Education Made Social

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Education Made Social

We seem to be in a quandary these days. Either we are engrossed in our telephones or social media getting high on endorphins every time we get a hit or a wave, or we are self-absorbed in thoughts about where we are and what we will do in life. It is a complicated time. This year we are going to attempt to break through this wall of uncertainty. We want to make our learning platform social.

This year we are going to create “Chat Rooms.” There will be one for each operational discipline in a dealership. Parts, Service, Product Support Sales and Marketing. The purpose is to provide a resource to our students, and other interested people, to pose a question and start a “chat” on various thoughts and ideas pertaining to the point at hand. We will also be involved in these chat rooms so we can stay current on the thinking of our student base and their market place.

We will also begin a new “Podcast.” This will be a monthly event once we get it together and understand how to create the podcast and make it a “must hear event.” I will be having a brief discussion sometimes on a “Zoom” meeting so that there can be a “virtual” in person interaction. Sometimes, I will just do this on a telephone call. We will conduct these podcasts with people who I consider to be thought leaders, industry leaders and sometimes people who happen to be very curious.

Learning should not just be between a student and a teacher it needs to become a part of our lives. Self-improvement is a necessity with the rapidly changing world we live in today.

The Time is Now.

 

Leadership in the New Reality

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Leadership in the New Reality

 

 

Last week I had the pleasure of meeting Lt. General Russel L. Honore U.S. Army Retired. He talked specifically about “Leadership in the New Normal” and “Don’t Get Stuck on Stupid.” Both of those subjects triggered thoughts and memories. (You can get both subjects as books)

After the disaster of 911 in the United States I gave talks at associations and dealer meetings around North America and Europe on what I called “The New Reality.” These talks were met with mixed reviews, some positive and others not so much. Let me take a deeper dive into why we had different views with a quote from George Friedman. “The mortal enemies of intelligence are time and wishful thinking.”

The New Normal the General is asking us to consider consists of some of the amazing changes we have seen in our world over the past twenty years; the nearly instantaneous transmission of information, the extreme population densities we are experiencing in cities, the extraordinary interconnectedness and mutual dependence of business; the rise of terrorism, and the growing ranks of the poor.

I ask often, with the trillions of dollars spent on technology over the past two decades, how much has been spent on sociology to understand what people will be going through with Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality and Autonomous Vehicles.

The New Reality from my perspective involves our ability to attract and retain talented employees from an ever-declining working population and the generational differences between the “Baby Boomers” and “Millennials.”

This is where I ask people to consider what we call “Sacred Cows.”

At the start of every classroom training session I have conducted over the past fifty years I have asked for three definitions.

  • What is the definition if Ignorance?
  • What is the definition of Stupidity?
  • What is the definition of Insanity?
  • Ignorance is not knowing what to do.
  • Stupidity is knowing what to do but not doing it.
  • Insanity is continuing to do what you have always done and expecting different results.

This takes me to the core of my work today. Everyone needs to be constantly investing their time in improving themselves professionally and personally. If you don’t continue to adapt to this new reality you will become irrelevant. Is that something that you aspire to?

The Time is Now.

The Virtual Classroom Programs

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Virtual Classroom – The VCR Programs

For those of you following this blog or students of our classes, you are well aware of our offerings. The LOD – Learning On Demand which is a series of subject specific classes. These are the building blocks for all of our learning programs. Then there is the job specific series of classes, the PSP Planned Specific Programs. Next is the leadership series within the PLP Planned Learning Programs. Finally, we come to the Virtual Classroom Programs the VCR’s.

We announced last year that the VCR programs would be kicked off in 2020. Well here we are. In April we will be delivering on our promise and put the VCR programs into the market.

Each VCR consists of five subject classes. There are three levels of these programs. This is for up and coming employees, people who can offer more than the traditional employee. The “fast track” employees. Their learning is rounded out with a PLP on Final Staging. Watch our short video below explaining this exciting program.

The Time is now.

 

 

Goals – Passion – Struggles

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Goals – Passion – Struggles

Recently, I had the pleasure of meeting a gentleman by the name of Ed Wallace. He is he author of many books as well as being on the faculty of Drexel’s LeBow College of Business and Villanova University’s Human Resources Master’s Program.

In his book “Business Relationships That Last” he talks about five steps to transform contacts into high-performing relationships. It is a great read.

In it he talks about GPS. No, not the type in your car or on your telephone, GPS in your relationships with people. He is telling us that if you are perceived by people, your customers, your co-workers, your family and friends, to be interested in and helping them deal with their goals and passions and struggles you are on the way to building a strong relationship with them. There is a problem with this though isn’t there? People generally will not share their goals, passions and struggles. They have to have developed trust with you first.

You develop trust in how you communicate with them and how you are as a person. Do you care about them? Do you listen to them when they are talking? No, I mean LISTEN to them not just hearing them. It is about who you are as a person. Are you capable in what you do, your competence? Are you credible? Do you know what it is that you are talking about and are you believable? These are very simple attributes that I am sure each of you have in a large quantity.

Read the book, have a fresh look then at how you operate. It will be worth your while. You will be building better relationships every day. You will be more conscious of how you are being with others. That is a terrific beginning, isn’t it?

The Time is Now.

Continual Individual Employee Development

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Continual Individual Employee Development

One of the challenges we face as a society today, which is in my opinion the most daunting of all, is the ability that we have, as employers, to find, attract, hire and retain talented employees.

As an employee in this environment there are also serious challenges. The world is changing at a rate that is unprecedented. When I was in University, I took a class in number theory as part of my major in mathematics and physics. That was my first year. At the same time, in California, children in grade school were being taught the same theory. It was obvious then that I had a head start of roughly ten years.

In the STEM learning programs in the schools today changes are even more rapid. With Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Realties, 5G networks, data streaming and data analytics, autonomous transportation, and the like the younger generations today are confronted with the truth that their learning, their formal schooling, is not going to last through their lifetime like it has been so far.

The need for each individual to continue to learn, and grow, and read, is paramount. Further we will need to have a second cycle through “schools.” This is leading to more “internet based” learning programs. There will be many changes to deal with in business. This is the truth of this “New Reality.”

Each individual employee’s ability to adapt and overcome challenges will become more critical than at any time in history. Welcome to the new year, 2020, and even more importantly welcome to the new decade.

The Time is Now

 

Thank You for a Transformative 2019

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Thank You for a Transformative 2019

I would like to personally extend to you all of the best for the holiday season. Further I wish all of you the best year end closing one decade, the 2019s and opening another decade, the 2020s. Happy New Year.

We have had a very significant year at Learning Without Scars.

  • We have completed all of the LOD’s, Learning on Demand, for all departments. There are eighty of them.
  • We have completed all of the PSP’s, Planned Specific Programs, for all departments. There are twenty-one of them.
  • We have completed all of the PLP’s, Planned Learning Programs, for all departments. There are eight of them.
  • We have introduced the CSA program. The Comprehensive Skills Assessments. There are eight of them.
  • We have introduced the French Learning Programs.
  • We have introduced the Spanish Learning Programs.

We are very optimistic that 2020 will show a further dramatic transformation.

We are also optimistic that 2020 will see us receive accreditation from IACET and be able to issue CEU’s (Continuous Education Units) for all of our classes to our customers allowing our programs to work toward college and vocational school credits.

I am sure you have had many happenings this past year.

We will be taking a short break from the blog and this will be the last one for 2019. I look forward to picking up with you again in early January. Thanks for everything and all the best to each and everyone of you aand your families

The Time is Now.

Making Education Relevant

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Making Education Relevant

Sebastian Thrun viewed by many as the father on internet-based learning notes that only 10% of the online students actually complete the classes when they are free. So now he charges for his courses.

Although the results on completion are much better when the students have to pay something, I believe that it misses the point.

How do we get each individual in the world we live in today to want to invest in themselves, to invest their time, in making themselves better? How do we get people to want to spend time on their own professional and personal growth?

We are moving rapidly to, what I call a “Self-Led” world. It is conceivable that with AI and all of the advances with technology that 50% of the population will not have any work to do. We will need to be “Self-Led” internally motivated if we want to be able to have some sort of societal contribution.

I hope you enjoy this next film.

The Time is Now.

Disruptive Activities in Learning

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Disruptive Activities in Learning

Internet based learning will be viewed as one of the most significant disruptive forces for the human race. For our purposes here I am going to suggest it started with Salman Khan and his Khan Academy. In 2008 a not for profit educational organizational organization was started with the aim of providing free world class education to anyone, anywhere.

Move forward a bit and we find Udacity a learning business funded by Sebastian Thrun. Udacity is the result of free computer science classes offered in 2011 through Stanford. These were classes that Thrun offered on line which became Udacity. He has been called the “Godfather” of Free Online Education.

One day in 2011 he sat down in his living room and started to create an online class. He begins “Welcome to the first unit of Online Introduction to Artificial Intelligence.” Over the next three months the Professor offers the same lectures, homework assignments and exams to the masses as he does to the Stanford students. A computer handles the grading and students are steered to web discussion forums if they need extra help.   Some 160,000 people signed up for those classes.

Higher education is an enormous business in the US – we spend about $400 billion annually on Universities. Suddenly, something that had been unthinkable, that the internet might put a free, University caliber education within reach of the poor seems tantalizingly close. This information is available from Wikipedia.

But this is not the end of the story. Only 10% of the students actually finished the learning. Thrun calls this a painful moment. He is currently pivoting to a position that involves charging money for classes and abandoning academic disciplines in favor of more vocational focused learning.

The Time is Now.

Teaching on the Internet

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Teaching on the Internet

Early in my career I taught education classes at McGill University in the Physical education Faculty. I was teaching potential coaches and teachers on how to teach. Obviously, it was about teaching to a curriculum but in my mind, teaching people has always been about helping people understand how to teach themselves. That is a lifelong activity and one that I believe we could all learn to do better.

In classrooms, teaching working adults around the world over the past forty plus years has been a true joy. I love seeing the lights go on in people’s eyes when they “get it.” But it is extremely difficult to be able to constantly understand where each student is on the understanding scale.

In the past decade “learning management software” systems have come a long way. With good course design and careful learning path development we can understand the level of learning for each individual student with a high degree of confidence. This makes the learning programs much more effective that at any time in the past.

At Learning Without Scars, we have created learning paths which cover preparatory reading, pre-tests, multiple video segments with assessments at the end of each, a final assessment and a student survey. This is our Learning On Demand products – our LOD’s. We have designed them to be able to earn Continuous Education Units – CEU’s. However, the primary objective is to be able to provide education and learning to our client students. In our recent blogs we have touched on the Science of Learning which proves how to create lasting knowledge from learning events. Our learning is based on a safe assumption. It is that one only has to go on collecting more and more information for it to be able to sort itself into useful ideas.

Employee development: assisting with personal growth is our driving compassion. I hope it is yours as well.

The Time is Now.

The Science of Successful Learning

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The Science of Successful Learning

There are many things that people can do for themselves in order to learn better and remember longer. We have to remember that the responsibility for learning rests with each and every individual. Teachers and coaches, too, can be more effective right now by helping their students understand these principles and by using these principles to design each learning experience.

The book “Make It Stick” discusses the science of successful learning. Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, and Mark McDaniel are the authors. Two of them are cognitive scientists who have dedicated their careers to the study of learning and Peter Brown is a storyteller. The book is not about how to change the education system, although there are clearly implications for that as well,  rather the book is written for students and teachers who have a high priority to make learning effective. It also outlines ideas and thoughts for adult learners who want to hone their skills so that they can stay relevant.

This book is obviously one of the elements we used in constructing our learning programs at “Learning Without Scars.” One of the critical lessons that I learned from this book, that we have utilized in our class learning paths, is that simple quizzes after reading a text, or hearing a lecture, produces better learning and remembering than rereading the test or reviewing lecture notes. In other words, it deals with what we should have learned as students from our school and. Periodic practice stops forgetting, strengthens richer retrieval paths, and is essential for hanging onto the law of knowledge that we want to gain. Putting new knowledge into a larger context helps learning. People who learn how to extract key ideas from new material and organize them into their mental model and connect that model to prior knowledge show an advantage in learning complex mastery. This book is the diamond in the learning universe.

I highly recommend that you read it and think seriously about the content. It might initiate ideas that you can use to become a better you. All the best.

The Time is Now.