March 15, 2020

EP 023: L&D Myths

27 minutes

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.

Connect with Cara & Joe

Support the show

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

shouldn’t be as embraced as much as it is the number one what defines an

adult learner? What in the heck does that mean? Does that is that their

age? Is that how many hairs they have on their chin? Is that if they’re

living on their own? I mean it it doesn’t really operationalize and say

what an adult learner is. So Joe, what do you think an adult learner

is?

Suarez, Joseph 3:56
I guess legally you become an adult

learner at the age of 18. So that would make a bunch of high school

seniors adult learners, right?

North, Cara A. 4:01
I think

so. And then also, I think that would put our college population, our

college students, the folks that are considered the traditional, if you

will, college students are definitely adults as well as the non

traditional college students, which I absolutely hate that term and

can’t believe I said it. But that’s a horse of another color. And two, I

want to talk a little bit more about the self directed learning piece.

So let’s talk begin about like, what does that mean? So first of all, if

adults are naturally self directed, does that mean that they’re always

coming in with a great attitude ready to learn? No, I mean, there’s a

lot of different bags, that we all kind of carry in our own environments

of what that looks like. Second is the way that it is kind of put into

the literature about the self direction. It’s kind of all or nothing.

Either you got it and you are self directed, or you’re not. It’s kind of

on this continuum of extremes. We all know you may be in a learning

environment, you might be briefly distracted, but then you can get your

mind back in the game to make it happen of whatever it is that you’re

trying to learn. So there’s that. And then kind of like the last one is

that self directed learning means learning in isolation. That is not

true. And I know that a lot of us know the benefits of social learning.

Being able to bounce ideas off people is super important. So again,

there’s kind of this dimension of the self directed learning, and that

it’s adults only. But fundamentally, I mean, can we really say

biologically, that adults and children learn differently?

Suarez, Joseph 5:41
Yeah,

that’s a tough one. I mean, a lot of what you mentioned about what

defines an adult learner comes down to previous experience and not just

being a blank slate that you can kind of cram information to. It’s like,

well, I’ve already learned something. So how does this new piece

information fit within what I already know and also how is that going to

apply to me in my life? Those are the things, the assumptions that I

see from the principles you mentioned. But I also think that those are

traits that people start to develop probably in like junior high, or

even sooner, where they’re already starting to look a little more

critically at the information that teachers are presenting to them in

school and say, Well, what does that have to do with me and, and my

desire to go out and skateboard and be a rebellious teenager? Well,

maybe that was just me.

North, Cara A. 6:31
No, I know, I

agree with you. And going back to the principles if you remove adult out

of there and add in, let’s say, dog, so, you know, dogs want to be

involved in the planning and evaluation of their own instruction. Yeah,

dogs want to do what they want to do, right? You know, dogs, learning

experience provides the basis for learning activities. Yeah, if you

crack their hind end if they’re not doing something right, and then a

dog is probably going to remember that right? So that’s kind of my

problem with it. I don’t think it is just about adults. Do I believe

that experiences matter in learning? Do I believe that motivation

matters in learning? Absolutely. But just to say that adults are the

only ones that are impacted by that, I think is just a little bit

limiting to kind of, again, our audience in learning and development, we

want to make sure that we’re inclusive of everybody and not just say

that adults do this. And adults do that. That’s just kind of one of my

little soap boxes.

Suarez, Joseph 7:34
Yeah, it’s one of your soap boxes. I think you have many soap boxes. So what’s your next soapbox there?

North, Cara A. 7:40
My

next soapbox is learning styles. Now I’m sure if you’ve taken any kind

of education class ever, you’ve likely heard of learning styles. And if

you haven’t, basically, it’s a theory that kind of gained popularity I

believe in the 1970s here in the United States. Basically the crux of it

is that all students can be classified according to their style of

learning. So in other words, individuals learn differently. Now again,

on the surface, if you think about it maybe doesn’t sound too outrageous

as you may like to listen to podcast, or maybe you want to read a text

to learn new information. Now, the primary flaw here for me is that it

assumes that the fundamental process of learning where the brain codes

and recalls information is different from person to person. Now, if they

would have changed it from learning styles to learning preferences, I

think that might have avoid some of this criticism. Now, each person has

an individual preference, perhaps on what they do or don’t like when it

comes to learning. But that doesn’t mean that the fundamental

neuroscience of how we learn changes. Now there are many educators in

the field that actually still do not realize that there is still no

research evidence to back up the claims that students learn through a

preferred cognitive style, which includes visual, audio, kinesthetic,

and reading and writing. So there’s a gentleman that I met in my higher

ed studies, his name is Dr. Ross Perkins. He has a great link to all

kinds of information about learning styles, and we’ll be able to share

his contact here in the show notes. Another one that I love is The

Debunker Club. If you’re not familiar with them, they have some great

information out there about learning styles as well. And if you like

money, which who doesn’t like money, Joe, you can win $5,000 if you can

prove that learning styles are real. So there’s a challenge to you if

you can prove learning styles are real. Get $5000 in the bank. I mean,

hey, that’s a good payday. Right, Joe?

Suarez, Joseph 9:45
Yeah, maybe I should try it and maybe I should try and prove they’re real.

North, Cara A. 9:49
So what do you think about learning styles, Joe?

Suarez, Joseph 9:51
You

know, it’s it’s funny, because in seventh grade, my teacher actually

had us take some type of test I don’t remember what the test was that

determined what type of learner we were. And it came back that I was an

auditory learner. And she actually tailored her instruction to the class

based on what our results of that test showed. And I don’t remember

specifically what was different for me because I came back an auditory

learner, but I just remember looking at that result and not necessarily

being like, yeah, I totally am different that way. It was just kind of

like, okay, if you say so, because it’s not like I couldn’t comprehend

words that I was seeing or, or look at a painting and be like, oh, but

if someone could tell me what this painting is, like, I would get it

better.

North, Cara A. 10:44
But it’s crazy to me how

pervasive it is,. I was at a higher education conference last year,

where I was presenting in a session that was going up against mine was

about learning styles, and I thought at first it had to be a joke but

then I found out it was a legitimate session and I was mortified. I

could not believe that a conference allowed that to come in where they

probably say that the acceptance rate is, you know, 35 or 40%, or

whatever. They try to make it sound elite and fancy, but the fact that

learning styles presentation was in a higher ed, peer reviewed, you

know, RFP conference was absolutely terrible, in my opinion.

Suarez, Joseph 11:27
Yeah,

and I know, we’ll call it the industry, the learning and development

industry has been at least that many thought leaders have been railing

against the idea of learning styles for many years now. And it was

probably I was maybe four or five years into my career before I actually

heard it for the first time. And I heard it presented in kind of a

snarky way like, like, oh, those learning styles things and I was like,

oh, what are those not a real thing? I was kind of raised to think they

were they’re not?! So I would just caution people, you know, I know how

we like to get on a bandwagon of laughing at learning styles, but just

be a little bit careful because people need to be let let down gently,

so to speak about, you know what the science doesn’t really back up this

claim that there are these different learning styles. Now, preferences,

like you said, originally, there might be a little truth to adhering to

people’s preferences, but even then it gets a little dicey. So learning

styles definitely not a thing, but let’s let’s let people down gently

about it.

North, Cara A. 12:33
Well, one thing I don’t want

to let people gently down about are generational myths, Joe. So

millennials, Gen Z, baby boomers, Gen X. How many times have you just

like been digging through LinkedIn or Twitter and seeing all this

presentation material about catering to millennials in training or how

they engage Gen Z in learning well, frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I am

sick of hearing about it because despite the generations, fundamentally,

we learn the same way. And as a millennial, I’m here to tell you that I

am a person just like you are not some enigma. So Joe, what is your

take on these generational myths?

Suarez, Joseph 13:16
Let’s

take a step back and look at it for what it is. This is a way to

stereotype people based on age. And if you were to do that from reverse,

if you were to say, oh, you know what, all people that are 60 years and

older are this way. That’s just flat out ageism, there’s not there’s no

disguising that it’s ageism. And then if you look at it from the other

way, it’s no different. Oh, all young people, you know what they’re like

this. And it’s kind of like this, get off my lawn mentality. Get off my

lawn-ism. Where it’s like young people these days, they don’t

understand but you know, it’s been that way from, from ancient times

that the the older people don’t necessarily understand the young people.

Even though we’ve all been young people,

North, Cara A. 14:02
So

I’ll get on another little soapbox here. If you type in on Linkedin the

term millennial expert, you’ll get a lot of results. And what I find

fascinating about this, and again, this is just me just looking at your

profile picture. A lot of those people don’t look like they’re

millennials, Joe.

Suarez, Joseph 14:22
Hmm.

North, Cara A. 14:23
So

I think personally, this is a great way for people to make money. And

if there’s money in it, and it’s hot right now, any time that you can

talk crap, in my opinion about millennials or Gen Z’s, you know, people

are listening to it. And I do think a lot of it has to do with kind of

these different publications that the C suite are readin. C suite reads

the Harvard Business Review. If you go to Harvard Business Review,

there’s a ton of stuff in there about millennials and Gen Z. So I think

it kind of starts with that and just making sure that you know, folks in

your organization know that hey, you know what, we’re people. We’re all

people. And we can kind of come to a common place of how we can get

things done at work and how we can advance the learning in our

organizations. But I do think that that this is probably one of the

toughest ones, I think, to battle because it’s just been going on for so

long. And from what I’ve been told by my friends that are Gen Xers, as

you know, they went through the same thing too. So it’s not just the

millennials kind of crying about this. I think Gen X was also called

kind of the lazy generation as well for for a point in time.

Suarez, Joseph 15:33
Yeah, and speaking as a Gen X or myself, I’ve read it as the cutoff was 1980. And I was born in December of 79.

North, Cara A. 15:43
You’re old!

Suarez, Joseph 15:44
I

know! As a tail end Gen Xer, I can tell you that no, there’s there’s

really not much difference. But there is you know what there is a little

bit of truth to is the what we experienced collectively through history

and the things that changes in society. So my generation experienced

together the Challenger shuttle blowing up, that’s something that Gen

millennials or Gen Z did notexperience, things like that those events

those who was the president at the time, and what were the things that

were going on, what are the wars that were being fought? What was the

hit TV show of the time? All those things influence us as as to who we

are as people. But that doesn’t mean that we can blanket stereotype

people to say, all people are now you know, these millennials, they like

to be more accountable and take charge and do things whereas Gen X

didn’t or I don’t even know what the stereotypes are. At the end of the

day, they are stereotypes and it’s a little disconcerting to hear HR be

one of the biggest proponents of these stereotypes to be like, well,

these all these millennials coming into the workplace, we need to have

more ping pong tables or whatever they think they need to do as a

result.

North, Cara A. 17:02
Right? You know, I completely

agree with you about kind of rallying around the pop culture and kind of

the events I think for millennials is definitely 9/11. I remember

exactly where I was, when that happened. I know a lot of us probably do

as well, but it just blows my mind to think about my Gen Z little cousin

wasn’t even born during 9/11. And you know, so it’s really crazy to

think about that kind of stuff. So yeah, I’m glad that you brought that

up. Alright, so let’s switch gears a little bit and talk about these

personality tests that are everywhere. So you may or may not be aware of

several of these, but a lot of them have different levels and letters

associated with them. You know, with Myer Briggs, I believe a long time

ago when I first took it I want to say I was an ENFP. But today, I like

to say that my letters are STFU or LMAO because Myers Briggs is not

based in science. A lot of these personality tests are not based in

science so I did a little investigation. Myers Briggs specifically was

based in the 1940s. It was built upon the theories of Carl Jung, who is

now very disregarded in that psychology community. And he warned that

these personality types are kind of just tendencies that he observed, we

now know that a lot of times these are taken as strict classification.

So just because you may have a tendency to do something, now we’re

saying, oh, well, if I’m ENFP, then that means I’m always extroverted.

100% of the time. Well, we know a lot of times that that’s not the case.

So again, there may be, I believe with Myers Briggs. There’s kind of

one of 16 different types that you can get. And for that one a lot of

times is just very kind of meaningless. And I’m going to tell you guys, I

heard this at the ATD conference, and I’m going to read verbatim what I

heard. I was standing up side of a room listening to the hallway

conversation. And this tweet of mine actually got a ton of likes and

retweets with people cannot believe that I heard it. And I said “heard

in ATD 2019 hallway: our onboarding starts with each employee doing a

Myers Briggs assessment, and we pair introverts with extroverts, and

vice versa, to help them grow.” I wish somebody could have seen the look

on my face when I heard that I was mortified.

Suarez, Joseph 19:28
Yeah, absolutely mortified. Yeah, as an introvert that just makes my skin crawl. That’s fingernails on a chalkboard.

North, Cara A. 19:36
Well,I think you had the winning comment. What was your comment?

Suarez, Joseph 19:39
Yeah, so your tweet said it “our onboarding starts with”… and my comment was and it ends with an exit interview.

North, Cara A. 19:46
But

But seriously, though, we really want to kind of shed light on these

personality tests, because, yes, they’re entertaining. I remember in my

Seventeen magazine as a teenager going through these personality quizzes

and really being entertained and liking them, but the fact that we’re

using them to classify people tell them that they’re a certain way. I

just think it’s really dangerous for me. It’s almost like a horoscope.

So Cancer anyone?

Suarez, Joseph 20:11
Yeah. Yeah. And, you

know, like you said about what, and this was what my understanding is

to about what Myers Briggs was, was it’s basically his observation of

you know, what it looks like there’s these buckets of people that are

these buckets that people generally fall into. And it was never, from my

understanding, intended to be this thing where everyone can now be

classified by these trades. And it’s really turned into this thing where

it’s no better than like you said to Seventeen magazine or BuzzFeed

quiz. Something like which character of The Breakfast Club are you? And

that’s the Gen X reference there. Go see the Breakfast Club!

North, Cara A. 20:42
What’s that?

Suarez, Joseph 20:48
Yeah.

I don’t know how well it stands up over time. But it was it was a movie

for my generation. And it’s not just Myers Briggs. There’s other ones

their is DISC and Strength Finders is one that I’ve done. And maybe one

of the criticisms of something like DISC and Myers Briggs is that

there’s only these four personality types and it might not be enough to

really break down everyone into those, those types. Because what there’s

like 16 combinations with Myers Briggs, so Strength Finders actually

has 32 traits, and it breaks you down. And by the time you take your end

result, it’s something like only it’s like a one in a million chance

that you and someone else will have the same results. But really, that’s

just it still, horoscopes, but it’s just adding more constellations in

the sky that you might be aligned to

North, Cara A. 21:45
Remind

me, Joe, these quizzes that you’re talking about, especially Strength

Finders and Myers Briggs, I mean, they’re not like super short. I mean,

it’s a lot of questions if I remember. Oh, because I’m a millennial, I

have a short attention span. I just can’t get through it.

Suarez, Joseph 22:01
Yeah,

let me let me handle it for you know. I’ll take it up as a longer

memory span Gen X or you know, these tests are insightful, these tests

can be a way to kind of self identify and and show you some things and

kind of be introspective about the way you are. And I do actually think

they have some benefit to some inner personal relationships between

other people to be like, Okay, well if your self identifying as this,

and I self identifies that maybe there’s some ways that that can help us

work together. But to just be to take a position of everyone in the

company is going to take this, this personality test, and we’re all

going to get together and compare results, and it’s going to define how

we work together. I personally have never seen that work on a large

scale. It’s always kind of these one off things where people get some

benefit from it. What’s been your experience?

North, Cara A. 22:59
No,

I agree with you. I think It should, if you’re going to use that, it

should be like maybe a starting conversation. So being able to talk a

little bit about, again, going back to your preference of the way that

you like to be a part of the organization, areas of opportunity for you

to grow, things that you’re already strong at. It’s always good to have

that knowledge about yourself. And if you get a little piece of that

from one of these, sure, but to say ironclad you’re this way, 24/7, and

this is the way that it is I just think it’s a little bit dangerous. All

right, so Joe, we’ve talked a lot about these different myths. So let’s

talk a little bit about how you can fight them and you did a really

nice job earlier talking a little bit about letting people down softly.

So what are some other recommendations that you have to kind of slay

these myths where they lay?

Suarez, Joseph 23:52
Oh, boy,

well, I’m a skeptic with the capital S I like to say. I take evaluating

claims I hear very seriously. So the first step is does it pass just my

first internal filter? My first reaction of yes, this sounds like a real

thing or not. Then from there, I like to take a little bit further than

probably most people do. Because I like to be on the lookout for things

that appeal to what the way I want to think what I want to believe. And

I think that’s the root cause of why these things persist is because

something like learning styles sounds so good. And it sounds like it

makes sense and to have a magic bullet of okay, well, if I break my

students down by the type of learner they are I can have success as a

teacher. It’s just almost too good to be true type thing. So to be on

the lookout, lookout for things that appeal to the way I want to think

and be like, well hold on a minute. let’s actually look into this and

see if it’s right before I just accept it as much as it appeals to me.

North, Cara A. 24:53
I

agree with that. And I want to also shed light again, I think I briefly

mentioned them, but the Debunker Club I think their website debunkerclub.com

you can go there is a group of L&D professionals who want to

continue to slay myths together. And I actually ended up going to one of

their meetings at ATD ICE and met a lot of nice people there. So thank

you for everybody that was so nice and welcome me to that meeting of the

Debunker Club. But there are strength kind of in numbers and just know

if something doesn’t sound right. to you, and Joe, to your point about

being a skeptic, it probably doesn’t sound right to someone else, as

well. So there’s really a lot of value in doing your own research and

asking those questions. One person I know that is very full of questions

and ask them frequently is our friend Chris Straley. He is not afraid

to kind of comment on things that doesn’t make sense to him and ask

those clarifying questions. But to Joe’s point, we don’t have to be

jerks about it either. So being able to kind of show people different

insights and giving them the resources to back things up, I is also very

important. It’s not just taking someone else’s word for it. But being

able to provide a little bit of evidence, I think that that will also

help.

Suarez, Joseph 26:08
I think the idea of a Debunkers

Club is a great idea. And I think it’s awesome. That’s the thing that

exists. And I encourage people to check it out. But one of the things

that I would caution against is assuming the identity of someone that is

out to squash these types of things, because if we’re really using the

science to back up our claims, then we also need to be open to recent

changes and what the science shows us. So as much as we just talked down

learning styles, if further research shows that you know what, actually

there is something to this learning styles if someone has to make a

$5,000 payout because someone did prove that learning styles are a

thing, we need to own up to that and we need to say okay, these these

actually are a thing and move forward. So just a word of caution there

about assuming the identity of a debunker.

North, Cara A. 26:58
I

agree. Alright. So what are some of the myths that you guys have heard

about, dear listeners, so feel free to share those with us. We’d love to

have a conversation about those. And I think that’s about it for this

one. Anything else, Joe?

Suarez, Joseph 27:12
Nope. Watch out for those Gen Z though. They’re the next ones coming.

North, Cara A. 27:18
All right, thank you guys for listening.

...more

View all episodes

By Instructional Redesign Podcast

1313 ratings