You’re probably familiar with the concept of learning styles. Throughout school, you might have heard that people learn better when the materials match their learning style. If you’ve ever done any teaching or tutoring, you might have even attempted to tailor the work to your students’ learning styles. Intuitively, this seems to make sense. As we’re told, there are visual learners, aural learners, experiential learners, kinesthetic learners, and so on...or are there? 

What you may not realise is that there is a long-running debate in the education sector suggesting that learning styles are a myth. According to many psychologists, education professionals, and neuroscientists, learning styles are one of the most prevalent ‘neuromyths’. That is, a false idea about how the brain works or learning occurs. They’re no more real than bigfoot, or another popular neuromyth — the misconception that we only use 10% of our brains. Some sources even take this a step further, saying that “believing in learning styles has been compared to believing in fortunetelling.” 

So, with a mounting body of evidence suggesting that learning styles are a myth, we’ll dig deeper to ask if learning styles are a myth or valid. We’ll start by deconstructing the learning styles myth, examining the popularity of learning styles, before looking at studies into learning styles and finally asking once and for all: are learning styles a myth?

This article will be the first in a two-part series on learning styles. Be sure to check back in a fortnight when we ask: ‘What should L&D teams be using instead of learning styles?’

According to a wealth of research and empirical evidence, there are no two ways about it: learning styles are a myth. Anyone who’s grown up believing in learning styles might find this surprising. You might even think of yourself as having a particular learning style. So, what does this mean? Let’s dig into these findings and deconstruct the myth of learning styles. 

The idea of different ‘learning styles’ began to gain traction in the 1970s and has since become pervasive in education worldwide, with many educators trying to use learning styles to their advantage. 

These days, 93% of UK schoolteachers agree with the statement: “individuals learn better when they receive information in their preferred learning style.” Similarly, a study of higher education providers in the USA found that 64% agree that teaching to a student’s preferred learning style enhances learning. 

Further, a study of over 15,000 educators worldwide found that 89.1% believe that people learn better when instruction is matched to their learning styles, while 87.8% believe in learning styles in general. 

So far, this makes sense. Most of us are probably familiar with learning styles as a concept and received some education centring around learning styles at school or university. However, this begs the question, if learning styles are a myth, how did they become so popular?

Dr Shaylene Nancekivell, who recently conducted a study into learning styles for the Journal of Educational Psychology, offers a relatively straightforward explanation for this question: learning styles fit with how we like to perceive learning. 

“It seems likely that the appeal of the learning styles myth rests in its fit with the way people like to think about behavior. People prefer brain-based accounts of behavior, and they like to categorise people into types. Learning styles allow people to do both of those things," she explains. 

In many ways, this is another example of why cookie-cutter training doesn’t work. People are nuanced and defy easy categorisation, while learning is a complex, ongoing journey. It’s not as simple as saying ‘I’m X type of learner’ and always approaching learning that same way. Rather, learning is fluid and highly contextual, with the ideal learning style changing depending on the situation and subject matter. 

Dr Nancekivell adds that she is concerned learning styles “teach young children maladaptive strategies for learning”, noting that they can often do more harm than good. 

Now that we understand the prevalence of learning styles and how this came to be, it’s time to move on to the big question: are learning styles a myth? 

Many reputable sources are unequivocal on this topic: learning styles are a myth. Following countless studies, there is no empirical evidence to suggest people learn any better when the subject matter is tailored to their ‘learning style’. 

As PopSci puts it, “the evidence has been mounting that a curriculum tailored toward a specific learning style isn’t any more effective than just, well, teaching.” 

Likewise, a 2006 study by researchers Kratzig & Arbuthnott concluded that “[learning styles] are commonly justified in terms of brain function, despite educational and scientific evidence suggesting that the learning style approach is not helpful.” 

A 2017 study published in Frontiers in Psychology corroborates these findings, adding, “this idea [learning styles] has been repeatedly tested and there is currently no evidence to support it.”

The British Psychological Association Digest takes this a step further, summarising that research shows earners don’t benefit from their preferred style, teachers and students have different ideas about what learning styles work for them, and we have little insight into how much we’re actually learning from various methods.

Finally, research by the American Psychological Association puts it in no uncertain terms, saying, “there is no scientific evidence to support this common myth [of learning styles].” Quite the opposite. Their findings suggest that belief in learning styles may be actively detrimental to learners, saying, “previous research has shown that the learning styles model can undermine education in many ways.”

As such, the answer is clear: yes, learning styles — at least in the way that we currently interpret and understand them — are a myth. 

You may be thinking, these quotes are well and good, but if learning styles are a myth, where’s the proof? Thankfully, there have been numerous studies conducted on the topic of learning styles. We’ll take you through a few of them now. 

In a study of more than 100 higher education providers in the UK, 90% said that learning styles are conceptually flawed. Plus, 67% believe they pigeonhole learners, 61% think they waste resources, 56% think they create unrealistic expectations, and 48% think they are driven by profit, not helping learners. 

What’s more, before completing this study, 64% of participants said they plan their lessons to accommodate learning styles. However, after participating in the study and seeing evidence to the contrary, this figure halved to just 32%.

On the other hand, 64% agreed that participating in the study helped them understand the lack of evidence to support using learning styles. 

In another study published in Anatomical Sciences Education, researchers encouraged hundreds of undergraduate students to take a popular online learning styles quiz and then “adopt the study practices consistent with their dominant learning style.” The results were eye-opening. 

First of all, they found students’ grades did not correlate in any meaningful way with their dominant learning style, nor any learning style(s) they scored highly on. 

Further, 67% of students do not study in a way that matches their preferred learning style. Those who do study in a way that matches their preferred learning style did not achieve higher grades. 

Ultimately, the researchers concluded that this study “provides strong evidence that instructors and students should not be promoting the concept of learning styles for studying and/or for teaching interventions. Thus, the adage of ‘I can’t learn subject X because I am a visual learner’ should be put to rest once and for all.” 

Do visual learners remember pictures better?

Further studies have yielded similar results. One study, published in the British Journal of Psychology, tested students' visual and verbal memories. 

Students with an aural learning style thought they’d remember the words better, while students with a visual learning style thought they'd remember the pictures better. Nevertheless, researchers found no correlation between students’ preferred learning styles and their memory. In other words, so-called visual learners did not remember pictures better, nor did aural learners remember words better. 

A similar study, published in the Journal of Educational Psychology, “found no relationship between the study subjects’ learning-style preference (visual or auditory) and their performance on reading or listening-comprehension tests. Instead, the visual learners performed best on all kinds of tests.”

These studies are only the tip of the iceberg. Over the years, there have been numerous studies conducted into learning styles, with few returning any compelling evidence that learning styles are useful for learners. 

However, this does not mean that learning styles should be dismissed entirely. We don't want to throw out the baby with the bath water, as there is still some validity to the idea that learners have different preferences — just not in the way that we currently understand learning styles.

As Education Next explains, “the belief in learning styles stems from an incorrect interpretation of valid research findings and scientifically established facts. For example, it is true that different types of information are processed in different parts of the brain. It is also true that individuals have differences in abilities and preferences.”

So, how do we make learning stick? Should we still be trying to accommodate different learning styles in the workplace? Does technology impact learning styles? We’ll go into all this and more in the second part of our learning styles series in a fortnight, where we ask: ‘What should L&D teams be using instead of learning styles?’

For more insights, be sure to subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.

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With a mounting body of evidence suggesting that learning styles are a myth, we’ll dig deeper to ask if learning styles are a myth or valid.

Are learning styles a myth or valid?

Written by guest blogger Michelle Ockers, Organisational Learning Strategist. Michelle is the founder of Learning Uncut and co-founder of Emerging Stronger. She helps workplace leaders to develop a high impact learning and development function and believes that learning can be key in improving business performance. Michelle holds the strong belief that everyone deserves the opportunity to learn and perform at their best.

In a previous article, Laura Overton outlined the rich opportunity for learning to be cultivated in workplace communities and discussed the need to get back to basics to achieve this. Yet there are myths that can lead us up the garden path and straying away from critical basics. Ground yourself in learning science. 

Enterprise collaboration tools keep people connected across the many spaces where they now work. In the first article in this series Laura Overton outlined how at Emerging Stronger we see these new spaces of work as fertile ground for learning. It feels like learning in the flow of work may finally be within our grasp, particularly as we are swimming in content and people are increasingly comfortable using collaboration technology.

Just as a successful gardener applies findings from the natural science of botany, taking an approach informed by learning science will help learning in a community to grow and thrive. Let’s explore three compelling myths that too often lead us up the garden path and see how learning science can help us nip them in the bud!

Myth #1 - Consuming content means learning is happening

When the pandemic hit we saw an explosion in people accessing digital content. Research by Fosway in May 2020 showed that 71% of L&D leaders experienced an increased demand for digital learning content from learners. It’s easy to measure content ‘hits’ - and of course, helpful to know what content people are finding useful. Accurate, relevant content is critical to learning.  

However, consumption of content alone does not mean that learning is happening. Even if we are thoughtfully curating content and sharing it in workplace communities we are missing a significant opportunity to seed learning in richer ways.

Questions are a powerful way to improve recall and deepen understanding. Try these two approaches to using questions when you post content in communities:

Reflection - Invite individual reflection on key takeaways and how they compare to their own experience.

Elaboration - Ask people whether they agree with key points in the content, and why or why not, inviting them to explain their thinking.

Myth #2 - We no longer need knowledge as we can look it up

We can look up almost anything online inside or outside of our organisation when and where we need it. It’s enticing to think that there’s no point learning and memorising things when we can look everything up online. Of course, we can - and should - look up facts and simple processes online rather than having to remember them. 

However, information and knowledge are different things. When we look things up what we find is largely facts or information. We have to judge the validity of what we find and interpret it to make it meaningful.

This requires that we have a ‘map of the world’ to make sense of and use what we find. Knowledge is this map, composed of existing mental frameworks, experience and expertise. In short, we need knowledge to do something useful with information, as the example below illustrates.

Grow knowledge in workplace communities using proven methods such as:

Retrieval practice - Post case studies and scenarios, or run activities where people can seek input on challenges, providing an opportunity to retrieve and apply knowledge, deepening understanding.

Elaboration - Encourage people to relate new concepts or ideas to existing knowledge and create connections by asking how they could use the concepts in their work.

Myth #3 - Digital means people are learning differently

Technology has provided new digital spaces for people to work and learn. It provides access to a far greater volume of content, both inside and outside of organisations. Searching the internet has been likened to trying to drink from a firehose. By necessity, how we search for and filter information has changed as we seek to quickly decide what content is worthy of our attention.

However, it has not fundamentally changed the mechanisms by which we learn. In his book Millennials, Goldfish & Other Training Misconceptions. Clark Quinn debunks the myth that digital means we learn differently. He points out that “learning itself, which changes the brain wiring, is a process of action and reflection.” While digital spaces may have changed the environment in which learning is occurring, “it’s using the same mechanisms of neural strengthening.”

So, if our brains work in the same way, we need to tune into how we can encourage people to learn in workplace communities. We can do this by sowing questions and activities in ways such as:

Spaced practice - Set challenges or run activities that provide multiple practice opportunities over a period of time.

Feedback - Invite people to demonstrate or walk through how they do something and guide constructive peer feedback.

Take a leaf out of the book of successful gardeners who carefully cultivate the right growing conditions to produce a rich harvest. Sowing is about seeding the learning process in your community with relevant and effective content, questions and activities. Dig into learning science so you know what seeds to sow and why, providing essential nutrients to grow learning.

The Emerging Stronger team has created a new tool to help you spot opportunities and cultivate learning in workplace communities. Download the tool here and look at the next article in this series where Shannon Tipton outlines how to use the tool.

This article is Part 2 in a series of blogs written by the Emerging Stronger team, each exploring the theme of workplace communities. Be sure to take a look at the other articles in the series, including:

Part 1: Cultivating learning in workplace communities by Laura Overton

Part 3: Enabling L&D to develop and nurture learning that delivers a rich harvest by Shannon Tipton

Want a step-by-step guide to cultivating learning in workplace communities? Download our latest toolkit from Emerging Stronger for insights on:

Sowing the right seeds to stimulate learning

For more insights, subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team's learning needs.  


Organisational Learning Strategist Michelle Ockers tackles some learning myths that can lead workplaces to stray from critical learning basics. And provides practical steps to take on how to effectively execute these basics.

Applying learning science to workplace communities

As part of a series of unique panel discussions hosted at London’s 2022 Learning Technologies event, Amanda Nolon, Co-Founder of Niles-Nolen, Brian Murphy Senior Director, Employee Skilling Microsoft and Elisabetta Galli, Global Head of Learning & Development at Lightsource BP joined Ollie Browning VP of Sales EMEA Go1 to discuss future proofing learning strategies. 

Following introductions from Ollie and each of his guests, the first panelist to speak up is Amanda Nolon. She points out how great it is to have a content aggregator hosting the discussion as for her,too often, people forget about content and what it actually represents, or the power it can yield. She talks of the pandemic, and how it accelerated trends that had already started to take shape in the world of L&D. 

The need for upskilling has now more than ever before become crucial, but how can we take it to its full potential? Brian jumps in here to stress the need for hyper personalisation and for business to be able to cater to an effective virtual delivery. He mentions that since the pandemic, we spend on average 250% more time in meetings, with working days extending by 45 minutes at a minimum. Brian stresses the importance to look at the bigger picture when creating learning experiences, making sure that they don’t add to the already mountainous workload and busy working days of employees. 

Elisabetta supports Brian in this thinking and claims that businesses, though making progress, still have many steps to take before they achieve the right balance for success in the long term which can only really start with a great workforce culture. The group looked at the top 5 drivers of great workforce culture, notably; opportunities to learn and grow (which used to rank 9th in 2019), belonging, organisational values, support for well-being and finally, collaboration.  

Amanda is adamant that the right learning programmes need to be connected to wider business strategy, offering employee skills to thrive in their careers as well as reaching their personal goals. Real success is doing the best for the company and the best for yourself simultaneously. 

Brian states that ‘more content is not the answer’ on this all the panelists agree and, after they turn to the audience to see how they might describe their upskilling strategy they give them a few tips on how to be most effective: 

Businesses need to be clearer with their objectives and put more effort into what individuals actually need

Companies should make additional efforts to be transparent and clear in everything they do - even if it may not be the most positive information and messages - it's important to tackle hurdles, changes and challenges together

Companies should self reflect and learn new skills on a constant basis 

Following this, Ollie asks the panel a series of questions, looking for tangible answers from these experts, to give the audience actionable takeaways. 

How can we best support our employees to make or have time for L&D? 

Amanda jumps in on this one saying that it would be ideal if L&D could be part of individual and managers yearly KPIs. If we make sure that learning and upskilling is truly aligned with the business strategy and aligned with the individual's personal objectives, then time will be made and objectives will be met. Brian talks of the ‘fill the cup with less, make the cup bigger’ analogy - stating that we have lots of new tools and hyper developed tech which helps us ‘fill the cup with less’ but we also need to extend people’s understanding how how learning happens - eg; learning in the flow of work, network exposures etc, to ‘make the cup bigger’. 

How can we make it easier for us to apply our learning?

‘People learn in different ways’, says Elisabetta, ‘some people prefer to listen to something while others might prefer to write it down in order to assimilate’. We need to have diverse offerings when it comes to learning so that people can choose the types of content they will engage with, but also when they will do it. Digital learning is a great way to give learners that freedom, however it is important to make sure the learners remain accountable. 

What other drivers can we look at to reach more success? 

The team expresses and demonstrates how talent mobility can also be a key success driver, keeping employees engaged and stimulated and retaining talent in business twice as long. The panel then looks at how success can be measured. Ollie confirms that consumption and usage can not be the only value of success but rather, where people might be using content and why. Brian explains that there is no one size fits all and that we need to pay careful attention to all learners and their needs, be it in one office, or across different markets as these needs will change from one team, and one country to the next. 

Finally, the discussion wraps up around the great resignation and its causes and potential future. All the group agrees that people no longer want to deal with toxic environments or long working hours and want to align to their companies purpose. Businesses need to reshuffle their own priorities and their principle so that individuals can find their home and until this is addressed, we’ll continue to see waves of exodus for a variety of companies across all sectors. 

Throughout Learning Technologies 2022, we ran six panel sessions over two days with an amazing lineup of specialist guest speakers of L&D analysts, researchers, and practitioners. Keen to catch up on all the fun? We've put together a wrap up of the event, including session recordings.

Next in our series of Learning Technologies panel discussions, our experts explore how to close skill gaps through a relevant and scaleable future proof strategy

How to future proof a skills development strategy

PM Insight and Go1 recently hosted a webinar together, diving into the intricacies and impacts of masterfully curated content.  The expert discussion covered how L&D professionals can optimise their online content libraries to boost upskilling and reskilling opportunities, giving employees renewed enthusiasm for learning. 

Joined by Lori Niles-Hoffman from Niles-Nolen, Paul Neville, a Master Practitioner of Strengthscope and Naomi Hepworth, Sales Manager at Go1 the session was expertly mediated by Jennifer Jackson, contributing editor of PM Insights. 

[On Demand] How to master the art of L&D content curation

The panelists opened the discussion by defining what people mean when they speak of ‘content curation’. As an expert in the field, Lori jumps in to compare L&D content curation to creating an 80’s mixtape - What will trigger the most emotion? What am I going to get the most out of? We need to be selective and strategic about what we include, much like we do for our favorite music. She points out that content curation is not something new and has been practiced for a very long time, it’s just that now, we’re in an exciting time where digital transformation is allowing us to curate at scale. 

Jennifer turns to the audience with a poll question ‘when it comes to content curation, which of the following best describes your function?’ The answers come through in the following breakdown; 

Learners have access to content libraries (eg; linkedin learning) - 23%

We create pathways or collections of courses and resources  - 74% 

We use an AI tool to manage curation - 3%

The group are not surprised by the outcome of the poll and are pleased to see that most people are curating courses and resources - they also point out that the 3% figure is representative of where people are as a business and that they suspect that number will grow as we increasingly strive to use technology across L&D functions. 

Jennifer then asks each of the panelists what common mistakes L&D leaders make when it comes to content curation. Naomi thinks it’s letting ourselves get overwhelmed by the wealth of content available and forgetting to focus on what it is we actually want to achieve. She also makes a pertinent point about making sure content is up to date, that it is validated and accurate. Paul finds time pressure to be a big hurdle. He points out that courses need to be curated for every level so that time can be saved if someone doesn’t need to cover each section of a course. Lori supports both their comments and concludes that less is more, when it comes to the content we’re consuming and the time we dedicated to it. She also stresses that all curation strategies need to align with business and personal goals in order to be truly successful. Paul provides the audience with food for thought by asking them to think about their philosophy - is their business trying to fix problems or looking to grow? He encourages them to embrace positive psychology, rather than defaulting to the deficit model. 

The next poll question to the audience asks ‘in your L&D functions, which of the following data type do you use most?’ to which the breakdown appeared as follows; 

Dynamic data like search terms or hashtags - 4% 

HR & business performance data (ie; sales, audit scores) - 20% 

Naomi is adamant that data is king as it gives us an indication for a want and need with valuable context - she warns that completion rates can be as high as they are because they are mandatory - these stats may not always tell the full story. Lori is also a true advocate of leveraging data to better develop learning strategies and suggests listeners broaden their horizons as much as possible to find new nuggets of information across eclectic data sets. The panelists discuss the different types of content, from in person, to digital and social formats - they talk about how to navigate copyright issues though they are confident that these can be easily resolved since sharing content far and wide has become normalised. 

As the session comes to a close, the panelists turn to the public again to allow time for questions - once answered, Jennifer asks her guests to shortly state what their main takeaways from the session would be - to which they each answered: ‘Goal setting and considering business objectives’, according to Naomi, ‘Fluid and adaptable pathway curation’ according to Lori and finally, ‘dialogue’ for Paul. 

For more insights, subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.

Elevating the effectiveness of a content offering with masterful curation has never been more critical. Recently recorded, this panelled webinar expertly discusses this topic.

Mastering the art of L&D content curation

Elevating the effectiveness of a content offering with masterful curation has never been more critical. Recently recorded, this panelled webinar expertly discusses this topic. 

The HR industry is full of amazing people who are doing amazing things. The UNLEASH America HR technology conference was a great place to learn more about what they're doing, and how they're doing it.

We can't even begin to describe the experience of attending UNLEASH America Technology Conference. The conference was an incredible opportunity to meet some of the biggest names in HR tech, learn about their processes, and have hundreds of conversations with peers and L&D professionals. We absorbed decades of knowledge from these people, and for that, this experience was invaluable!

During the event, we were thrilled to hear from Sam Rogers of ConvaTec about how they use Go1's Content Hub to overcome business challenges. From quick launch to developing various training paths, Sam spoke about how ConvaTec leverages Go1 to improve their jobs, employees, and company.

We also held a reception on day 1 and we couldn't have been more pleased with the turnout. Attendees enjoyed great conversation, appetizers and drinks with Go1 team members and other conference attendees. 

We had a blast meeting new people and catching up with old friends. Thank you all for spending time with us and making it such an incredible experience.

We've got quite a few events coming up over the next couple of months across the globe and can't wait to continue the conversation. Check out our upcoming events here.

The UNLEASH America HR technology conference was a success! Read more about our experience at the event here.

Go1's experience at the UNLEASH America conference 2022

Live from Learning Technologies 2022, Craig Hamill, Customer Success Manager, Go1 moderated a panel with Laura Overton & Shannon Tipton Co-Founders of Emerging Stronger and Rosemary Hoskins, Global Capability Lead, AstraZeneca to discuss ways to help businesses support their current workforce for jobs that are yet to be created. 

Soft skills necessary for jobs of the future

The discussion begun with the panelist determining which soft skills are needed to succeed in future jobs, both from the lens of the employee and the employer. They concluded that agility, curiosity, collaboration, and communication were key to succeeding in almost any role, regardless of the level or technical skill required to complete it. 

Specifically, they called out curiosity, and mentioned that in order to move forward, people need to have a curious mindset and approach risks head on — not letting the outcome of the risks stop them from exploring their curiosity. They used the example of certain deployments of new technologies such as robots operating in the fast food sector. Though there are great benefits to having this futuristic tech involved, there is also the risk they will take out curiosity for those working around them. 

The panelists highlight their biggest pain points when it comes to technology usage and determined engagement, time, funding, and access as common challenges across the board. They find it is very hard to democratise and make technology accessible to every employee so they can acquire new skills, and while it’s great to have technology, what truly matters is how one applies it so employees can optimise their experience.

The panelists also agree that, while having a variety of learning opportunities can serve as a benefit for every type of learner, too much of it can overload teams. They recommend choosing quality over quantity when it comes to learning content. It matters more to have content that has impact and reaches the right audiences with real purpose. 

Jumping to other topics, the panelist also recognise that the current workforce doesn’t value line managers as much as they should. They highlight how line managers are essential to the growth of the workforce - it is through their influence, guidance and encouragement that employees will acquire their skills of communications, adaptability, and flexibility. Line managers take on the role of both the cheerleader and mentor to their reports in order to make sure they are getting ahead and achieving their true potential.

The webinar closes out with practical recommendations for the audience, highlighting the importance of having a holistic view to L&D and business growth, allowing employees to have a breadth of experiences across a variety of sectors to make them future proof and inspired. Next, they advise that employers shouldn’t be paralysed by the fact that they don’t know what will happen in the future. Teams should stay true to the human core of the business but also play around with and embrace new learning tools available within their business, even if they don’t quite grasp them just yet. Much like in the early days of the internet, where companies were shy yet curious to master such groundbreaking new technology. 

Live from Learning Technologies 2022, our expert panellists dove into understanding new jobs of the future, and supportive ways to prepare our current employees for the unknown.

Preparing employees for the unknown jobs of the future

Live from Learning Technologies 2022, our expert panellists dove into understanding new jobs of the future, and supportive ways to prepare our current employees for the unknown. 

Preparing employees for the unknown jobs of the future 

What a week! The ATD 2022 Conference & EXPO was an amazing experience for our team. We were able to network with attendees from around the world, learn about new perspectives on developing talent, maximize potential, and create strategic transformations for organizations and learners.

We had so much fun connecting with other L&D professionals—both old friends and new ones—and we're so grateful for the opportunity to come together with our peers in this field.

⭐️ Networking and interacting with attendees

⭐️ Our fireside chat with customers about how learning overcomes challenges in every industry

Pictured: David Martinez from Sun Coast Credit Union, Karla Rainer from ABC Companies and Stacey Johnson from Moffitt Cancer Centre

⭐️ Mingling with attendees and enjoying appetizers and drinks at our reception 

⭐️ More great conversations and laughs than we can count!

We are so pumped to be able to share all the inspiration and connection we brought home with us from ATD22. It was an action-packed four days.

Looking to get some face-to-face time with us? We've got quite a few events coming up over the next couple of months across the globe and can't wait to continue the conversation. Check out our upcoming events here.

Check out our highlights from the recent ATD 2022 conference. We're so grateful for the opportunity to come together with our peers in this field, and we hope you'll find some of these moments as inspiring and educational as we did!

ATD 2022 recap: Go1 highlights

Feeling safe and secure is fundamental to doing our best work. There are a lot of factors that help us feel safe at work, including our ability to be ourselves in the workplace. In this issue, we are spotlighting partners who teach us how to be safe and how to help others feel safe, in a variety of ways.   

Looking for ways to help your employees to continue to learn? Check out our 12 Months of Learning Calendar. The partners highlighted below are featured in our May and June playlists focused on staying safe at work, increasing productivity, LGBTQIA+ awareness, and mentorship. These playlists are a great way to keep your employees engaged and committed to a culture of learning in your organization.  

What content partners should you check out this month?

Thomson Reuters has been a trusted source of truth for years and they bring that credibility to a suite of compliance and regulation courses. With over 750 titles in the Content Hub, Thomson Reuters covers topics from anti-bribery and fraud prevention to code of conduct and the California Consumer Privacy Act. Though they are based in Toronto, Canada, they offer region-specific and global courses. Their courses range from 5 minutes to 2 hours, with the majority between 30-60 minutes.  

In addition to the gamified Information Security and Cyber Risk Awareness course, check out: 

Australian-based content provider ViaUp offers high-quality, often whimsical (but still serious and substantial) health and safety eLearning experiences. Featuring animated videos, their 21 courses are refreshingly modern, especially in the health and safety space. All their courses are under one hour, with most them between 15 and 30 minutes.  

ViaUp’s Office Ergonomics course, hosted by a crash test dummy, is a crowd favorite. Other great courses include: 

Bullying, Harassment and Discrimination (US) 

Blue Ocean Strategy (a suite of three courses) 

Founded in 2009, US-based Enspark features titles focused on leadership, human resources, general management, people and communication skills, HR compliance, computer science & engineering, and personal development. They have 100 titles available in the Content Hub, 28 of which are in languages other than English (including Chinese, Polish, and Turkish). All but one of their courses are under an hour in duration. 

Top titles from Enspark include a 10-part Digital Transformation series as well as: 

Be Proactive! Inclusion Starts with You 

Gender Identity: What Does LGBTQIA+ Mean? 

What new content partners have we added to the Content Hub?

This new content provider, based in Singapore, provides instruction on leadership, management, business skills, marketing, and more.  

They offer 250+ courses ranging from 15-30 minutes. 

Emeritus offers book summaries from leading authors and longer courses from experts in their field. 

This India-based content provider expands our topic coverage in marketing, sales, communication, and health and safety. 

They offer over 600 courses ranging from 2 to 74 minutes. 

OneHourLearning courses use animation and practical examples to engage learners. 

Based in the US, this new content provider brings new options for customers looking to provide sexual harassment content to their employees. 

They offer high-quality video-based content that covers state-specific requirements, as well as global sexual harassment courses. 

EasyLlama uses a fresh approach to emphasize the importance of creating a safe environment in the workplace. 

What great new content have our current content partners added to the Content Hub?

Check out some new offerings from current content partners! 

Packt – New courses on coding languages, including Kubernetes, Java, and Git. 

Mi-Crow – Updated Microsoft 365 content. 

Chart – New courses on Project Management and Time Management in Spanish, French, and Portuguese.  

BSI – New Retail Excellence Suite including Customer Service and Sales courses.  

What’s Shannon’s favorite course right now? 

Whether it’s decisions about people or about projects, understanding why we are making those decisions and the biases that may be playing a role is important to ensure that we get it right. I recently took Debiasing Techniques, which walks through how to recognize your unconscious biases and challenge your decisions to make sure they were being made with the right criteria. I love the gamification that Symmetra uses in their courses to create engaging content about topics that can often be tough to tackle, like sexism, diversity and inclusions, and bullying and harassment. 

In May we're focusing on staying safe at work, increasing productivity, LGBTQIA+ awareness, and mentorship. In this update, check out our partners who teach us how to be safe and help others feel safe in various ways.

The Go1 Content Insider - May 2022 edition

In May we're focusing on staying safe at work, increasing productivity, LGBTQIA+ awareness, and mentorship. In this update, check out our partners who teach us how to be safe and help others feel safe in various ways.  

Written by guest blogger Laura Overton, award-winning L&D Analyst and co-founder of Emerging Stronger. Laura is an experienced international speaker, author and facilitator with a passion for exploring, challenging and sharing. She believes that the role of learning leaders in the changing workplace is to unlock the potential of business and people.

The spaces where we work have changed forever. Workers are no longer constrained to a single location. We work in the office, in coffee shops, with clients, at home, in the back yard, at the factory or shop floor. Increasingly, the ideal workspace has become a mix of all of the above — whatever suits the job at hand.

The glue that keeps us connected across all these spaces is enterprise collaboration and, more importantly, the technology that enables this collaboration. Recently, Gartner revealed that 80% of workers used team collaboration tools such as Slack in 2021, up 44% from 2019.

These tools create environments that allow us to stay connected, keep sharing, and keep projects on track across the wide range of spaces where work occurs.

Collaborative environments create fertile ground for learning

The same tools also have the potential to allow us to keep learning: from mistakes, from trial and error, from solving challenges and creating ideas, and from each other. As such, these collaboration tools have become fertile ground for learning.

According to the Mindtools for Business Learner Intelligence study released in May 2022, 7 out of 10 workers think community environments such as Slack and MS Teams are either useful or essential for addressing work-related challenges. 

What’s more, 85% of workers learn by turning to colleagues for support, while 86% learn by collaborating with team members. Given this, staff have found ways to make learning flourish in online collaborative environments.

And it’s working. For the first time in the 8-year history of Mindtools’ study, more workers prefer online learning (41%) than face to face learning (34%). These findings represent a massive sea change and one that L&D leaders should keep in mind.

If enterprise collaboration systems are already creating fertile ground for staff to learn, and staff are increasingly comfortable embracing digital technologies, are L&D teams ready to dig in?

In my view, the role of L&D is clear. We use our expertise to help individuals, teams, and organisations be equipped and ready — for today’s challenges and tomorrow’s opportunities.

Historically, the spaces in which we operated restricted our ability to achieve these objectives. When L&D activity is confined to the classroom and the LMS, our approach to supporting learning is also restricted.

Plus, cultivating one type of learning over and over again in the same spaces can be counterproductive, just as planting the same crop in the same soil can stunt growth.

We’ve shifted our old models of face-to-face learning delivery into virtual learning, thereby increasing our skills in using MS Teams or Zoom to deliver virtual classrooms. However, by keeping everything else the same, we still struggle with attention spans and Zoom fatigue.

We’ve tried to encourage ‘self-directed learning’ by pumping online content into the digital spaces where people are working so that knowledge is available at the point of need. However, learners often struggle to separate the wheat from the chaff, giving up when they become overwhelmed with choices.

Some teams have focussed on ‘social learning’, using enterprise collaboration platforms to establish specific communities of practice and encourage user-generated content to help teams help each other. Yet, once again, we run into the problem of struggling to maintain interest or momentum.

While these approaches are valid for cultivating learning in collaborative environments, they only represent one facet of the learning process. Learning is complex and can’t be constrained to a single model, technology, or approach.

So, how do we dig into the opportunities that collaborative learning environments provide?

Instead of asking what communities can do to support learning, let's go back to first principles to explore what’s important for learning to flourish.

Connie Malamed has curated 10 definitions of what learning is. One that resonates with me is that learning is the process of “Acquiring knowledge and skills and having them readily available from memory so you can make sense of future problems and opportunities.” The process of learning is tough and takes time!

Learning isn’t just about access to knowledge, it’s the slow journey of shifting from novice to expert, from knowing about something to practising it and ultimately mastering it.

Typically, our L&D interventions start with supporting new knowledge. We focus on courses and content because our physical spaces and time boundaries have constrained our interventions to the very start of the learning process, leaving the rest to chance.

Online collaborative environments create new opportunities to support the full flow of learning —  from knowledge acquisition to practice, mastery, and new habits.

Award-winning L&D analyst Laura Overton explores how enterprise collaboration systems are creating fertile ground for staff to learn. And how L&D teams can be ready to dig in and best cultivate these learning spaces.