29: Avoiding L&D Fads with Dr. Julia Huprich

In this episode, I talk to Dr. Julia Huprich, Editor-in-Chief of Learning Science Weekly, about how we can avoid L&D fads or trends and focus on what really matters in the field. 

Julia Huprich is the Vice President of Learning Science at Intellum, where she leads the initiative to establish evidence-based practices in corporate learning and customer education that drive real-world results. She is also the Editor-in-Chief of Learning Science Weekly (www.learningscienceweekly.com), an outreach initiative that helps to bridge the gap between empirical research related to the learning sciences and the practice of professionals in the field. She earned her PhD from the Department of Learning Sciences at Georgia State University in 2020. A former librarian, she previously worked as the Director of Training and Continuing Education for the Georgia Public Library Service, where she provided e-learning and in-person training for Georgia’s 4,000+ public library staff. 

Julia's suggestion for learning more about the future of L&D

• Learning Science Weekly Newsletter
• Learning Science Weekly Podcast

Bonus: Julia's Blog on Gamification

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/

Transcript

Julia Huprich: 0:00

There are so many people out there who are doing good research on how we can develop and design these really amazing, impactful learning experiences.

Heidi Kirby: 0:17

Hello, friends and welcome to the block the building learning and organizational culture podcast. I'm your host Heidi Kirby. On today's episode, I talked to Dr. Julia Huprich, the editor in chief of learning science weekly, about how we can avoid fads and trends in l&d and focus on what's really important. Good morning, Julia. How are you?

Julia Huprich: 0:42

Hi, Heidi. I'm doing well. Thanks. How are you?

Heidi Kirby: 0:44

Good. I'm really excited to have you here today.

Julia Huprich: 0:47

Yeah, I'm super excited to be here too.

Heidi Kirby: 0:50

Let's jump right in. And I'd like you to tell me about your career journey and how you found yourself in l&d.

Julia Huprich: 0:59

My career journey, it has been a journey. So I started I started my career as a librarian. And I did that because I got my bachelor's degree in French. And as you can imagine, there aren't a lot of jobs out there for like a French degreed person, right. And so, so I started working in the library at the college where I had attended, and fell in love with it. And so as part of as part of that job, I, I did a lot of training related things, I worked on new employee orientation, I helped to train library assistants. So training was always a part of what I did as a librarian, and then I went to library school, and, and focus there on like library administration and that kind of thing. And so, my library career, as it progressed, one of the things that I also started focusing on was technology, technology was is a huge passion of mine, and, and then training people on how to use technology was then a part of that, that, that, that role as well. So I went and got my PhD in instructional technology, which was a great fit. Because again, like it really infused that, that like that instructional role, that instructional piece with the technology piece. And then around the time that I started my PhD program, I had an opportunity to join a software company. And they were looking for someone to come in and help with this project that they were working on. So they wanted to build a platform where people could learn the skills that they needed to be successful at work using curated content. And so who better to help curate content than a former librarian? Right? Yeah, I mean, that's absolutely something that we did so. So I joined in Tulum, we built a platform called Cat Cat. And, and then I got more involved in learning science. So so now I work on an outreach initiative called learning science weekly. I helped to translate research in the science of learning for practitioners, and, and really started working on that newsletter with kind of with myself in mind. Right, so like, I had been in training for all of these years, but never had any formal education in l&d. And so one of the things that I'm really guilty of, and I'm really open about this is I kind of saw every trend that came along in l&d and, and I just, I kind of accepted it, right. And so, you know, things like micro learning, I was really passionate about things like gamification, you know, all of these different trends that came along. And so one of the things that we try to do with learning science weekly, is help people professionalize their practice, and help bridge that gap between the research that's being conducted, and how we can apply that in employee learning and customer education. So I think that's a short snippet of of how I got here.

Heidi Kirby: 4:25

I love it. And there is a companion to learning science weekly a podcast right?

Julia Huprich: 4:32

Yes. Yeah. So we have the learning science weekly podcast. And so we started the newsletter about a year ago and and then started the podcast. My my colleague, Julie, loves podcasts and was like, Okay, we really need to start a podcast. There's so many really interesting people out there to talk to and so we did I think around 13 episodes, and then took a break because Julie I took a leave, and shall be back soon, so the podcasts will pick up. But yeah, so definitely check out that podcast as well. And you can find all of that at learning science weekly.com.

Heidi Kirby: 5:11

And I'll also post a link in the show notes to bonus as well. Because if you are not subscribed to the newsletter E or and or the podcast, you should be there. Very good.

Julia Huprich: 5:22

I'm a big fan. Thanks.

Heidi Kirby: 5:25

So when we chatted about what we would talk about on a podcast episode, we talked about l&d fads a little bit and focusing on learning science is something that I think a lot of novice people in l&d kind of miss, and they kind of like you said, they embrace those trends. They see something all over social media, like LinkedIn or something, no, micro learning is hot, hot, hot. And you know, they don't know any better. They don't know any different. So they just go towards it. And I always share the story when I talk about my dislike for fads. About My Mom, who always gets worked into these podcasts somehow and about how to like from a very young age, she instilled in me like not to pay attention to fads right. And like she, I like to tell the story about how she wouldn't let me have a Tamagotchi or a giga pet. So I had to rely on like, my kind friends at school who were more spoiled than I was who had like two or three and had one to spare. And let me borrow. And I'd have to sneak at home in my backpack and take care of my little Giga pet, because my mom was so anti sad. And, you know, I was like, I'll never be this way. And then of course, you know, as you grew up, and you turned into your parents, I am now the same way. And so tell me about some of the fads that you see where it's not necessarily that it's wrong or bad, but it just kind of makes you eye roll for some reason.

Julia Huprich: 7:01

Yeah, you know, the one. Like, there are a few right now, the one that that I was, you know, like I said, I was really guilty of was like, I was really passionate about micro learning. And so I remember giving a I gave a standing room only presentation at the National Conference for librarians one time, it was the American Library Association Conference. And there were like, 800 people in the room, I was talking about my career learning. And it wasn't based on learning science, you know, the learning sciences at all. And so in that presentation, you know, I relied a lot on on these, these different sides and these different consultants who would promote this content, and they would say, Oh, your content should be your micro learning content should be five to seven minutes long, right? And so there was like this rule of thumb that it should be five to seven minutes long. Well, there's really no science behind that, right. And so if we look at like the science behind what the optimal length or duration of a micro learning content should be, it depends on a lot of things, right, like, and so these consultants weren't taking into consideration the fact that a learner's interest level of learners motivation, learners expertise level, the complexity of the content, like all of these things should be factored into how long your piece of content should be, right? So one of the one another another one of the ones that kind of irritates me as this concept of learning in the flow of work. And this was something that I had never heard of before. But someone asked me about it recently. And so I googled learning in the flow of work. First thing that pops up was a 2019, Harvard Business Review article. And in this article, they talk about how learning in the flow of work is a brand new concept, which it's not, but then they go on to make some recommendations about learning the flow of work, which will really are kind of reflective of, I would say, a not very scientific approach to learning. And so learning the flow of work really sounds a lot like informal learning. And in 2018, when this article came out, I was studying the work of marusic. And Watkins, who were two researchers, who really defined how we thought about informal learning. There is there's formal learning, which is like what you do que tal of higher ed, there's, some people recognize non formal learning, which is often like what we do, you know, with, like, work related things in terms of like, if you get like a certificate or something like that, right. But then there's informal learning. There's talking to other people, there's listening to podcasts, there's googling like there There's, there's so many different things. And so it's really, it was really frustrating to me to read this article talking about these things that are really informal learning. And it was just, it was one of those, like you said, it was one of those like eye rolling moments. And so for me as a former library, and I really had to put on my librarian hot, and I would encourage everyone to do this. So there's something that we do in the library field. And it's called, unfortunately, it's called the CRAP test. Terrible name, right?

Heidi Kirby: 10:35

So I love it.

Julia Huprich: 10:39

But librarians are all about evaluating resources. And so with the CRAP test, what we talked about is you want to evaluate resources based on five. And there are actually a lot more criteria, but based on really five criteria, so you want to look at the currency of the information, you want to look at the relevance, which are the art comes in the authority, or the source of the information. So in this case, like we had a consultant writing an article, in conjunction with a, a person who wanted to sell a product. So are they really authoritative? You know, you also look at the accuracy. And then the purpose. And again, like, the purpose of this article is really, you know, the argument can be made that the purpose was to sell this platform, right. So anyway, so when when people are looking at traumas, I definitely encourage them to look at to look at that, that piece of information with the CRAP test in mind.

Heidi Kirby: 11:44

Sure, that's interesting, because the first thing that I thought of when you start talking about learning and the flow of work was like, think medieval times apprenticeship, right? Like the old guy, blacksmith teaching the new young guy how to make swords, right? It's in all these different movies, right? And it's been this concept forever. And now there's just, you know, a new term that makes it seem sexier and new. And, you know, I remember I did a graduate degree in education. And one of the things that was like, Ooh, listen to this trend was called think pair share, where you like, get partnered up, you go through an exercise, and then you come back together as a class, and you share it out with the class. And they were like, This man invented this concept of think pair share. And I'm like, Oh, my gosh, I've been doing partner work, which is what you're calling this fancy thing. In first grade, you know, it's so I, I had that same moment with that, where it was like, come on, who are you trying to fool?

Julia Huprich: 12:52

I think about how, like, in my opinion, a lot of the scientific principles around how we learn best. We've, we've been studying how people learn for a really long time, we just have a marketing problem, right? And so this one guy made up think pair share, because he felt like it but he based on research, or maybe even not, like maybe he just came up with it, right? Maybe there was no theoretical or conceptual. He marketed it, right? Like he or whoever it was, he came up with a name, and then said, this is new, and the number of times that we listen to people who say, Oh, I made up something brand new and shiny. And here it is. And I just I really feel like there are people in the background who are doing good work. They're doing good scientific research. There. They're basing their practice on, you know, on evidence informed, you know, principles, and they're just they're not calling it something new and shiny. It's not, they're not marketing it. Well. And I really do think that that's a lot of the problem, right? Like we we are so used to looking for the brand new, the shiny, the fad. And so yeah, I would just encourage people to kind of pause and evaluate, right?

Heidi Kirby: 14:25

Yeah, for sure. Can you think of another fad?

Julia Huprich: 14:30

Another one that I think is pretty? I don't know, maybe it's not like a fad anymore. But gamification is one that I like to talk about, but so a lot of people will gamify learning in a way that isn't necessarily effective. And what I mean by that is, they'll and I'm guilty of I wrote a whole blog post on the mistakes I made in gamification. So So, one of the mistakes that I made, and one of the things that I see a lot of other people doing is they'll give people an award or a badge or points or something after they finish a course. Right. So which, you know, seven years ago sounded like a good idea to me. But now that I know what I know about the science of learning, what I, what I realized is that you're just gamifying, the completion of that course, you're not gamifying, you're not encouraging people to learn, you're not encouraging people to process that information, or apply a skill, or connect with their peers, or engage in informal learning practices, right? Like, you are literally encouraging people, which is I'm actually very guilty of this, you're encouraging people to speed through that course, just to get the badge just to get things like reward, right. And the number of times that I've completed a course just because I wanted the points at the end, or the sticker, or the gold star, or whatever, like I am the laziest learner. And I can say that there have been a number of times that I've sped through a course just to get the award, and I haven't learned anything. And what are we doing? Like if we're gamifying? The completion of a course? What are we doing?

Heidi Kirby: 16:25

Yes. Oh my gosh, yes, I can relate to that. I had teachers in high school who used to call it grade gripper. grubbers did tell us to stop being grade grubbers, because they'd be like, you're just trying to get through this for the grade like, or we'd be like, how many points? Is this worth? Do you know? You remember those? overachievers in high school? Those nerds? Yeah, that was me as how many? Like how many? And you know, the goal was never like, lovey learn. It was like, How do I get an A as fast as possible and get the highest score in the class? And like, if you think about, like, where gamification comes from, like, I always think of video games, right? I grew up on Sega Genesis, Nintendo 64. And beyond, right? And if you think about video games, could you imagine if like, your favorite video game had no sort of reward until the very end? Mm hmm. Like I'm thinking of like, you know, Zelda, right, like an RPG where your rewards are like, you get new weapons, and you get access to new areas. And you know, like, all of these different things throughout the game. Imagine that that doesn't exist. And it's just the same world, the same tools, the same at our gameplay. Right? And then at the end, you get a badge. Right? Like no one would buy that game.

Julia Huprich: 17:48

Exactly. No motivation to like play the game, your interest would weigh in all of those different things. Yeah, it just it doesn't, it doesn't make any sense. But I was guilty of it. I definitely launched learning programs where I just gave people Bob was at the end, you know, like, Oh, congratulations, you completed a course. And so I think that there are a number of ways that you can use gamification more effectively in your learning program. And I do go into those in my in my blog posts, so I give some some recommendations there.

Heidi Kirby: 18:23

Yeah, we'll share that blog post in the show notes as well. Yes. And it would be nice for people

Julia Huprich: 18:28

to they can look at and read, they can learn from my mistakes.

Heidi Kirby: 18:33

Yes, that's always good. So what do you think we should get back to like, what do you think are some of and maybe they have something to do, like, sort of what the different fads but like, what do you think the future of l&d should really be looking at when we're trying to decide how our learners should should experience learning?

Julia Huprich: 18:56

Yeah, so you know, I'm a little biased, but given my, my research in the science of learning, I would love to see as really infuse our practice with these evidence informed principles, right? So there are there are so many people out there who would who are doing good research on how we can develop and design these really amazing, impactful learning experiences. And we see this happening a lot in the field of medicine. Medicine is very evidence informed, right? Like you think doctor, lots of clinical trials, you you know, test to see which medicine is better for one or the other. And so you're actually we're actually seeing a lot of a lot of training for surgeons for future doctors for you know, people in the medical field. That is, that's based on the science of learning and so I think that we can really take a page from, from from All from their book, when really focus on some of these best practices, some things that we know, work, you know, these different strategies. One of the one of the books that I started reading pretty early on, is one from the learning scientists. And, and so they provide a list of like six learning strategies, things that we know work based on years and years and years of research. And so I would love to see us go back to some of those principles, you know, spaced practice, and, and, you know, they're there. Like I said, there are six of them. And of course, I'm not gonna remember all specs, but but they're, they, they're, I would love to see us go back to that, instead of following every fad and every trends that comes our way. Really look at those critically, and then base our practice on what we know works.

Heidi Kirby: 21:00

Yeah, and I think to something that I always think is important to remember is that, as we continue researching, sometimes the answers to what works change. And a lot of times you'll get people who are like, Well, no, this is this is what I was told 15 years ago is the way to do it. I'm gonna keep doing it this way. Even though we've done more research, we've continued to do research and figured out that like, yes, that was the best answer we had back then. But we're learning so much about the human brain every single day and about neuroscience. And since the l&d field started to embrace that research, we've learned a lot about what works and what doesn't, and we're still learning. And that is something to me, that is like, so important as a learning professional to realize, but a lot of people just want to, like, you know, keep doing this is the way we've always done it, right.

Julia Huprich: 22:01

Yeah, yeah. And one example of that is learning styles. Right? So like, back when I was growing up, you know, people were like, Oh, are you a kinesthetic learner? Are you an auditory learner? Are you are you a visual learner? And I've been guilty of, you know, basing my my learning program and designing a learning program for different types of learners and giving people worksheets, like, oh, let's do have like a quiz. What kind of learner Are you? But what we know now is that that's not based in React, like, that's not right. It's not a good way of designing your learning program. Our people, you know, is their neuro diversity. Are there different ways that people can process information? Yes, like you just said, like, based on neuroscience and research in that field, we know more about how the brain processes information. And so we can move away from that conversation on learning styles. But a lot of people do they cling to that, right? See, something that they, they they were they grew up with, they were taught in school, and all of those things. And so yeah, I think it's important to, to, again, you know, evaluate these resources and evaluate this information, but then also have that willingness to change during practice based on based on new information.

Heidi Kirby: 23:25

Yes, for sure. And I can say that as recent as 2014, when I was in my education, graduate degree that they were still teaching, learning examples as a valid thing. So you know, to give teachers some some, you know, to not blame it all on the teachers, right? They are being taught this. And one of my other big things is like, when we very abrasively are like, learning styles aren't a thing, and you're a moron, if you if you think they are, you know, it's not gentle. And it's not like it's not using that as a teachable moment and saying, like, here are all of the reasons why like, so there's that YouTube video that just came out from I think it's pronounced Farah Tassie, um, about learning styles that has like, blown up and is super popular. And I think it's because of the way he approaches it. He's not like you're an idiot, if you believe in learning styles. He's like, here is where this comes from, why people think it's true. And here's why it's not true. And I mean, but you still get people who are arguing and like, but no, I'm a visual learner. You know, I prefer to learn visually and it's like, Wait, hold on a second. You just said the magic word prefer for sure. You know, we do all have preferences and we do all have an you know, my other favorite one is like the you have the attention span of a goldfish one, right. I love that Miss because I think my favorite retort to that was like If we all had the attention of a goldfish, the Lord of the Rings trilogy movies would not have existed.

Julia Huprich: 25:06

Yes, those movies are so

Heidi Kirby: 25:09

oh my gosh, they were so long. And you're like, I just have to hold it a little bit longer. But I really have to go to the bathroom. I don't want to miss something important.

Julia Huprich: 25:20

Yeah, yeah, for sure. But so for that I like to go to like, I like to rely on the diffusion of innovation theory. Right that like, so it's Rogers. And Rogers talks about how like, there are people who, and this goes for, like, technology acceptance, and like a lot of, you know, a lot of different things. But, but Rogers in his theory talks about how different different people have different characteristics that makes them more or less open to these new ideas, new concepts, new technologies, and some people do have these, you know, these biases that really kind of encourage them to, to cling to these beliefs that they've had for a long time. And you're right, teachers are still being taught about learning styles. So I'm teaching a course right now at Georgia State. I'm an adjunct professor and and in one of the discussion posts, you know, several of the, the students had had commented on, like, their favorite learning style, like their preferred way of learning. And, and it was it was, it was a teaching moment, right? These are future teachers who, who were in this class. And it definitely was an opportunity for us to kind of just sit down and talk about, like, how maybe we can think about things a little bit differently and base our practice on on science.

Heidi Kirby: 26:50

Yeah, absolutely. So I have one final question for you. And that is, if you had to choose one piece of media, it can be a book, a blog, a podcast, a video, a TV series, whatever, that you would suggest people go to, to learn more and talk more about the future of l&d. What would it be and why?

Julia Huprich: 27:16

Okay, so there are so many resources out there. By its, I, again, I'm a little biased, so I'm gonna pick learning science weekly. And, and that's because we do on a weekly basis, come out with these different pieces of content, whether it's a newsletter, or a podcast, or you know, whatever, where people can learn about some of the current research, some of the things that are happening in the l&d field, and we provide summaries of the articles. These are research articles, and then also some key takeaways that can inform your practice. And so we're, you know, we're refining our approach with that, and also looking at new ways of helping our audience. So being a former librarian, like I would love to do a book club, or, you know, like some kind of like topic discussion, I would love to have some courses for people so that they can learn more about how they can infuse the science of learning into their practice. Right now we have the newsletter, we'll have the podcast kicking back up in a few weeks. But but you know, we're always looking for new ways that we can help people bring science into their their l&d practice. So certainly open to any suggestions that people have. And but yeah, that's the one, I tried to include some of my favorite books, and then use that or, you know, obviously, some of my favorite articles and things like that. So that is one good place to go for like a lot of those different recommendations.

Heidi Kirby: 28:48

I thought you might say that, but also, this is not the most important fact. But it is a important part of the newsletter is the pet part.

Julia Huprich: 29:03

Every week, we feature a pet, right? And I know my boss at one point was like, Julia, why is there a dog in this newsletter? Well, so the genesis of that the way that it all happened was, I had sent out like a couple of issues of the newsletter, and someone responded, and they were like, Oh, I really love the newsletter. And they attached a picture of their dog, I think. And in my head, I'm like, Why is this person sending me a picture of their dog? Right? Like, it was super weird town. So I was like, um, thanks. And so I guess I just like put it in the newsletter like on a whim because I don't know what to do with this. Why did you send this to me? And then I don't think I did it the next week. And then someone was like, Where's the dog picture? Why is there a picture of my dog? Here's a picture of my cat and people started sending them to me and so I was like, Okay, well I got football event every week. And then one week, I skipped it kind of like in the middle of, you know, I had already sent it out for like months and months and months. And then one week, I didn't have any pets. So I skipped it. I got seven emails that week. They were like, where's the pet? Like, oh my god, you'll just send me a picture. I look forward to it every week, it makes me happy. So that's why I kept doing it. And everyone loves to you know, everyone loves their pets, right? Like, yeah, so much love for our pets. And so it's just a cute way to kind of end the newsletter every week. So like, here's

Heidi Kirby: 30:35

all these really heavy topics to think about. And then here's the pet, though, like, so don't worry, you can go reflect on all these. And here's the cute pet. Well,

Julia Huprich: 30:47

there is some, you know, there's some science to kind of back it up. So, and I include some links to some articles about how like looking at, you know, cute pots can actually improve the learning process. And I actually got that from, from a consultant I worked with at one point who are she always used like nature pictures and her presentations. And I asked her what are you doing this? And she was like, well, because looking at pictures of nature, like, you know, in increases. I don't remember if it was like oxytocin or serotonin or but it was a chemical in your brain. And it actually kind of helped your brain like learn about others. So I couldn't find the article that talked about that specifically, but I did find one that talked about pets, so it's linked in the newsletter every week. Yeah,

Heidi Kirby: 31:32

perfect. So we'll put a link to that newsletter and the podcast, of course, in the show notes. But thank you so much, Julia, for joining me today.

Julia Huprich: 31:41

Thanks so much for having me. So good talking to you.

Heidi Kirby: 31:44

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.