Sims Learning Connections

In the past year, I have only read three books. I mean really read — cover-to-cover, word-for-word — contrast to my usual picking and choosing and skimming. Yesterday achieved number three with Chip and Dan Heath’s Made To Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Other Die.

Like Clive Shepherd recently, I recommend Made to Stick to any Learning & Development professional. I see two areas for direct application: fine-tuning your marketing message (regardless if the target is employees, executive management, students or clients) and instructional design.

For the latter, to illustrate, I share my application notes for the first two chapters. Unless within quotes, some language may have been adapted to fit the instructional design context :

1. From, Chapter 1, Simple: What is the single most important thing that the learner must be able to do as a result of the program? Not the twenty detailed learning objectives, but what is the one core capability that must be developed?
2. Simple: Use analogies to tap into prexisting schemas. Examples: “A pomelo is basically a supersized grapefruit with a very thick and soft rind.” (p.53) Economics instructions starts with selling apples and oranges (p.55), physics with frictionless surfaces (p.56)
3. Simple: Scaffolding learning. “People are tempted to tell you everything, with perfect accuracy, right up front, when they should be giving you just enough info to be useful, then a little more, then a little more.” (p.57) “…to engage students in a new topic you should start by highlighting some things they already knew.” (p.92)
4. Simple: Use “generative metaphors.” Example: Disney’s “Employees as cast members.” (p.61)
5. From Chapter 2: Unexpected: “Break a pattern” to “get attention” (p.64-65). Hold attention with interest. Use a mystery story format in classroom and e-learning. Must “open gaps before we close them.” (p.85) Don’t give all the facts up-front.
6. Unexpected: Find and use whatever is counter-intuitive in your core. (p.72)
7. Unexpected: Have learners commit to incorrect schema (e.g. by voting, or a short answer or presentation), then reveal the flaw. We learn most deeply from our mistakes. Examples: “no school next Thursday” as the correct story lead where students were lead into leading with why school would be closed, i.e. the lower-level details. (p.76)
8. Unexpected: Shift from “What information do I need to convey” to “What questions do I want my audience to ask?” (p.88)

End-Notes:

• Along with the above take-aways, I personally appreciated how the book itself followed an instructional design. For example, it frequently reflected-on and connected-with earlier material. It also includes both an epilogue summary and an ‘easy reference guide’ (i.e., ‘job aid’.) A few reviewers on amazon.com felt too much repetition and/or an overly simplistic spoon-feed message. I personally appreciated the ability to read in one day and the assistance with retention.
• The book helped me get a further handle on my own “curse of knowledge” as a MSME, MBA and life-long learning addict. Self-prescribing: simple and concrete, simple and concrete, simple and concrete…repeat after me.
• My only concern with the book is I fear that my actual application will reveal a case of “simple (yes, even obvious), but not easy” — I.e. understanding intellectually, but still struggling to apply.
• For those that prefer an audio introduction: Dr. Moira Gunn interviewed co-author Chip Heath on Tech Nation in January. Disclosure: I have not listened.
• For some serious fun, take Guy Kawasaki’s Stickiness Aptitude Test (SAT), which is a learning exercise in its own right.