No time for errors

It's great to welcome one of close work colleagues entering the edublogosphere, particularly one with so much unique expertise to share, and that's Chris Brannigan of Caspian Learning. Chris is one of a rare breed of designers specialising in 3D worlds for education and training, with the advantage of a sound theoretical understanding of learning and an abundance of interesting opinions.

Chris' first post, Failing to Win!, makes the point that most education and training programmes are designed to minimise the chance of the student making errors; yet without the opportunity to experiment, fail, reflect and try again, we are severely restricted in our ability to learn.

There are many reasons for this situation, not least a misguided attempt by many teachers and trainers to protect the learner from the embarrassment of failing. This doesn't help in the long run, because it soon becomes so unusual for mistakes to occur in the classroom, that learners dread being the one that stands out by failing. This interacts with the extraordinary peer pressure that builds up in many classrooms to create a highly artificial learning environment - artificial because such an important element of the learning process is missing. It's not surprising that in so many studies, employees report on-job training as their favourite method.

Without the ability for learners to experiment and practise freely, the practical element in many training programmes becomes, as Chris points out, a form of testing. It's very common for training programmes to be structured using a simple tell and test format, when we know that it takes many successive practices for any skill to be successfully embedded, let alone mastered. This trend is amplified by the pressure to reduce the length of training programmes, making it impossible to incorporate any meaningful element of practice.

I agree with Chris that, for many subjects, there is potential in using 3D immersive simulations to reverse the trend of error avoidance in training. I am less optimistic about the classroom, where time pressures are so powerful, and I can only recommend that the classroom piece be seen as just one element in a blend that incorporates meaningful opportunities for practice using assignments, supported on-job practice or some similar approach.