Immersive Learning

Designing for Authentic Practice

ASTD Publications, 2013

15 min read

10 take-aways

Audio & text

What's inside?

Leverage the fun of gaming to teach serious workplace skills: An introduction to learning in virtual environments.

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Corporate training systems often fail to improve performance. Educator Koreen Olbrish Pagano, author of the Learning in Tandem blog, says that’s because organizations have abandoned the one-on-one apprenticeship model – along with its emphasis on practice and feedback. True apprenticeship is impractical today, but you can recreate its best features with immersive learning in computerized virtual environments. Pagano details the design process for computer games, simulations and other virtual worlds. This beginner’s guide avoids the technical nitty-gritty while offering a plethora of real-life examples. getAbstract recommends this excellent introduction to human resource managers, training specialists, game designers and likely investors.

Summary

The Benefits of Apprenticeship

Corporate training often omits a crucial step in learning: practice. Training in a classroom or on a computer usually focuses on delivering information. The theory is: Tell people what they should do, and they will do it. But to perform well, you need to know what to do and how to do it. The only way to master the “how” is through practice. The old-fashioned apprenticeship system of learning emphasized the how and focused on doing. Learners would watch a mentor perform skills and imitate what they saw, practicing while the mentor offered immediate feedback. Apprenticeship isn’t practical today. Sales trainees cannot “practice” on potential clients, for instance. Even if a senior rep accompanies a new salesperson on a call, the mentor can’t provide feedback until the interaction is over.

To train large numbers of people, corporations usually gather trainees in a classroom for “lectures, discussion, reading, demonstration and sometimes practice, to help people learn en masse.” E-learning, instruction via computer, made training available to more people, including those who weren’t physically present. But it didn’t improve performances. ...

About the Author

Speaker and organizational consultant Koreen Olbrish Pagano cofounded the Freire Charter School, taught at Harrisburg University and created the blog Learning in Tandem.

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