Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory (ELLI)

One of the most exciting pieces of applied research we’ve come across recently has come from The University of Bristol.  We think it adds huge value to our understanding of how people learn – and how we can support them in individual and organisational learning. We have been working with the research team for more than a year and we’re delighted that we are amongst the first people in the UK to be accredited to use ELLI in our learning design, coaching and trainer training. We are working closely with ViTaL Partnerships and the University of Bristol to help them to develop applications of ELLI beyond schools-based learning and into learning and development in business, and we’re really excited about our plans to launch a variety of applications soon for use in commercial (non-academic) organisations.

ELLI is:

1. A well-researched set of ideas about how people learn most effectively
2. A self-assessment instrument to aid self-analysis, diagnosis and strategy
3. A tool to empower people to bring about change, individually and together

The ELLI research team at Bristol investigated what it is about some people that makes them effective lifelong learners.  Seven dimensions of ‘learning power’ emerged, via factor analysis, each with elements of  ‘thinking, feeling and doing’.  The seven dimensions are:

changing and learning – a sense of myself as someone who learns and changes over time;
critical curiosity – an orientation to want to ‘get beneath the surface’;
meaning making – making connections and seeing that learning ‘matters to me’;
creativity – risk-taking, playfulness, imagination and intuition;
learning relationships – learning with and from others and also able to manage without them;
strategic awareness – being aware of my thoughts, feelings and actions as a learner and able to use that awareness to manage learning processes;
resilience – the readiness to persevere in the development of my own learning power.

The ELLI profile gives powerful insights into individual and organisational learning patterns. It creates opportunities for in-depth coaching and mentoring conversations that focus not just on what people need to learn, but how they can build their learning power. It allows learning designers to consider their chosen delivery methods and match them against the needs of their learners. It allows an exploration of available learning tools and technologies and helps individuals to develop personal learning strategies that will support them in achieving their learning goals.

If you are interested in learning more about ELLI, we will shortly be delivering both an introductory one-day workshop and an extended (additional 2 days) accreditation workshop that would allow licensed trainers/coaches to then use ELLI within their own organisations & clients. For more information please contact us on +44 141 561 0387.

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I travelled to Vienna last week, and met with a number of trainers from Central & Eastern Europe. I enjoyed our discussions about varying levels of use and application of experiential and activity based learning techniques in various locations. One particular discussion however rather disturbed me – I met a Polish trainer and showed her some of our metaphor-based tools such as Images of Organisations and problem-based activities such as Seeing the Point. She maintained that she did not like any of them and questioned how useful such tools could be in training. My concern was not that she disliked RSVP Design activites but that she seemed to hold such strong personal feelings about what is ‘right’ without even considering what her ‘trainees’ might need or want. How often do trainers let their personal likes and dislikes colour the training material they design and use? Is there a particular cultural reason why experiential or activity-based learning would not be popular in Poland?

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RSVP Design is fortunate to have built-up an extremely strong portfolio of learning tools, learning design capability and learning experiences that we can now provide to a wider range of clients. With our strong global associate network we have a fantastic capability to deliver anything from a single workshop to a global leadership programme. If you are an independent business development professional and wish to add our IP to your sales portfolio, please contact graham@rsvpdesign.co.uk

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We regularly run in-house and open sessions where trainers can come along to see how our learning tools work and consider how they might use or integrate these kinds of tools in to their development programmes.

Here are some confirmed dates for these programmes:

• London (Wallacespace) June 3rd 2010
• London (Wallacespace) July 8th 2010
• London (Wallacespace) August 19th 2010

To obtain a booking form please email kim@rsvpdesign.co.uk or call +44 141 561 0387

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We have found in recent months that holding a short 30 minute webinar focused on one of our tools has been a useful addition to the written materials provided on our website for those customers wishing to learn more about how our tools work. We plan continue these on a monthly basis, and will hold a Webinar on Webmaster on Tuesday 15th June 2010 at 2pm UK time. Please contact kim@rsvpdesign.co.uk if you would like an invite to the webinar as the technology limits the amounts of participants we can have on the system.

The Webmaster toolbox

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I had an interesting discussion with my colleague Boyd Watkins recently – owner of Interel (an Action-learning devices company – see www.interel.com ). We were discussing terminology as we increasingly come together with our respective businesses – Boyd sees himself as a ‘challenge’ designer: the creation of challenges where individuals and groups can improve performance in teamwork, leadership and a range of other skills by interacting with engaging and intellectually stimulating ‘challenges’. He sees a distinction between this and the (US) ‘games’ industry which maintains a whole set of specific rules about what constitutes a ‘game’ and often includes a range of  ‘trivial’ props from rubber chickens to bean bags. I must admit I agree that the presentation of such props to a group of senior executives can pose a credibility problem for even the most confident and capable facilitator/trainer! Perhaps a more important distinction is that in ‘game’ play the tendency (much like early experiential learning in the UK) is to watch the participants play the game then debrief at the end – however in challenge or simulation ‘play’ we would advocate that the faciliator can intervene as coach if and when required to aid the learning process, and make best use of the most valuable commodity that a trainer has these days – quality attentive time from learners! The other conclusion that we came to is that RSVP Design is probably best described as a ’simulation’ designer in that all of our learning tools started life as very specific response to a client need, and we design our programmes and activities for clients with their very specific needs in mind, even if the ’simulation environment’ might look very different to real life.

However does all of this matter or is it just semantics? Games, challenges or simulations – what do trainers and faciliators look for when deciding to use learning tools?

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Just come back from a really energising morning in London with a group of around 20 trainers (both independent & consulting trainers, and internal L&D staff). It was one of our regular Open programmes where we give people the opportunity to see how some of our learning tools can be applied in practice as well as discuss the design criteria used to create engaging learning tools and programmes. A couple of things seemed to be emerging:

1. Getting 20 people to give up a morning suggests that organisations are back considering how to best spend money on developing their staff!

2. The training profession is being asked increasingly serious questions about how it can provide real engagement for learners, and to demonstrate well thought-out and researched methodologies, and the use of professional tools and resources.

Will a result of this recent recession be an increasing use of experiential learning methods in workplace training, and a decreasing use of any kind of ‘powerpoint-based’ lectures?

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We have noticed recently that a phenomenon typically associated with larger class sizes in areas like India and China, is now being repeated in the US and Europe – trainers working with much larger groups that the typical intact team size (typically 6 to 15 people).  Requests seem to be around multiple teams coming together, and a desire to bring more real learning into what were typically passive large group meetings, conferences etc. Perhaps it’s also a feature of the squeeze on travel, time and financial budgets that if organisations get groups of people together then they are looking for economies of scale! Perhaps it might be that the benefits of cooperative learning are making a comeback, versus sitting on your own in front of a computer in an ‘e-learning’ workshop? As we are now increasingly looking at putting more development time into our larger Powertools, to cater for larger group sizes, and helping clients configure how to use multiple Toolbox sets with larger group sizes, it would be great to know if this really is a longer-term trend.

If not then tell us what tools would make your life as a trainer easier!

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I’ve done a lot of work recently with trainers who need to prepare training workshops around very specific, and often quite technical, material. This has ranged from training about Pensions Administration, Risk Management and Internal Controls, specific IT applications to Health and Safety and Compliance. The comments are often similar, “Some of this stuff is fundamentally boring, but we have to make sure that the learners understand it. How can we make the process more engaging and enjoyable – even if the content isn’t inspiring?”

I firmly believe that the learning process, whatever the content, should be engaging, interactive and memorable. It is possible to use a creative approach to involve learners and encourage them to take responsibility for their own learning (and, as a result take pressure off the trainer) even if the content seems complex and uninspiring.

Here are some basic things to think about in designing more engaging and interactive workshops. I’ll continue this theme in future blogs.

Am I using all the ‘modalities’ available to me to present my information: visual, auditory, kinaesthetic? I know that my learners process and remember information in different ways, so what am I doing to use this to help people to remember? How can I use all of the senses to help in the process of understanding and retention? Sometimes people think the kinaesthetic (feeling and movement) is really hard to do in a classroom context but it doesn’t have to be. Something as simple as taking the steps in a process or sequence, presenting them on individual cards and asking the learners to physically construct the ‘flow-chart’ to illustrate the sequence involves the physical movement that supports memory.

Am I using key adult learning principles in this workshop? I know that some of the best methodologies in adult learning are co-operative, learner-centred, problem-based and generative (drawing on and relating new learning to previous experience). So, how do I present realistic scenarios, decisions and problems so that the group can work together, share existing knowledge and use their human desire to solve problems to discover new learning for themselves? Again, with some creative thinking this doesn’t have to be difficult. Sub-divide information, give parts of it to different individuals and get them working together to assimilate it and then use it for a specific purpose.

Think about how children learn. Ask yourself what children you know do in Kindergarten, nursery or at play groups. We did this in a recent workshop and identified a whole range of activities including ‘Dressing Up’. So…. how do we do ‘dressing up’ in adult workshops? We explored what was really happening when children dress up – taking on the persona of someone else, learning to think from a different viewpoint, empathising with someone ‘unlike me’. Through discussion this led us into thinking about how we can encourage this in our training workshops: through role play, considering a problem from a customer’s point of view, asking what a member of our team needs from us and how best to supply it…We had some great training ideas that emerged from our initial brainstorm.

If you are interested in livening up your ’standard’ training workshops or if you have great tips about what works for you, I’d love to hear from you.

Have fun with your boring training!

Ann

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We have a vast range of Learning Tools & Resources available including Toolboxes, Powertools and Workshops.

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