Author Archives for Mindy Jackson

Director of Instructional Design

May 10, 2012

3D or not 2D? That is the Question

Is 3D media a better choice than 2D for asynchronous learning experiences?

First, context: I think marketing and entertainment savvy have an important place in training and development. All cross-disciplinary approaches to improve the design and production of exceptional online learning experiences are welcome. Enspire’s own media subsidiary, Houndstooth, reflects this philosophy – cross pollinating heavily between the worlds of marketing, learning, and entertainment, and deploying 3D or 2D media as need dictates.

That said, I’ve noticed customers are specifically seeking out vendors to create 3D environments for asynchronous learning experiences.  Note the “asynchronous” modifier.  I’m referring to single user experiences, not multi-user virtual worlds.

Is 3D better for this kind of learning?
Continue reading →


February 22, 2012

Cache it if You Can

A few weeks ago I posted about how we “outsource control of behavior to the environment.” This made me think about the concept “distributed cognition.” Distributed cognition proposes that knowledge is not confined to an individual, but rather is distributed throughout an environment. That is, we use external sources including other people, materials, and other tools and supports within the environment to help us in critical thinking and decision-making.

Distributed cognition always plays into my instructional design thinking. What and who do learners have at hand to support their thinking, ergo support their performance?

Recently, I heard the term “transactive memory” which proposes that groups of people collectively encode, store, and retrieve knowledge. This term is meant to explain the processes behind “hive mind” or “group think.” It’s not really a new idea either, but to me it seemed like another phrasing of distributed cognition.

A lot has been made that we are losing our memorization capabilities due to the easy and immediate access to information. My colleague Matt wrote about “second screens”; I find myself looking up information ever more frequently on my smart phone as I watch TV, read a book, listen to music, or take a walk outdoors. What is that flower, or tree, or snake!?
Continue reading →


January 11, 2012

Change Your Environment to Change Your Behavior

NPR Morning Edition aired a fascinating piece last week: “What Vietnam Taught Us About Breaking Bad Habits.” The context of the story was New Year’s resolutions and why breaking bad habits or even starting good habits is so hard to do.

The question: “What does science know about translating our resolve into actual changes in behavior?” The answer: “People, when they perform a behavior a lot, outsource the control of the behavior to the environment.”

For Vietnam veterans treated for heroin addiction, only 5% relapsed during their first year returning home from Vietnam. The serviceman beat an extremely addictive habit by treating the physical addiction and by undergoing a radical change in their environment.

In other words, our mind automatically engages behaviors based on familiar environmental cues and patterns.
Continue reading →


October 19, 2011

Immersive Learning – A Decade Later

A decade ago, an innovative job skills training program called EnterTech launched in Texas. The program combined simulations, team projects, and individual study and personal planning. The goal was to rapidly impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes to unemployed and under-skilled citizens for jobs in the then booming technology industries sector.

For many of the target learners – public assistance recipients, teen parents, unemployed and underemployed workers – the notion of employment in high-tech companies like Dell, IBM, Motorola, National Instruments, Samsung, and Texas Instruments seemed an improbable – nay impossible – idea.

If NASA can put a man on the moon…
How do you train an individual to work in an alien environment? Preparation includes what to expect, how to act, what to do, and, most importantly, how to succeed in new situations. If NASA can prepare humans to work on the moon, why don’t we use similar instructional methods to prepare our poorest and least skilled citizens for work?

To answer this, a lot of research and industry guidance went into EnterTech. I won’t go into those details, but instead highlight the end results.
Continue reading →


September 19, 2011

The Power of Play

Shopping for a friend’s birthday gift, I stopped into a pool supply store. See, my friend V has a new above-ground pool; so I’m looking for a gift to complement the fun. The young store clerk approaches me with the “how may I help” question. I give the “friend plus gift” answer. Here’s how the rest of the conversation went:

Clerk: “A birthday gift. How old is your friend?”
Me: “I think she’s 45 today.”
Clerk: “Then you want to look at something low-key and relaxing. Like these floats…”
Me: “I want something fun!”
Clerk: [confused facial appearance, and silence]
Me: “Like super-soakers. Pool game sets. FUN!”
Clerk: “You want toys?”
Me: “Yes! Hey, I think you should know, it doesn’t matter how old you are. Play is for everyone.”

Continue reading →


August 31, 2011

Practice Makes Performance

My professional mantra is “practice makes performance.” Beyond the fun of its alliteration, the phrase distills both the goal and means to learning – ergo, performance. Just as spiritual mantras are meant for “creating transformation”, practice is the alchemist for transforming learning into performance.

I recently read Jared Spool’s article “Developing a UX Practice of Practicing”. Essentially, he distills what required 5 years of graduate studies – my goal and means into instructional design – into several more mantras:

  • Practice to build muscle memory
  • Practice to solve problems
  • Practice to playfully explore
  • Practice regularly

In designing instructional experiences, one of the biggest challenges is providing useful and frequent practice. Along with the practice activities, we must supply learners with meaningful feedback to performance, and with opportunities for self-reflection on performance. Meaningful feedback is a mirror with two faces: the expression of mastery and the reflection of apprenticeship.
Continue reading →


July 6, 2011

The Promise of Computer-Based Instruction

I’ve been dreaming about the true promise of computer-based instruction since my days as a program coordinator for adult literacy services. The promise is adaptive and personalized learning. Two decades later, that promise still resides in the future – and in my imagination.

Imagine a responsive system that negotiates the route between your present-state knowledge and skills and your (or your school’s or your job’s…) learning goals. Such a system requires a profile of your current knowledge and skills, a map of the declarative and procedural knowledge and skills that fulfill the learning goals, and a logic engine to reconcile the two.

Why aren’t we there yet? Continue reading →


April 6, 2011

Boost Onboarding through Social Learning Strategies

Accelerating time to competency, to productivity, to generating value for your organization: that’s the ultimate goal of new employee orientation.

To get a peek inside some of the most effective and recognized corporate onboarding programs, look to Training Magazine’s Top 10 Hall of Fame list. If you go to the HR or Learning and Development sites of these companies, you’ll find descriptions of multidimensional onboarding programs that include mixes of formal and informal learning, simulations and game-based activities, self-study and self-serve new hire portals, classroom-based and on-the-job training, manager coaching and leadership mentoring.

Many of the onboarding programs use personalized pathways that apply the mix of formal training and informal learning for a 4 to 6 month period. But what if you don’t have the personnel, budget, or time horizon to carry forth such a program? Continue reading →


March 30, 2011

Recipe for Your Training Content Mix

All training content is NOT created equal. The real value of instructional content depends on an appropriate blending of business goals, performance standards, and audience needs. The sweetest outcomes are produced through design diligence.

Little bear with bowl of porridge

At Enspire, we often talk about levels of knowledge and skills acquisition as similar to language acquisition: do learners need to be conversant, literate, or fluent in applying the content? Of course, the answer is, “It depends.” It depends on the context of usage.

Task context is far more important than content details.

Continuing the culinary allegory, training courses too often resemble an ingredients list (i.e., the content details). To make it delicious and nutritious, we must also measure and combine the ingredients in the proper proportions and order of steps (i.e., the task context).

Cut the empty content calories from your training mix.

One-size-fits-all recipes create flavorless fare. The put-in-everything-you-got recipes cause heartburn and headaches. Just-right recipes are loaded with context and seasoned with the details.

Bon appetit, y’all.


February 23, 2011

Check It Out!

My memory needs a job aid. I guess that’s why I’m a checklist junkie. Scribbling to-do lists, shopping lists, idea lists, books-I-want-to-read lists. I find the checklists help me organize and focus on task. They prove to be real performance supports in the supermarket or when doing my weekender projects at home.

There’s constructive power in checklists, and yet easy to make and use.
Continue reading →