The Mindtools L&D Podcast

This week The Mind Tools Podcast team are travelling through another dimension. A dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind. That's the signpost up ahead - your next stop: Extended Reality.

In this episode, Ross G and Nahdia speak to technologist, TEDx speaker, author and designer Myra Roldan about how new technologies are shaping the way we interact with the world, and with each other. We discuss:

• VR, AR, XR and mixed realities
• Applications of XR for learning
• The impact of XR on empathy.

During the discussion, we discussed several VR experiences:

• Five Nights at Freddy's: oculus.com/experiences/quest/3162101440489458
• Vader Immortal: oculus.com/vader-immortal/?locale=en_GB
• Richie's Plank: oculus.com/experiences/quest/1642239225880682/

For more on how The Mandalorian was shot, see: youtube.com/watch?v=gUnxzVOs3rk

For Myra's TEDx talk on VR, see: ted.com/talks/myra_roldan_vr_changing_world_views

You can find Myra on LinkedIn at: linkedin.com/in/myraroldan

In 'What I Learned This Week', Nahdia discussed the recent flooding in Pakistan, the impact of glaciers, and the effects of climate change: bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62758811

Myra discussed her TikTok channel, learnwithmyra: tiktok.com/@learnwithmyra

And for something completely different, Ross G shared old Hollywood bloopers: twitter.com/NonsenseIsland/status/1550562796458352641

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtoolsbusiness.com. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.

Connect with our speakers

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with our speakers on Twitter:

• Ross Garner - @RossGarnerMT
• Nahdia Khan - @NahdiaKhan
• Myra Roldan - @MyraMade

What's the evidence telling us about effective questions for learning? How can we apply it?

In this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Gemma is joined by fellow Custom team members Ross Garner, Sam and Alison to discuss key takeaways from Patti Shanks' book, Write better multiple-choice questions to assess learning.

We discussed:

• The role of questions in learning
• What makes an effective question
• How to overcome challenges in writing them.

We talked about how we used open questions as part of a project with Scottish Enterprise. Find out more about the project here: Award-winning blended learning for Scottish Enterprise case study.

In WILTW, Ross excitedly told us about the five attempts (and injuries!) that Bond's stuntman took to nail the crocodile shot in Live and Let Die. You can watch them on Twitter: twitter.com/michaelwarbur17

Gemma's discovery about the Summer Time Act came from an episode of the BBC's podcast You're Dead to Me called 'The History of Timekeeping'.

Further details came from the BBC article, "The Builder who changed how the world keeps time".

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtoolsbusiness.com. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.

Connect with our speakers

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with our speakers on Twitter:

• Ross Garner - @RossGarnerMT
• Sam Brown - @SbrownMT
• Alison Perrott - @allyperrott
• Gemma Towersey – @gemmatowersey

Will avatar-based training replace virtual classrooms? Would it make any difference if L&D didn't even exist?

In this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross D, Owen and Nahdia tackle these questions from listeners Ian Younger (@ian5611) and Craig Taylor (@CraigTaylor74).

In WILTW, Owen mentioned the article 'Good' posture doesn't prevent back pain, and 'bad' posture doesn't cause it by Peter O'Sullivan, Leon Straker and Nic Saraceni.

The episode of the Ezra Klein Show which featured a discussion of 'Larping your job' was The Office is Dying. It's Time to Rethink How We Work.

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtoolsbusiness.com. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.

Connect with our speakers

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with our speakers on Twitter:

• Ross Dickie - @RossDickieMT
• Owen Ferguson - @OwenFerguson
• Nahdia Khan -@NahdiaKhan

Here at Mind Tools Towers, we've been supporting L&D teams for years – and that's given us plenty of time to reflect on things we could have done better!

So this week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross G, Owen, Sean and Ross D are sharing the advice that they wish they'd had when they started out in their careers. We discuss:

• The importance of gathering diverse work experiences
• How to define a problem
• How to speak to others about what you do for a living.

Additionally, we share insights from our Twitter audience. Thanks everyone for sharing your ideas. You can find these responses on Twitter at: twitter.com/SeanBrownHRTech/status/1559833708441620482

In 'What I Learned This Week', Owen recommended an article from Ben Thompson: stratechery.com/2022/instagram-tiktok-and-the-three-trends/

Sean discussed the world's first animated feature film, El Apóstol: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Ap%C3%B3stol

Ross D discussed a lost trove of Civil War gold: theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/07/pennsylvania-civil-war-treasure-gold-hunt-fbi/638445/

And Ross G recommended the '(Not Boring) Habits' app: apps.apple.com/us/app/not-boring-habits/id1593891243

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtoolsbusiness.com. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.

Connect with our speakers

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with our speakers on Twitter:

• Ross Garner - @RossGarnerMT
• Owen Ferguson - @OwenFerguson
• Sean Brown - @Seanbrownhrtech
• Ross Dickie - @RossDickieMT

Many organizations responded to the global pandemic by adopting digital technologies that enabled different ways of working. This sudden, unanticipated change has created opportunities for L&D, but it's also posed challenges.

This week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross D is joined by Owen and Anna to dive into this year's L&D Benchmark Report: 'Is your learning culture keeping pace with rapid digitalization?' They discuss:

• the history of the Annual L&D Benchmark Report, and its relationship to our Learning Performance Benchmark
• the emergence of culture and digitalization as the key themes of this year's report, and what this tells us about the state of L&D
• the characteristics of top-performing organizations, and what we can learn from them
• practical advice for applying the report's findings.

To explore the Annual L&D Benchmark Report for yourself, head to our website: mindtoolsbusiness.com/research-and-reports/keeping-pace-with-digitalization

In 'What I Learned This Week', Owen recommended the Abba Voyage concert experience. Full details can be found at: abbavoyage.com

Ross D referenced the FiveThirtyEight article 'Why the Same Temperature Can Feel Different Somewhere Else' by Maggie Koerth: fivethirtyeight.com/features/heat-index-temperature

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtoolsbusiness.com. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.

Connect with our speakers

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with our speakers on Twitter:

• Ross Dickie - @RossDickieMT
• Owen Ferguson @OwenFerguson
• Anna Barnett @DrAnnaBarnett

Have learners engaged? Learnt what we set out for them to learn? More importantly, have they bought that learning into how they perform? Is this having the wider impact we wanted?

All the questions. So, how do we, as learning professionals, measure the impact our learning experiences have?

This week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Gemma discusses with teammates Claire, Sean and Tracey, about measuring impact.

We discuss:

• what measuring impact means
• tools and methods we use
• some of the challenges involved.

During our chat, Sean mentioned that more than 95% of CLOs know it's important to measure impact, but less than 5% know how. The statistic came from this blog netcomlearning.com/blogs/55/10-ways-to-measure-the-impact-of-learning-for-the-ultimate-roi.html

In 'What I Learned This Week', Gemma spoke about the first woman who summited Mont Blanc, Marie Paradis. You can find out more about her here chamonixallyear.com/lady-legends-women-in-mountaineering

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtoolsbusiness.com. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.

Connect with our speakers

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with our speakers on Twitter:

• Gemma Towersey - @GemmaTowersey
• Claire Gibson - @Claireisdigital
• Sean Brown - @Seanbrownhrtech
• Tracey McDonald – @Traceymcdonald

Rather than defaulting to pre-pandemic habits, or continuing with pandemic arrangements, we now have an ideal opportunity to rethink how and where we work.

This week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Nahdia and Gemma talk to Gem Dale, author of How to work remotely, about working well, in and out of the office.

We discuss:

• why we need to be strategic and purposeful in how and where we work
• challenges for organisations and managers in balancing organisational and individual needs
• skills for effective remote working.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Nahdia told us why some houses in Amsterdam are so narrow amsterdamhangout.com/why-do-houses-in-amsterdam-are-so-narrow/

Gemma mentioned an episode from the language learning podcast series Coffee Break German coffeebreaklanguages.com/2022/07/cbg-mag-2-06-labskaus

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtoolsbusiness.com. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.

To find out more about Gem, see hrgemblog.com/ and her book koganpage.com/product/how-to-work-remotely-9781398606111

Connect with our speakers

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with our speakers on Twitter:

• Gemma Towersey - @GemmaTowersey
• Nahdia Khan - @NahdiaKhan
• Gem Dale – @HR_Gem

People are more satisfied by explanations that contain neuroscientific jargon and images. Why? Because dopamine fires up the hippocampus, and that's a fact! (Warning: It's not.)

This week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Owen and Ross G are separating fact from fiction as we discuss neuroscience with Amy Brann, author of Make Your Brain Work.

We discuss:

• The meaning of neuroscience (as a discipline vs in popular media)

• The relevance of neuroscience for HR and L&D
• Practical insights from neuroscience.

During the discussion, Owen referenced two papers:

Weisberg, D. S., Keil, F. C., Goodstein, J., Rawson, E., & Gray, J. R. (2008). The seductive allure of neuroscience explanations. Journal of cognitive neuroscience, 20(3), 470-477. Online at: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2778755/

Farah, M. J., & Hook, C. J. (2013). The seductive allure of "seductive allure". Perspectives on Psychological Science, 8(1), 88-90. Online at: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26172255/

In 'What I Learned This Week', Owen discussed Wordle (nytimes.com/games/wordle/index.html), Heardle (.spotify.com/heardle/) and Framed (framed.wtf/)

Ross discussed the Freakonomics series 'What Can Blockchain Do for You?': freakonomics.com/podcast-tag/what-can-blockchain-do-for-you/

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtoolsbusiness.com. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.

To find out more about Amy, see amybrann.com/ and synapticpotential.com/

Connect with our speakers

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with our speakers on Twitter:

• Ross G - @RossGarnerMT
• Owen Ferguson - @OwenFerguson
• Amy Brann – @Amy_Brann

Who knows why anyone does anything? Well… people who craft psychometrics claim that they can answer this question. And this week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Owen and Ross G are going to find out how!

We're joined by Lucie Ilbury, a Chartered Occupational Psychologist and Head of Client Enablement at Sova Assessment.

We discuss:

• What psychometric assessments are for
• The characteristics of an effective assessment
• How psychometric assessments can be linked to an organization's competency framework.

In 'What I Learnt This Week', Owen shared that decisive people are no more accurate than doubters: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jun/01/its-decided-decisive-people-no-more-accurate-than-self-doubters

Then he cast some doubt of his own on that headline, with the actual paper: Zajkowski, W., Bielecki, M., & Marszał-Wiśniewska, M. (2022). Are you confident enough to act? Individual differences in action control are associated with post-decisional metacognitive bias. PLoS one, 17(6), e0268501. Available at: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0268501

Lucie recommended the The Psychology Podcast, featuring Whitney Goodman on 'toxic positivity': https://scottbarrykaufman.com/podcast/whitney-goodman-toxic-positivity/

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtoolsbusiness.com. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.

To find out more about Sova and gain access to thought leadership, complementary training courses and a network of experts in assessment, join the community here: https://community.sovaassessment.com/

For Sova e-books, see: https://sovaassessment.com/reports-guides/assessment-fundamentals-ebook

Connect with our speakers

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with our speakers on Twitter:

• Ross G - @RossGarnerMT
• Owen Ferguson - @OwenFerguson
• Lucie Ilbury – LinkedIn

Since the dawn of history, people have been telling stories. Obviously, because the recorded history we have is in the format of a story. Now Ross Garner, Ross Dickie and David from the Mind Tools L&D Podcast crew are applying that technique to learning.

We discuss:

• The benefits of storytelling for learning
• Examples of effective storytelling at work
• How new technologies give us exciting opportunities to craft new tales!

During the discussion, Ross Garner discussed an article from The Guardian. You can read it here: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/jan/15/story-lines-facts

In 'What I Learnt This Week', Ross Dickie discussed why it's so hard to fix electronics: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5Dmp79iTEVqizinjOmjGpP?si=TeXVHG_CTKuE4ZGlXlBWiA

David shared something he had 'knot' previously known: https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/nautical-mile-knot.html

And Ross Garner recommended Patti Shanks' book Write Better Multiple-Choice Questions to Assess Learning.

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtoolsbusiness.com. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.

Connect with our speakers

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with our speakers on Twitter:

• Ross Garner - @RossGarnerMT
• Ross Dickie - @RossDickieMT
• David Sharkey on LinkedIn