I've taught a lot of things in my life, and I can't remember.

Heidi Kirby:

Yeah, well, and there's like, there's this. There's like, it's a good myth, right? I think a good myth has to have like, elements of truth, like elements of things that are believable. And I think to your point like that, teaching somebody something is a great way to retain something, but and lectures like everyone hates lectures, right? So like, when you have the top and bottom like that people like to go, oh, yeah, that makes sense. I hated a lecture. And you know, like, so there are elements to it that are that are true, and that are like good ways to learn. But like, for me, the reading one, the reading ones, really where it gets me because it's like, oh, you only retain 10% of what you read. But like, I'm an avid avid reader. And that's how I consume most of my information is by reading. And so like, second question would be and offends me,

Kuva Jacobs:

do you think get 90% of what you eat after you read it? It's more the question. No,

Heidi Kirby:

no, because if I did, I have to read everything. Or, like, take so many notes and like, yeah, there's stuff that I forget. And like I only take, but I think that's anything right? Like we only take the important bits. And this goes with the other myth to the forgetting curve, right? Like, it depends on the what, right. And I think that that's lost that nuance is lost in a lot of these methods. Is that like, what are we learning here? And what's the relevancy?

Kuva Jacobs:

Well, another thing like if you have a look at the practice doing run, right, let's let's step away from our corporate learning roles, and let's think about, like more hands on activities, because that's where you really practicing doing. So I relate this back to my sports that I'm doing. So for example, with practicing doing when I do a client, can I remember their neck, the climb? And next time I do it? And the answer is actually, a lot of the time No, I forget what the moves were the second time around. And so according to this, I should remember at least 75% of the moves, which is absolutely not true, especially when you're in the flow is another thing. So what climate what I find with climate is, is that when it's really hard, and you can't quite do the moves, then you will remember it. But if it's an easy move, and you just do it, right, and it's like really straight out,

Heidi Kirby:

or, like,

Kuva Jacobs:

you know, my husband is much stronger than me. And when he comes down, he's like, I say, Oh, how did you do that move? And he totally cannot remember at all because it wasn't hard for him. Yeah.

Heidi Kirby:

Yeah, well, and I think that that's true. Even in like the corporate world, right? Like if you take somebody who's brand new to instructional design, and somebody who's done it for a long time, and you try to get somebody who's done it for a long time to explain all the steps that they took, they have that same thing where they kind of just go, they get into the flow, and they do their thing that they've always done. And that's just, you know, it's why not everyone can be a good teacher. Exactly. Because some people just can't explain what they did they just do

Kuva Jacobs:

it. Yeah, like a forklift operator, for example. Like they're really good at operating a forklift. But then if you ask them how to do it, because they have learned it so long ago, then it's like instinctive for them.

Heidi Kirby:

Right, right. Yeah. Well, and the other part that bothers me is we had a whole we had a whole class on distance education in my Ph. D. program for instructional design, where we actually looked at the real deals cone of experience that this pyramid is supposed to be based on, and it's it looks nothing like it right. I don't know how are you familiar with no, no? Okay, so it is like first of all, it's inverted, so it's bigger at the top than at the bottom. And what it's meant to do is it's meant to order audio visual learning, in order from concrete to abstract experiences. So like at the top is like A very purposeful learning experience where like the objectives are drawn out, I'm guiding you through a very intentional experience. And like there's heavy guidance, because I want you to get, I want you to take away certain things. And I'm not leaving much open to the, to the imagination or to interpretation. And then the in the midpoint is like the example that he gives us like museum exhibits, right? There's some guidance there, right, like in the way that they're organized in a museum, and the information that's on the placards, but there's still splurged quite a bit that's open to it. Yeah, you don't have to go in order you can take from it what you want. And then at the very bottom is like, verbal and visual symbols. So like, if you think of like an art museum, and there's not really there's an art installation, you know, you take from that what you want, right? And so that was the goal was just to show like, if you want someone to take something very specific away, you may want to use more scaffolding, then these types of things. There weren't any. There's no mention of retention. There's no mention of percentages. And I do not know for the life of me how that evolved into this. But that's what that's what like the interwebs say, right, is that like this evolved from Dale's cone, and I have no idea how

Kuva Jacobs:

it's funny, like, I mean, this is sort of leading on to the theme, or the learning myth that's prevailing at the moment, which is the forgetting curve, right. And basically, people who are in the know, I have quite a lot of issues with the forgetting curve, because of the way that the study was done. It was done by Eben Hauser a long time ago, a long time, and he had a massive sample size of one. And the learning that he was doing was actually remembering, I think it was numbers.

Heidi Kirby:

And like, non Yes, number. Yeah, they didn't mean

Kuva Jacobs:

exactly. So like if I said to you, can you remember the number 54278? And, I mean, some people are actually good at that. But most are not. Right. So I think that when we look at that study, we need to think about that there's a lot more dimension to remembering. So one of the things, one of the words that I love, my favorite is called obliterative subsumption rights. And so that's the idea that your brain is actually taking all this massive amounts of information that's hitting us every single day, and then saying, which bits should we throw out into the garbage? Now, if you think about Yeah, and what you're going to throw into the garbage is going to be the things that are not useful anymore, right? And were, the things that we're going to keep are the things that are useful. Now, the question then becomes, in order to remember something, how do we make sure that what the person what the information we're providing them is actually useful and relevant, and that they have a reason for remembering it?

Heidi Kirby:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's so important in the age of technology, to consider how that has shifted and changed because like, you know, when you're growing up, and you're in, like, elementary school, or high school math, right, and they're like, you're gonna have to know this, because you're not going to have a calculator everywhere you go. And then it's like, hello, cellphones, right? I'm showing my age by talking about how we didn't have cell phones back when I was in school. But you know, like, and it's like, Well, hello, cell phones. And so, you know, if you're, if you're in l&d, and you're teaching something, in my opinion, it shouldn't be something that folks can just Google, right? Like, that should be saved for like that. Tell me where and how to find those things. But I don't need to memorize necessarily all of the information that I did 20 years ago, right. So

Kuva Jacobs:

this, actually, when I went back and looked at my PhD, I sort of did go into it in a little bit of detail. So I talked about deep and surface learning. And so like, I've got this definition where basically, if if you look at deep learning, it's basically where anything that you actually have to construct a mental model around and you need to be able to apply that model to different situations. Whereas surface learning, it tends to be more the things that you know, even a computer is capable of, like, you know, Google storing a piece of information. In that we can look at, like being able to calculate things. So, really with our learning, what we want to be able to do is actually start thinking about the deep learning, and how do we tap into that? How do we construct those mental models that people can attach that we, they can initially learn that theory, but then also learn how to apply that theory within a particular context. So, you know, for example, one of the one of the models that I'm looking at the moment is teaching analysts how to work better with the business. And so in that particular model, you've got like different phases of the analysis process that they're going through one phase, they're asking questions, the next phase, they're trying to come up with their plan. So when you go through that model, what you want to be doing is, first of all, creating the framework for them that they can go, Okay, this stage, I need to do these particular tasks. But you also need to think, How can I demonstrate what this actually looks like in practice? And so that way, they have concrete examples that they can connect there their experience, too, and then use that to relate back when they're actually in the situation?

Heidi Kirby:

Yeah, absolutely. I love that. And I think that's, that's so important to not just to learning, but I also find that a lot of job performance is based on confidence, right? And when you're encouraging that kind of deep learning, and you're providing somebody that mental model, you're building that confidence that when they encounter a similar situation on the job, they feel more equipped and prepared to do whatever the thing is that they need. Absolutely.

Kuva Jacobs:

Yeah, I totally agree with that. And I think part of the, that's what we as learning professionals want to do is set up that safe space where they practice it in a scenario environment, where there is no concern about if they don't quite do it, right. They're getting feedback on it. And so then they can also reflect on things like how do I feel in this moment when this putting the particular thing happens to me? So we're asking them those types of questions as well. And, and that way, they've got that, you know, that framework and that ability to go into the into the workplace, you know, with a bigger toolkit.

Heidi Kirby:

Yeah, absolutely. And they don't have to worry about getting fired from failing.

Kuva Jacobs:

Yes, we don't want people to kind of lead on to, you know, that micro learning question as well. So I've seen like a lot of on the, on the internet, I've seen a lot of people promoting it micro learning. And I think it's great to, you know, a great concept to be able to do micro learning now, I definitely don't want to argue against it. For me, what I do want to note, the question is, is it gonna solve all of our problems? Because sometimes it's positioned as the, you know, the be all and end all? And yeah, and when we talk about, you know, deep and shallow learning, I just wonder how can you effectively in a very, very quick learning session, build up a sense of deep learning?

Heidi Kirby:

Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, that's a really good question. It would have to be like a series of micro learnings over time, right? What's that? Is not is that really microlevel? Right.

Kuva Jacobs:

Yeah. I mean, that's what they promote is that we're going to give you a snapshot every day. Are we going to build these learning companies? Yeah. But it's still even that. Do you think that if you were doing something a bit deeper, do you think you could get your head into something in such a short space of time?

Heidi Kirby:

Now? No, no, that's yeah. And yeah, and I think there's a place in time for micro learning, like you said, we don't want to argue against micro learning, right, because it does have its merits. But I think we both saw the same post on LinkedIn where somebody was like, micro learning is all up. Right? And we were

Kuva Jacobs:

like, use our platform and wait.

Heidi Kirby:

Like, throw away everything, right? Yeah, you only need micro learning. But no, I think that that's, I think that's a really good point. And where I found a use for microlearning is more so on like, the refresher side of things where it's like, here's a concept that You probably learned about a really long time ago, right? So like for my scenario based learning course that I run through Edie flow, one of the modules is on storytelling, right? Like to write a good scenario, you have to remember, like, the basic elements of storytelling that you probably learned in grade school, right? And so I use micro learning to be like, hey, remember all these things that you learned in grade school? Like you have to set up the exposition, and then the rising action? It's like that same thing that you haven't revisited in so many years? But it's not in by any means a deep learning experience, right?

Kuva Jacobs:

Yeah, absolutely. I think, yeah, and there's other definitely other applications, I think, the other thing is the context for the learners. Like, if they're on their phone, because they've been out workers, and they're on the job, and they're not sitting in front of a computer, and, or they don't have much time, they only got snips of time in between, you know, their job is that they go get called out to job sites, they might only have two minutes here and there to learn things. And so in that case, you know, we're constrained to how we can deliver it, and how long the course can be as well. And so I think that that's, you know, coming, leading into learning styles as well. And that learning preferences discussion, is that as we design learning, we need to look at the environment, people are learning as well, not just their style. But also what is what is surrounding them, that's going to dictate how they can consume this learning, which is becoming more and more relevant as we look at different job types. Because I think it's really easy. As learning designers, we make a lot of assumptions about how people are learning, and what their preferences are. And I know that personally, I've fallen into some pretty bad traps. So for example, my probably the worst one I've done is that I. So one of my things that I love is I love building, virtual collaborative learning. So we've got, you know, building stuff out in Miro, where it's activity led, we basically get a whole bunch of people into a mirror space. And then we get them to ideate and solve problems together. And I've done gamification inside of Miro. And it's great. I absolutely love it. So I did this for a group of mortgage consultants. Unfortunately, what I did not know is that mortgage consultants, okay, so first of all, they get page, they are making a lot of money. So each hour, they're making huge amounts of money, I mean, huge. And so for them, time is absolutely precious. And second thing is that these guys are usually old school. So they like you know, in the last, say, 15 years, they're quite happy to use pen and paper. So they're the best ones, they've got like an admin who's going to do all the techie stuff. So they don't really like computers, they don't. They're scared of using a mouse. And so we got into this session, and I was like, Oh, we're gonna do a battle. And we're gonna argue the pros and cons of this thing. Anyway, they were like, just give us the facts give us give the facts now. Yeah, we had to very quickly abandon anything that was fun or gamified or outside of the core set of information because the you know, the time pressured and, you know, obviously, that's not necessarily a learning style. I guess try a word that I would use for is learning preference, but I'm also finding people liking the word learning preference, either so I don't know.

Heidi Kirby:

I know it's a hard one. It's yeah, it's really hard because I don't even like the connotation of like, learning style, right? Because like somehow we've taken like a style is just like, how like think about like your fashion sense right? Like my style is how I dress for like work but I also wear other things other than like what I wear for work right? But somehow we've turned learning styles into this like jail that you cannot escape. Yeah, right. Like if you're a visual learner, you are stuck in Visual Learning prison and you cannot learn audio and you cannot learn through hands on right and it's so silly that there's like these these like brick walls built around like something that's supposed to be meant to be that's supposed to be more of like a preference right? Yeah.

Kuva Jacobs:

And it depends on your context. Like let's say, for example, the visual one, or versus auditory, right? I know that when I'm at my desk, and I'm, let's say I'm in an office, I will I can't listen to things while I'm working. Because it distracts me, I just find that my cognitive load is too high already. So therefore, like, I will read stuff, but I won't sit and listen to like, I'd love to be able to sit and listen to podcasts. But I just if I'm working at definitely current. However, if I was in the car, going to work, yeah, I would be happy to listen to a podcast, because at that moment, I'm not looking at anything apart from the road, of course, I'm looking at the road. But I can consume information from an auditory set. Right? So it's so depends on the context of the learner as to how they can receive this information.

Heidi Kirby:

Right. Yeah. And it depends on the information. Absolutely. Right. Like if it is, if it's new information, it might be different than if it's like something you're reviewing, right? And you just need someone to talk through it really quickly, or, or whatever. But I remember, like, I remember a couple of things. I remember struggling with the idea of learning styles, because I didn't feel like I fit within any of those things. What I prefer to do is like this, I prefer talking to people about things. That's how I best learn and retain information is like having conversations and having that back and forth and having discussions. That's not a learning stuff. Like that's, that's not one of the three choices, right? And so it never resonated with me, really, because I was like, Well, I guess that's sort of auditory, but not really, because, you know, it's having a conversation, right. And

Kuva Jacobs:

when I met my PhD, I had written here whole and mostly least 13 different major learning style models. Like there are 13 models for learning stars. So I'm sure you could probably find it just have to find the model. Right?

Heidi Kirby:

Yeah, there was, what was it, I forget whose it was, Oh, I'm not gonna remember it now. But it had all these like interpersonal intrapersonal natural, like, added all these additional ones. And one of them was verbal. And I was like, oh, that's me. I'm the verbal one.

Kuva Jacobs:

So the Felder Silverman, one has got processing, perception. So processing is active reflective. So you'll probably be active if you're wanting to have conversations perception. Input, visual verbal, organization, inductive, deductive and understanding sequential global. So it's very different to the one that we're more familiar with. And, you know, there's there's multiple different learning models. And so learning style models. So I think, yeah, there's a lot of dimensions to how we learn and to what our preferences are is, is my feeling.

Heidi Kirby:

Yeah, and the one thing I will say, though, is like with all of these myths, I think it's really important to just like be kind to people who've been duped into believing them. Because when I was in my grad degree program for curriculum and instruction, it's like a teacher education program. I did it back in 2014, University of Kansas, so not like some small little College, University of Kansas, they taught us how to differentiate for the three major learning styles, visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. Again, this is just like eight years ago, right, that they're, like perpetuating this myth at a major college in teacher education. And I think that's why we have so many educators coming into the field of l&d who believed these bits, this is not there. This is not their fault. They're being taught them in their higher education.

Kuva Jacobs:

Well, I guess it's just as the message needs to be, we need to read question what we're being taught and decide, what is the grounds for it in terms of research? Is there anything that's emerging? And is it making sense to me? Because I think as you go forward, and you're like, Well, you know, there's all these different learning styles. I'm not going to follow this too closely. What I am going to do is and what I recommended in my PhD was to think how do I adapt different ways like the learning so that I'm thinking about all of the learning styles. So how do I for example, presenting the information both visually and verbally so that both of these groups are then able to adapt. And even if there's no such thing as learning styles, it's going to benefit everybody.

Heidi Kirby:

Yeah, providing multiple ways to access information is always a good thing. Exactly. Like regardless of it of the

Kuva Jacobs:

Yes, yeah. So how do you take the good bits, as you mentioned before, about, you know, the miss having some truth? What is the thing that you can draw from that myth? And then respond to in a way that's going to help everybody in the best way?

Heidi Kirby:

Yeah, I love that. Awesome. Okay. So my last question for you is, if you had to choose one resource for folks to access to learn more about learning myths, what would it be? And why?

Kuva Jacobs:

Question? Well, I think that probably the best thing would be the LinkedIn group that we're currently studying. LinkedIn learning mythbuster group. So yeah, you should come along, and we'll drop drop it in the chat. Sorry, drop it in the comments of this post. Yeah, and apps, and we'd love to see them. And we'd love to actually hear from you as well about, you know, what are your myths that you would like to see busted? And what are some of the new emerging theories that you think are useful and that you think people should be setting up and paying attention to?

Heidi Kirby:

Yeah, it's a great conversation so far. There's like, I think there's over like, 100 people in the group at this. Yeah, there is.

Kuva Jacobs:

And yet, now you starting to post and, you know, have conversations. I think the most important thing, like the reflective part of it, that's, that's really where I think we can draw a lot of value as learning professionals, is to be constantly re questioning ourselves, and to be constantly asking, how can we do better?

Heidi Kirby:

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So I'll post the link to that group in the show notes as well as on social media when I share the episode. But thank you so much, goodbye for joining me. It's been great talking about learning.

Kuva Jacobs:

Thank you, so lovely to meet you as well.

Heidi Kirby:

Thanks again for joining me on the blog. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with friends and review us on your favorite podcast platform. I hope you'll tune in again soon.