Jeff Hrusko :
0:05
Hello, and welcome to another episode of COC. I'm your host, Jeff Hrusko. And as usual, we are going to be exploring why we learn why sometimes we don't, and some of the things that make the difference and today I'm joined with Michael Reakes who has a long and interesting career in doing just that. He has worked with Saudi amico, if I'm saying that
Michael Reakes :
0:32
Aramco CFL company in Saudi Arabia,
Jeff Hrusko :
0:36
thank you. Thank you. Hi, Michael, welcome. Thank you for joining me.
Michael Reakes :
0:39
It's nice to be with you, Jeff.
Jeff Hrusko :
0:42
So, tell me and you've been in this field for a long time and you are an E learning expert. You're into? videography? Yeah, a bunch of varied experience and I just by looking at your LinkedIn, found out you also have a PhD in Astro Radio tell us copy of you would say that I don't think I said that quite properly. So tell me in in your career, what do you think some of the keys are for learning from going to just experiencing information and having that information go into actual practical application?
Michael Reakes :
1:25
Well,
I think one of the keys is to try and figure out what people need to know what practical skills they need and what motivations they need to do their job properly. And of course, full compliance training.
The motivations often are some of the most important, but I suppose what got me into training was my love of aviation. And I started off on flight simulators. You know, where you have a completely immersive experience of certain aspects of flying. And that's quite important if you come across an emergency an engine fire or an engine problem, you have to be able to do what is the best thing to do as quickly and as efficiently as possible. And I was lucky enough when I went to training conference in Florida to listen to Captain Sullenberger who landed his plane in the Hudson River and listen to some of the transcripts and he he certainly epitomized knowing having a great deal of experience he's built up and
the
Jeff Hrusko :
2:57
Yeah, critical moments. I mean, and That's the thing, I think with something like that, at that critical, critical moment, he made the right choice and and and I think at a moment like that and I know and Saudi Arabia you were teaching or one of the main focuses was on driver safety because it was you said there was a huge problem with that. And that kind of, it's almost unconscious right though that that quick reaction where you have to make a decision in microseconds.
Michael Reakes :
3:30
Yeah, driver training often, you know, you have to make similar decisions about what to do if something suddenly appears in front of you. Or if you start skidding outside Good, good, similar emergency situation. Which way do you turn the wheel and you need a combination of different things you need to know what to do but you also need to have it instinctively in you and you need to practice it all the time. psychomotor motions and of course, you also have to have the right attitude towards it.
To avoid getting into that state in the first place, you've got to keep a bigger separation, if you get rainy weather or for for road conditions. And you know, I started at the top end with flight simulators where it really matters. And I work down towards computer based training but in our design of computer based training, I tried to employ the same sort of strategies to the make the computer based training and the performance support and checklists and everything else we need for effective compliance training to be as effective as possible you know, firstly, and design what you mean you know, analyze a Perform the instructional design to figure out the precisely what you need to do know and believe and try and make real job examples and assessments to try and immerse the learnerin situations which they really need to do as far as you can, and it's surprising how well you can do that with simple elearning.
Jeff Hrusko :
5:29
Well, how do you do that with simple elearning is much different from a generally we're talking about traditional elearning you know, on the screen. So, what are some of the things you do to make that real for the person?
Michael Reakes :
5:47
Well, we what we did is we, we, we had traditional courses, but we broke the courses down into very small pieces. They were each learning object Using SCORM, they were no more than about 15 minutes of instruction followed by a test and the test was a multiple choice questions. But some of those questions were quite elaborate scenarios. And the key is to build up a picture of a particular work experience where you have to make a decision or take an action.
And I guess firesafety was another course we did as well as driver training. And in both cases, we would try and describe a scenario and I for a fight training refresher. I would set the scene in another building, not the building you normally were in but you're visiting another building, to trip and so when you go into that building, you often walk right past the Signs showing you where the emergency exits are. And the routes to those emergency exits are same in a hotel. I wonder how many people actually look to see where the emergency exits are before they, they go to sleep at night because you never, you know, you certainly might get woken up in the middle of the night and so I, I then I lead them through this scenario as to where they they're in another building. And then, you know, you could be the first one to discover smoke. What more do you do and you you can describe the scenarios in words, word pictures, you can use still images, you can make animations, video clips, anything that your budget would really run too. But the trick is to make it real world content. Get sensitive, and then put them in a scenario. You know, for example, you know what you're supposed to do first, you're supposed to press the fire alarm or rather the building, you know, take take them through things like that you're doing.
Jeff Hrusko :
8:19
You know what's interesting, and I think one of the, because I have a limited experience to this, but I was like on the fire safety team and one of my buildings when I worked, and I did some training with that, and you don't think about it, but to me, one of the biggest challenges is inertia, right? You, you know, you're sitting there and you smell smoke or you smell something burning. You don't want to make a big deal. So I think needing to knowing what you do first fright and letting somebody know that it's okay. I mean, the first thing is not necessarily to it depends on the procedures you have. You know, our first thing was to Pull down stairs to the fire Ward and you know the building and tell them I smell smoke. And then they ask you some questions. But that fear of, I guess making a big deal. You don't want to be the guy who pulls the fire alarm or whatever it is getting over that initial inertia. Do you agree?
Michael Reakes :
9:21
Yeah, I do agree. Absolutely. And I think you can show people the implications of what happens if you don't do that. One of the things we also did was allowing for it to allow with link scenarios to let people fail. You know, if they make the wrong decision, you put them in a situation where it progressively gets worse and worse and worse. And then you know what, before they get too far, tell them well, you should have done this, you know, you should have gone You should have not delayed before you got out. You shouldn't have opened that door. You felt worse was warm to the touch? You know you should you. And a lot of it is motivation. And it's the rules and regulations change. But sometimes there's a very clear regulation that prior prioritizes one thing over another. And you you have to show them the implications of why that rule is there. Often people don't follow rules because they don't know why those rules are there. What's important I
Jeff Hrusko :
10:32
You hit the nail on the head and especially with compliance training, and just giving the learner an explanation, even if it's not, you know, the best explanation but at least to know that the some rationale because there's nothing more annoying. I think I remember just once it just popped into my head, I was in the lobby of a building on the phone and somebody told me that I had to move from one area to another. And I just I wasn't ready. So that's why, even if it's a dumb reason you even told me it's interfering with electronics, you can tell them just but give me the respect, you know, to just tell me a reason.
Michael Reakes :
11:16
Yeah, the classic is don't use the lifts. If there's a fire, well, you know, you might think if you're on the 52nd floor, that using the lifts would be the quickest way out, but if that lift, it's a path. But if the fireman comes into the basement, the first thing he's going to do is shut off the power and stop the lifts and then you're really stuck. You know, you've got to you've got to realize why, you know, we've got things with driver safety.
Jeff Hrusko :
11:43
In addition to just on the lips one of the big dangers is you might be not bad where you are, you might go down and you're coming down there it opens up to a place you can't escape from
Michael Reakes :
11:54
Yes, yeah, that's another reason you're absolutely right. You know, there's there's one of the biggest reasons for accidents on the road and people driving too close to the vehicle in front and what they used to teach the apprentices and other road users in in Saturday was the two second rule which is to try and keep a two second separation between you and the vehicle in front. And of course the faster you're going the bigger the distance and it's a very easy way to to check it once you're shown our number on a tree on the side of the road. The two second rule is a very easy thing to implement and really helps keep a good separation distance from you and the vehicle in front.
So what you do is look at for some mark on the road or object on the side and they you start counting 1001 month out And then two. And if you haven't reached that the object, by the time you get to 1002 you are at least two seconds apart. But if you if it's come there before you finish counting, you're too close. And of course, if you're too close, that means that if something happens in front of you, the vehicle suddenly breaks or has something throws off the back of the lorry, you you've got not a lot of time, you've got insufficient time to be able to stop your vehicle safety safely. And, you know, explaining it and explaining that you can't stop so well if it's rainy, all those sort of things.
Jeff Hrusko :
13:43
So rationale. Yeah. And like I mentioned, when I was teaching my kids to drive I would tell them to imagine the car in front of you magically turned into a brick wall. Would you be able to stop?
Michael Reakes :
13:57
Yeah, sometimes when things fall off That sort of thing does happen or if you have a vehicle the other direction that suddenly comes over your way, you've got very little time to stop.
Jeff Hrusko :
14:10
And I know Yeah, yeah, it's amazing. I mean, I've had to dodge chairs that have fallen off vehicles was hit by a tire once. That time, I had absolutely no time to react. It was just driving and then there was a tire tread from a truck smashed. Yeah, you never know what's going to happen. But even Saudi Arabia said there was some cultural obstacles to overcome them.
Michael Reakes :
14:37
Yeah, they've got a lot better than they used to be. The real problem as my group of people were responsible for developing the training curriculum for a large number of apprentices and because they were young, they were male and they were they tended to be driving very fast, with Because on fast roads, and there were a lot more accidents with those people than they should have been.
And, you know, they try all sorts of different ways of motivating them. And I guess that's a good analogy for compliance training. You know, there's, there's what you should do. You know, there's the war in Britain, we call it the highway code, the rules and regulations. The, you know, the, probably the biggest two is don't don't exceed the speed limit and keep a good separation distance and you know, follow all the important rules like not overtaking or you're not supposed to overtake. But there were a lot of lot more accidents than they should have been, especially with the apprentices. And when I was there, which is a few years ago now. A lot of It was due to insufficient enforcement and, you know, you could teach, you could, you could teach the rules, but they wouldn't necessarily sink in. So that brings us to the point we just discussed, which is, you know, explain why. And and you could do that with driving simulators. You know, the other thing they used to do regularly was to bring in crashed vehicles, and try and, you know, improve the motivation, try and show videos which would, yes, I will show the implications of a crash, you know, everything you could do to try and improve the situation.
Jeff Hrusko :
16:46
And I think a lot of those things, Well, it depends on the audience and it depends on the culture to which is one thing that's interesting with learning because we always talk generally about learning strategy and motivational strategy, but there are cultural, different cultural support different motivations, but I'm not quite sure that those over the top death things work. I mean, I just remember my my own experience in high school we would be showing these horrible videos open we're learning to drive and for some reason they were always filmed in Ohio. So my takeaway was never go to Ohio and I haven't been there. So
Unknown Speaker :
17:22
Yes, what's improved the driving in Saudi Arabia more recently is basically the the enforcement they've now got very many more speed cameras, traffic light cameras to stop people going through the traffic lights and red and even they've even got apps I was, I've been told where as a passenger if you see somebody breaking a rule, you can take a video and send it in and if it's clear and obvious and there's a license plate to look at, then you know the police take action And the other thing is the all the apprentices being under the control of the oil company, they could have Terms and Conditions put on them whereby they had driver monitoring devices fitted to their private vehicles, they have have to agree to it and that they could then track whether they were driving too fast or, you know, things like that, that they judge.
Jeff Hrusko :
18:29
Fascinating did so monitoring, because I know he got
Michael Reakes :
18:34
Yeah, so I think when you, you know, as a consultant going in to try and improve a situation of compliance with some rule or regulation. I think you have to think laterally. And it's not always training isn't always the only solution. There's just checklist checklists and notices performance, support and There's other other things way outside of training. But
Jeff Hrusko :
19:05
That's I think one of the most important lessons I've learned, being an instructional designer is that training is not always the answer. And sometimes you have a client or prospective client come to you and say, I want to build this program. When you break down the task, it's like, well, let's look at the type of intervention that my work and here's why and let's try this out. So yeah, training, or if if it is it shouldn't be in a vacuum.
Michael Reakes :
19:35
Yes
Jeff Hrusko :
19:36
Yes, you know, the social support as a big thing. And I'm so this ends studies have borne this out, too, that the most important factor on the road for how you drive is the behavior of others. So it's almost like yeah, it's like he has to reach a certain tipping point where you're in the the outgroup
Michael Reakes :
20:00
Yes, absolutely. And of course they got women drivers now in Saudi, so we've, I've not been back since that, but they that might have had a moderating influence a little bit on the the driving as well.
Jeff Hrusko :
20:15
It's interesting, and that is one of the most obvious things when you go to another country, that you judge it because you're on the street and you see what different driving styles are like. And you compare it to your own experience. You know, I've been in a place like Vienna, where I'm standing on a street and says, Don't walk, there's absolutely no cars, and nobody's walking and you're like, Hi, I don't want to be the only American but this is ridiculous. We could meet Yes. Um, and then then the other extreme, I've been in places, you know, like Mumbai, where I could not cross the road. Again, my friend had to take me by the hand I almost just closed my eyes. And across, because it's a lot of dodging and weaving.
Michael Reakes :
21:04
Yes. And I guess some of the other points that are relevant to designing compliance e learning is demonstrate that the non compliance matters could put in situations like that. The The other thing I've got on my notes here is a lot of compliance training, references statistics to do with accidents or incidents. And they're good, but one of the things that I feel will help is to make a story out of an incident. I mean, the desert series TV series, I think it's National Geographic in the USA seconds desert disaster, where they take a very major disaster and they take you through all The different issues that lead up to that disaster the chain of events that cause such trouble to happen. And people remember stories and, you know, there's whole conferences linked to storytelling. And if people know people don't always remember training unless it's put across in a very good way, but a storytelling exit example of a disaster, they may take away the, the essence of the issue, which is don't do this.
Jeff Hrusko :
22:39
Because if you find a connection to it, yeah, I think that's very true that we're evolved to be very attuned to, to stories, and then it feels like more than just a statistic. So if you show a car accident, it's just a crash. If you show The person in the car filling out their application for college asking their significant other to get married. If you see their kids run, eat, you know that all that stays with you.
Michael Reakes :
23:16
Hmm. I'm turning to the fire training example. One of the key points and one of these learning objects was on which type of fire extinguisher Do you use on a particular fire. And you know, there's Class A ordinary combustibles Class B for flammable liquids and gas and classy for those which, whether there's electrical equipment and there's other sorts to and coming back to the point about context and scenarios. I think that's a good example where you can put a context over you know, you're working on Your computer and you see some smoke coming out? Well, it's clearly it's an electrical fire so you should use classy but the thing is that you rather than make it multiple choice with ABC or even you know the, the description of them if you can make it a touch, touch the screen question where you can click on the right fire extinguisher, they're all lined up in a row where they're normally stored, which one do you pick up? That's a better way of putting it and if you can go on to show whether what happens if you use the wrong sort of fire extinguisher that will help to course if you use a water type of fire extinguisher rather than fire with oil, it makes things very much worse. You Definitely don't want to do that on a fat fire in the kitchen. And they, those are the sort of ways in which you can make your learning, compliance eating more effective.
Jeff Hrusko :
25:14
I would imagine something like that too, especially when we're talking about safety and quick decision. Making that timed. questions might be a good idea if something like that. So let's say you're at a computer, it's like, oh, you smell smoke show a little animation and have a countdown clock with.
Michael Reakes :
25:33
Yeah, absolutely. Yes. That's a very good point. And to tell you how we I used to do the learning objects. I used to start with the test questions coming up with a good range of test questions. I mean, we had just 115 minute learning object on the class. You know, selecting the right fire extinguisher classifier, single shift at the fire There were 20 or more randomly selected questions, and almost the whole learning object was the test, you do the test. First you make 20 different questions, or maybe there's five variations, you know, five or so different classes of fires, but then you, you have to make them so that they're randomized. So the questions come up in a in a random order, you need at least five questions to one in the bank. So that for every question where the answer is an ordinary combust ordinary combustible materials and you need a class, a fire extinguisher, you need at least five questions. And they all need to be above scenario type. And they ideally, they're all one set that put you into the context. It does take a lot longer. Develop but that way if you can, and also people know it to have a lot of our stuff was done as refresher training. So you want to allow people to test out as quickly as possible. So you I would we would never love from into the, the tutorial material that went to it, they could go straight to the test, they would take that 20 questions, and if they have the pass rate was fairly high sort of 75 80% to gain mastery. If they failed it then they were sent to the beginning where they could sit through the presentation. They could try the test immediately again if they wanted, but it would bring up a different set of questions. And so they would you know, unless you memorized every single variation of every question when it's often held To do that than it is to know actually know the stuff. Yeah. How this stuff? Yes. What's
Jeff Hrusko :
28:04
that, but there's such an art to writing questions and I know I've hopefully gotten better at this over the years because you've learned some things and yeah, it's funny actually, what made me a better question writer is I taught years ago I taught tutoring kids on how to do this. And basically, the whole method was gaming. The the questions where they told you this, like the things like the longer question that has like an 80%, or the longer answer choice as a percent chance of being the correct one. Look at that first, if there's an all of the above, that's also most likely the answer because the guy writing the question, he's not going to take his time.
Michael Reakes :
28:54
Yes, you're absolutely right. And we the whole company had a lot of different rules and regulations and internal guidelines on test question writing. And that was one of the checks. They all have to be all the if they were text answers, text questions and tech centers, which we tried to avoid in the elearning, then they should be all about the same length. And we also banned the use of all of the above because as soon as you have all of the above you can't have a randomized,
Jeff Hrusko :
29:30
you know, and it's, it's the lazy persons, the lazy designers way out of
Michael Reakes :
29:37
Yeah, the other thing is,
I always used to favor multiple response answers, you have to choose. Well, it could have been one out of four, it could have been two out of four, three out of four, to that, that increases the number of permutations and ads To the randomness and makes it harder to guess, of course, you have to be very careful that they will. They're all not subject to interpretation. They have to be clear yes or no, for each particular one. And the other thing that I used to do, because a lot of our compliance was related to work guidelines, they were manuals, and it would say in paragraph 50, a, that you should do this, and they reward you, we would have the reference. So if you got if you got the question wrong, and we would always give, to try and make people learn, although it's a, it was an assessment, we, we didn't, we would allow people to get immediate feedback. We wouldn't tell them. If they got it, right. It would just say Well done, and it will go on to the next question. If they go too wrong. It would say nobody Now, right? You've got the choice of either reviewing or you can go and look at the reference where, you know, if you go and look in this manual on this page in this paragraph, that's where it tells you where the answer is. And of course, that encourages them to look at the underlying reference material and guidelines, which people don't tend to want to look at.
Jeff Hrusko :
31:25
Yeah, yeah, that's exactly I think, especially in today's world, telling people where to find or how to find information and how to evaluate that information is really the needs to be almost the key learning and anything to be able to get people used to Okay, I'm not sure what this is. Let me let me go. I know where to find the answer. And that's incredibly important
Michael Reakes :
31:52
and simulations are also useful.
Jeff Hrusko :
32:59
And you mentioned checklist a few times and I think that they are, are they I know that they are so incredibly important. And I think a couple years ago, probably about 10 years ago now there was this book, The Checklist Manifesto for doctors, because sometimes even you have a mastery and I know I'm at fault of this too. You have a mastery in the small things kind of go into the background you like and so easy to have blind spots on on on just certain certain things, you know, especially when you're really because you're like, Oh, I know all this.
Michael Reakes :
36:10
Yes. You know, they often know the checklists. Well, like they come up on modern aircraft and directly in front of you and tell you what to do, but they're not perfect. But generally, for every situation, you're in better an aircraft or a car or any situation, there's the best way to respond. It's not sometimes there's two equivalent ways of responding. But generally, you know, there's, there's there is the best way and it's an instructional designers job to try and tease that out of a subject matter expert or static from the regulations. You often know if you get into A emergency or an unusual situation? There's, there's, it's, it can be a little bit vague. But you have. So you, you really have to watch that when you're doing tests, excuse me test questions, because the last thing you want is people complaining that it's not grounded in reality. It doesn't. It doesn't, you know, the answers wrong, you know, I failed this test because the answers are not right. You know, you've got to make sure that they're there. They're really based on either what the regulations are, assuming the regulations are correct, or what is known to be the best way of handling a situation.
Jeff Hrusko :
37:48
And for me over the last couple years, I've been working with the platform, which is basically just questions based, it's called Axonify. And the good thing about It is Well, a couple things that you said, that resonated with me because I never started with the questions I never did doing instructional design, but then through this, it then really made me see the value of that. Because they you really have to focus then on the exact thing that somebody needs to know, then you work backwards on that. But one thing that's really interesting is evaluating your questions. So if you have 100 questions, and you can see the percentage of people like them right or got them wrong, and it's not just right or wrong, but you can also see where they're making the error, but you can also see if the question is not formed correctly. Do you know it? If If 90% of really smart people get a question, wrong is probably not the right question.
Michael Reakes :
38:55
Absolutely. Yes, you you. You need to work in an environment where you have the capability of aggregating the statistics on your questions and, as you say, isolating the questions that are that are either not right, or they're there. They're confusing, or there's a mistake in the question and and
Jeff Hrusko :
39:27
yeah, and so many eyes I think has to have to see it because you got you got blindness, mistake blindness.
Michael Reakes :
39:35
Do Yeah. Yeah, that's a very important attribute of an instructional designer and is being able to see it from a novice learners point of view, somebody who just has not been exposed to the the experience that the subject matter expert has gotten you and that's what you have to do is build them up gradually or expose them to it and then say, Well, you know, you didn't get this right, and it could have had big consequences. So go and take this piece of learning, and that'll teach you how to do it, how to respond correctly. And of course, you need, you can avoid some of these problems by having small group tryouts or you can have larger scale testing, beta testing, piloting, with the correct with a typical student population or learner population. And I noticed many of these things but it's surprising with a large number of questions, how some questions sit there with problems in them for a very long time. And I mean, I was with your company for a very long time and sometimes they will questions that we be correcting an error. thing, years after the system have gone into service as drew
Jeff Hrusko :
41:04
Yeah, and it's humbling, I mean, your questions that are out there for three years and one guy Finally, which is why I think learner feedback is so important. When a guy finally flags it and says it makes you look at at it at first like, this is ridiculous. It's everything has been vetted, and then you and then you look at it with fresh eyes and you're like, Oh, I can see how a person could think this.
Michael Reakes :
41:29
Yeah, what we did is that we would have a sort of credits page and a feedback page right at the end, after the test, and it gave a gave instructions on how to report any problems if they thought there was something wrong. Encourage all the learners to report it, take a screenshot and email it to a particular which would then look at it and try and resolve it.
Jeff Hrusko :
42:00
Yeah, that's a beautiful thing too is it definitely learner engagement.
Michael Reakes :
42:05
Yeah, the other the other thing about you mentioned earlier social learning and social feedback or if you can include a social platform where all the learners can chat to one another, and socially learn together and help one another that that is all straining. I may give you an example of something we tried with the fire training, you know, you would go through the fire training and it was part of a complete package. The E learning was only a refresher to a course which was initially instructor led classroom course which included really putting out a fire with different types of fire extinguishers at our fire Training Center. Show me all the right things to do in a safe way to do it. But the elearning refresher had some of the links included a link to social pages where you could pose a question like, you know, have you ever encountered a real fire? Write up watch one What happened? And did did what we've just learned help you, you know? And and you can.
Jeff Hrusko :
43:26
Oh, that is brilliant. Yeah,
Michael Reakes :
43:28
every idea which can be done on our forum on the website, but
Jeff Hrusko :
43:33
I love that because everybody likes to tell their stories.
Michael Reakes :
43:36
Yeah, yeah.
Jeff Hrusko :
43:38
And I'm sure just about everybody has some kind of fire story and what they did and what what they wish they knew at the time
Michael Reakes :
43:44
and driver to accidents on the freight as well.
Jeff Hrusko :
43:48
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Loads I met with one before with the with the tire. Yeah, it's like everyone loves telling the stories. I think that's an incredibly motivating way. So that's it. In a good takeaway, the power of narration, storytelling and the power of having the learner tell their own story, if at all, if at all possible. What are the over your career? What other points or kind of takeaways would you have advice for instructional designers?
Michael Reakes :
44:23
Hmm.
Well, I guess the other thing is to keep it keep it short and never put in too much in too much of what people don't really need to know. Make that a reference document. I like to keep things as simple as possible and break them down into smaller parts as possible. Yeah, I guess the other thing I've learned is not to lock people in to courses, compliance courses, especially If you if a lot of companies will want was say it from the company's point of view that I have to prove that these people have been exposed to this message, so I'm going to lock them into the slides. There's nothing more frustrating than that.
Jeff Hrusko :
45:16
I have had to push back so many times when people and I've always convinced them eventually but yeah, they love doing that too. It goes to my rule number one, don't punish the learner.
Michael Reakes :
45:27
Yeah, absolutely. There's nothing
Jeff Hrusko :
45:28
worse you're going to screen and you see maybe a little progress bar maybe the does even have a progress bar. It's not letting you go. There's two paragraphs, and there's a person reading it to you speaking very slowly, you just want to jump out a window.
Michael Reakes :
45:45
Yeah, we we were able to make it so that the people didn't have to listen to the audio narration you could, you know, it wouldn't be your choice. Read it. Yeah, you could read the text. You could skip forward. And you could also, as I said earlier, just go directly to the test. It's the test is mastery test. So that if you if it was properly designed, it had enough questions suitably spanning the the range of the learning object, and you could pass that with a reasonable degree of competency. You really didn't go need to go be presented with all that information again.
Jeff Hrusko :
46:30
One thing that I learned over my career and this was a hard thing for me to accept is and they told us if you take a creative writing course to kill your darlings, and you know, I would love to over produce things, your fancy video and animation which, if done, right, and it was relevant, it works. But I remember the feedback that hurt, hurt worse, it's like and learn the feedback. We're not I'm here to indulge your creativity.
Michael Reakes :
47:02
Oh, ouch. Yes, yes. And also, consider the cons, the context under which people are taking this material. Often, people have pressured jobs, they got too many other things to do. And they, they want to be able to accomplish something quickly. So that's why we came up with like the 15 minutes of elearning. I think nowadays, they got micro learning even smaller pieces, but we thought 15 minutes was about right, you could take one or two of the learning objects and pass the mastery test, the course refresher course would might have 20 of these 15 minute segments and you could build them up. They would be presented in the optimum order, but sometimes you could take them in any order and a few you could build them up progressively over over several days, and it's, you know, be they have to be integrated with the corporate requirements as well and often the,you know, being able to do your job you have for like any old company, work permits hazard recognition, you weren't authorized to do your job unless your refresher compliance training was up to date.
So there was pressure from the line organizations to make sure that people were up to date course that sometimes they wanted to make it cut corners and reduce the number of questions but I think there's a balance between being able to properly master it but delivering it with elearning is a good way of getting the bulk of the material across. It doesn't, it didn't necessarily that wasn't the the sole method of compliance training the driver improvement refresher, you still have to go in and do a practice it with a real vehicle. I was trying to get them to introduce driving simulators, because I think you could do things like skidding, which weren't tested any other way. But yeah, it all has to be integrated together with the corporate policy. Some of it is hands on, some of it is simulation. And we tried with virtual reality as well, you know, various problems in refineries where you have to move around and do various things and sometimes better done with virtual reality.
Jeff Hrusko :
49:56
Another believer in the right medium for the right learning what In this psycho spatial relationship, then virtual reality is a good thing because it gives you a better sense of that. But not Yeah, yeah, exactly. So the right medium medium for the right type of learning. So psycho motors ago and all those types of things. Well, listen, I so appreciate you coming and being a guest. Is there. Now are you currently consulting? Is there? Are you active? Are you looking for clients? Or are you just enjoying
Michael Reakes :
50:33
enjoying life To be honest, son, I'm enjoying retirement, although if anybody wanted to use my expertise, I'd be happy to help design some questions or some elearning. I think I've got some expertise that coming up with good test questions. So if anybody wanted me,
Jeff Hrusko :
50:52
well, am I am I tough, that's a tough thing. Well, the end thank you very much and I will link up I will link to your LinkedIn from the Show page. All right, great. Thanks again. Take care.
Michael Reakes :
51:06
Thank you, Jeff.
0:05
Hello, and welcome to another episode of COC. I'm your host, Jeff Hrusko. And as usual, we are going to be exploring why we learn why sometimes we don't, and some of the things that make the difference and today I'm joined with Michael Reakes who has a long and interesting career in doing just that. He has worked with Saudi amico, if I'm saying that
Michael Reakes :
0:32
Aramco CFL company in Saudi Arabia,
Jeff Hrusko :
0:36
thank you. Thank you. Hi, Michael, welcome. Thank you for joining me.
Michael Reakes :
0:39
It's nice to be with you, Jeff.
Jeff Hrusko :
0:42
So, tell me and you've been in this field for a long time and you are an E learning expert. You're into? videography? Yeah, a bunch of varied experience and I just by looking at your LinkedIn, found out you also have a PhD in Astro Radio tell us copy of you would say that I don't think I said that quite properly. So tell me in in your career, what do you think some of the keys are for learning from going to just experiencing information and having that information go into actual practical application?
Michael Reakes :
1:25
Well,
I think one of the keys is to try and figure out what people need to know what practical skills they need and what motivations they need to do their job properly. And of course, full compliance training.
The motivations often are some of the most important, but I suppose what got me into training was my love of aviation. And I started off on flight simulators. You know, where you have a completely immersive experience of certain aspects of flying. And that's quite important if you come across an emergency an engine fire or an engine problem, you have to be able to do what is the best thing to do as quickly and as efficiently as possible. And I was lucky enough when I went to training conference in Florida to listen to Captain Sullenberger who landed his plane in the Hudson River and listen to some of the transcripts and he he certainly epitomized knowing having a great deal of experience he's built up and
the
Jeff Hrusko :
2:57
Yeah, critical moments. I mean, and That's the thing, I think with something like that, at that critical, critical moment, he made the right choice and and and I think at a moment like that and I know and Saudi Arabia you were teaching or one of the main focuses was on driver safety because it was you said there was a huge problem with that. And that kind of, it's almost unconscious right though that that quick reaction where you have to make a decision in microseconds.
Michael Reakes :
3:30
Yeah, driver training often, you know, you have to make similar decisions about what to do if something suddenly appears in front of you. Or if you start skidding outside Good, good, similar emergency situation. Which way do you turn the wheel and you need a combination of different things you need to know what to do but you also need to have it instinctively in you and you need to practice it all the time. psychomotor motions and of course, you also have to have the right attitude towards it.
To avoid getting into that state in the first place, you've got to keep a bigger separation, if you get rainy weather or for for road conditions. And you know, I started at the top end with flight simulators where it really matters. And I work down towards computer based training but in our design of computer based training, I tried to employ the same sort of strategies to the make the computer based training and the performance support and checklists and everything else we need for effective compliance training to be as effective as possible you know, firstly, and design what you mean you know, analyze a Perform the instructional design to figure out the precisely what you need to do know and believe and try and make real job examples and assessments to try and immerse the learnerin situations which they really need to do as far as you can, and it's surprising how well you can do that with simple elearning.
Jeff Hrusko :
5:29
Well, how do you do that with simple elearning is much different from a generally we're talking about traditional elearning you know, on the screen. So, what are some of the things you do to make that real for the person?
Michael Reakes :
5:47
Well, we what we did is we, we, we had traditional courses, but we broke the courses down into very small pieces. They were each learning object Using SCORM, they were no more than about 15 minutes of instruction followed by a test and the test was a multiple choice questions. But some of those questions were quite elaborate scenarios. And the key is to build up a picture of a particular work experience where you have to make a decision or take an action.
And I guess firesafety was another course we did as well as driver training. And in both cases, we would try and describe a scenario and I for a fight training refresher. I would set the scene in another building, not the building you normally were in but you're visiting another building, to trip and so when you go into that building, you often walk right past the Signs showing you where the emergency exits are. And the routes to those emergency exits are same in a hotel. I wonder how many people actually look to see where the emergency exits are before they, they go to sleep at night because you never, you know, you certainly might get woken up in the middle of the night and so I, I then I lead them through this scenario as to where they they're in another building. And then, you know, you could be the first one to discover smoke. What more do you do and you you can describe the scenarios in words, word pictures, you can use still images, you can make animations, video clips, anything that your budget would really run too. But the trick is to make it real world content. Get sensitive, and then put them in a scenario. You know, for example, you know what you're supposed to do first, you're supposed to press the fire alarm or rather the building, you know, take take them through things like that you're doing.
Jeff Hrusko :
8:19
You know what's interesting, and I think one of the, because I have a limited experience to this, but I was like on the fire safety team and one of my buildings when I worked, and I did some training with that, and you don't think about it, but to me, one of the biggest challenges is inertia, right? You, you know, you're sitting there and you smell smoke or you smell something burning. You don't want to make a big deal. So I think needing to knowing what you do first fright and letting somebody know that it's okay. I mean, the first thing is not necessarily to it depends on the procedures you have. You know, our first thing was to Pull down stairs to the fire Ward and you know the building and tell them I smell smoke. And then they ask you some questions. But that fear of, I guess making a big deal. You don't want to be the guy who pulls the fire alarm or whatever it is getting over that initial inertia. Do you agree?
Michael Reakes :
9:21
Yeah, I do agree. Absolutely. And I think you can show people the implications of what happens if you don't do that. One of the things we also did was allowing for it to allow with link scenarios to let people fail. You know, if they make the wrong decision, you put them in a situation where it progressively gets worse and worse and worse. And then you know what, before they get too far, tell them well, you should have done this, you know, you should have gone You should have not delayed before you got out. You shouldn't have opened that door. You felt worse was warm to the touch? You know you should you. And a lot of it is motivation. And it's the rules and regulations change. But sometimes there's a very clear regulation that prior prioritizes one thing over another. And you you have to show them the implications of why that rule is there. Often people don't follow rules because they don't know why those rules are there. What's important I
Jeff Hrusko :
10:32
You hit the nail on the head and especially with compliance training, and just giving the learner an explanation, even if it's not, you know, the best explanation but at least to know that the some rationale because there's nothing more annoying. I think I remember just once it just popped into my head, I was in the lobby of a building on the phone and somebody told me that I had to move from one area to another. And I just I wasn't ready. So that's why, even if it's a dumb reason you even told me it's interfering with electronics, you can tell them just but give me the respect, you know, to just tell me a reason.
Michael Reakes :
11:16
Yeah, the classic is don't use the lifts. If there's a fire, well, you know, you might think if you're on the 52nd floor, that using the lifts would be the quickest way out, but if that lift, it's a path. But if the fireman comes into the basement, the first thing he's going to do is shut off the power and stop the lifts and then you're really stuck. You know, you've got to you've got to realize why, you know, we've got things with driver safety.
Jeff Hrusko :
11:43
In addition to just on the lips one of the big dangers is you might be not bad where you are, you might go down and you're coming down there it opens up to a place you can't escape from
Michael Reakes :
11:54
Yes, yeah, that's another reason you're absolutely right. You know, there's there's one of the biggest reasons for accidents on the road and people driving too close to the vehicle in front and what they used to teach the apprentices and other road users in in Saturday was the two second rule which is to try and keep a two second separation between you and the vehicle in front. And of course the faster you're going the bigger the distance and it's a very easy way to to check it once you're shown our number on a tree on the side of the road. The two second rule is a very easy thing to implement and really helps keep a good separation distance from you and the vehicle in front.
So what you do is look at for some mark on the road or object on the side and they you start counting 1001 month out And then two. And if you haven't reached that the object, by the time you get to 1002 you are at least two seconds apart. But if you if it's come there before you finish counting, you're too close. And of course, if you're too close, that means that if something happens in front of you, the vehicle suddenly breaks or has something throws off the back of the lorry, you you've got not a lot of time, you've got insufficient time to be able to stop your vehicle safety safely. And, you know, explaining it and explaining that you can't stop so well if it's rainy, all those sort of things.
Jeff Hrusko :
13:43
So rationale. Yeah. And like I mentioned, when I was teaching my kids to drive I would tell them to imagine the car in front of you magically turned into a brick wall. Would you be able to stop?
Michael Reakes :
13:57
Yeah, sometimes when things fall off That sort of thing does happen or if you have a vehicle the other direction that suddenly comes over your way, you've got very little time to stop.
Jeff Hrusko :
14:10
And I know Yeah, yeah, it's amazing. I mean, I've had to dodge chairs that have fallen off vehicles was hit by a tire once. That time, I had absolutely no time to react. It was just driving and then there was a tire tread from a truck smashed. Yeah, you never know what's going to happen. But even Saudi Arabia said there was some cultural obstacles to overcome them.
Michael Reakes :
14:37
Yeah, they've got a lot better than they used to be. The real problem as my group of people were responsible for developing the training curriculum for a large number of apprentices and because they were young, they were male and they were they tended to be driving very fast, with Because on fast roads, and there were a lot more accidents with those people than they should have been.
And, you know, they try all sorts of different ways of motivating them. And I guess that's a good analogy for compliance training. You know, there's, there's what you should do. You know, there's the war in Britain, we call it the highway code, the rules and regulations. The, you know, the, probably the biggest two is don't don't exceed the speed limit and keep a good separation distance and you know, follow all the important rules like not overtaking or you're not supposed to overtake. But there were a lot of lot more accidents than they should have been, especially with the apprentices. And when I was there, which is a few years ago now. A lot of It was due to insufficient enforcement and, you know, you could teach, you could, you could teach the rules, but they wouldn't necessarily sink in. So that brings us to the point we just discussed, which is, you know, explain why. And and you could do that with driving simulators. You know, the other thing they used to do regularly was to bring in crashed vehicles, and try and, you know, improve the motivation, try and show videos which would, yes, I will show the implications of a crash, you know, everything you could do to try and improve the situation.
Jeff Hrusko :
16:46
And I think a lot of those things, Well, it depends on the audience and it depends on the culture to which is one thing that's interesting with learning because we always talk generally about learning strategy and motivational strategy, but there are cultural, different cultural support different motivations, but I'm not quite sure that those over the top death things work. I mean, I just remember my my own experience in high school we would be showing these horrible videos open we're learning to drive and for some reason they were always filmed in Ohio. So my takeaway was never go to Ohio and I haven't been there. So
Unknown Speaker :
17:22
Yes, what's improved the driving in Saudi Arabia more recently is basically the the enforcement they've now got very many more speed cameras, traffic light cameras to stop people going through the traffic lights and red and even they've even got apps I was, I've been told where as a passenger if you see somebody breaking a rule, you can take a video and send it in and if it's clear and obvious and there's a license plate to look at, then you know the police take action And the other thing is the all the apprentices being under the control of the oil company, they could have Terms and Conditions put on them whereby they had driver monitoring devices fitted to their private vehicles, they have have to agree to it and that they could then track whether they were driving too fast or, you know, things like that, that they judge.
Jeff Hrusko :
18:29
Fascinating did so monitoring, because I know he got
Michael Reakes :
18:34
Yeah, so I think when you, you know, as a consultant going in to try and improve a situation of compliance with some rule or regulation. I think you have to think laterally. And it's not always training isn't always the only solution. There's just checklist checklists and notices performance, support and There's other other things way outside of training. But
Jeff Hrusko :
19:05
That's I think one of the most important lessons I've learned, being an instructional designer is that training is not always the answer. And sometimes you have a client or prospective client come to you and say, I want to build this program. When you break down the task, it's like, well, let's look at the type of intervention that my work and here's why and let's try this out. So yeah, training, or if if it is it shouldn't be in a vacuum.
Michael Reakes :
19:35
Yes
Jeff Hrusko :
19:36
Yes, you know, the social support as a big thing. And I'm so this ends studies have borne this out, too, that the most important factor on the road for how you drive is the behavior of others. So it's almost like yeah, it's like he has to reach a certain tipping point where you're in the the outgroup
Michael Reakes :
20:00
Yes, absolutely. And of course they got women drivers now in Saudi, so we've, I've not been back since that, but they that might have had a moderating influence a little bit on the the driving as well.
Jeff Hrusko :
20:15
It's interesting, and that is one of the most obvious things when you go to another country, that you judge it because you're on the street and you see what different driving styles are like. And you compare it to your own experience. You know, I've been in a place like Vienna, where I'm standing on a street and says, Don't walk, there's absolutely no cars, and nobody's walking and you're like, Hi, I don't want to be the only American but this is ridiculous. We could meet Yes. Um, and then then the other extreme, I've been in places, you know, like Mumbai, where I could not cross the road. Again, my friend had to take me by the hand I almost just closed my eyes. And across, because it's a lot of dodging and weaving.
Michael Reakes :
21:04
Yes. And I guess some of the other points that are relevant to designing compliance e learning is demonstrate that the non compliance matters could put in situations like that. The The other thing I've got on my notes here is a lot of compliance training, references statistics to do with accidents or incidents. And they're good, but one of the things that I feel will help is to make a story out of an incident. I mean, the desert series TV series, I think it's National Geographic in the USA seconds desert disaster, where they take a very major disaster and they take you through all The different issues that lead up to that disaster the chain of events that cause such trouble to happen. And people remember stories and, you know, there's whole conferences linked to storytelling. And if people know people don't always remember training unless it's put across in a very good way, but a storytelling exit example of a disaster, they may take away the, the essence of the issue, which is don't do this.
Jeff Hrusko :
22:39
Because if you find a connection to it, yeah, I think that's very true that we're evolved to be very attuned to, to stories, and then it feels like more than just a statistic. So if you show a car accident, it's just a crash. If you show The person in the car filling out their application for college asking their significant other to get married. If you see their kids run, eat, you know that all that stays with you.
Michael Reakes :
23:16
Hmm. I'm turning to the fire training example. One of the key points and one of these learning objects was on which type of fire extinguisher Do you use on a particular fire. And you know, there's Class A ordinary combustibles Class B for flammable liquids and gas and classy for those which, whether there's electrical equipment and there's other sorts to and coming back to the point about context and scenarios. I think that's a good example where you can put a context over you know, you're working on Your computer and you see some smoke coming out? Well, it's clearly it's an electrical fire so you should use classy but the thing is that you rather than make it multiple choice with ABC or even you know the, the description of them if you can make it a touch, touch the screen question where you can click on the right fire extinguisher, they're all lined up in a row where they're normally stored, which one do you pick up? That's a better way of putting it and if you can go on to show whether what happens if you use the wrong sort of fire extinguisher that will help to course if you use a water type of fire extinguisher rather than fire with oil, it makes things very much worse. You Definitely don't want to do that on a fat fire in the kitchen. And they, those are the sort of ways in which you can make your learning, compliance eating more effective.
Jeff Hrusko :
25:14
I would imagine something like that too, especially when we're talking about safety and quick decision. Making that timed. questions might be a good idea if something like that. So let's say you're at a computer, it's like, oh, you smell smoke show a little animation and have a countdown clock with.
Michael Reakes :
25:33
Yeah, absolutely. Yes. That's a very good point. And to tell you how we I used to do the learning objects. I used to start with the test questions coming up with a good range of test questions. I mean, we had just 115 minute learning object on the class. You know, selecting the right fire extinguisher classifier, single shift at the fire There were 20 or more randomly selected questions, and almost the whole learning object was the test, you do the test. First you make 20 different questions, or maybe there's five variations, you know, five or so different classes of fires, but then you, you have to make them so that they're randomized. So the questions come up in a in a random order, you need at least five questions to one in the bank. So that for every question where the answer is an ordinary combust ordinary combustible materials and you need a class, a fire extinguisher, you need at least five questions. And they all need to be above scenario type. And they ideally, they're all one set that put you into the context. It does take a lot longer. Develop but that way if you can, and also people know it to have a lot of our stuff was done as refresher training. So you want to allow people to test out as quickly as possible. So you I would we would never love from into the, the tutorial material that went to it, they could go straight to the test, they would take that 20 questions, and if they have the pass rate was fairly high sort of 75 80% to gain mastery. If they failed it then they were sent to the beginning where they could sit through the presentation. They could try the test immediately again if they wanted, but it would bring up a different set of questions. And so they would you know, unless you memorized every single variation of every question when it's often held To do that than it is to know actually know the stuff. Yeah. How this stuff? Yes. What's
Jeff Hrusko :
28:04
that, but there's such an art to writing questions and I know I've hopefully gotten better at this over the years because you've learned some things and yeah, it's funny actually, what made me a better question writer is I taught years ago I taught tutoring kids on how to do this. And basically, the whole method was gaming. The the questions where they told you this, like the things like the longer question that has like an 80%, or the longer answer choice as a percent chance of being the correct one. Look at that first, if there's an all of the above, that's also most likely the answer because the guy writing the question, he's not going to take his time.
Michael Reakes :
28:54
Yes, you're absolutely right. And we the whole company had a lot of different rules and regulations and internal guidelines on test question writing. And that was one of the checks. They all have to be all the if they were text answers, text questions and tech centers, which we tried to avoid in the elearning, then they should be all about the same length. And we also banned the use of all of the above because as soon as you have all of the above you can't have a randomized,
Jeff Hrusko :
29:30
you know, and it's, it's the lazy persons, the lazy designers way out of
Michael Reakes :
29:37
Yeah, the other thing is,
I always used to favor multiple response answers, you have to choose. Well, it could have been one out of four, it could have been two out of four, three out of four, to that, that increases the number of permutations and ads To the randomness and makes it harder to guess, of course, you have to be very careful that they will. They're all not subject to interpretation. They have to be clear yes or no, for each particular one. And the other thing that I used to do, because a lot of our compliance was related to work guidelines, they were manuals, and it would say in paragraph 50, a, that you should do this, and they reward you, we would have the reference. So if you got if you got the question wrong, and we would always give, to try and make people learn, although it's a, it was an assessment, we, we didn't, we would allow people to get immediate feedback. We wouldn't tell them. If they got it, right. It would just say Well done, and it will go on to the next question. If they go too wrong. It would say nobody Now, right? You've got the choice of either reviewing or you can go and look at the reference where, you know, if you go and look in this manual on this page in this paragraph, that's where it tells you where the answer is. And of course, that encourages them to look at the underlying reference material and guidelines, which people don't tend to want to look at.
Jeff Hrusko :
31:25
Yeah, yeah, that's exactly I think, especially in today's world, telling people where to find or how to find information and how to evaluate that information is really the needs to be almost the key learning and anything to be able to get people used to Okay, I'm not sure what this is. Let me let me go. I know where to find the answer. And that's incredibly important
Michael Reakes :
31:52
and simulations are also useful.
Jeff Hrusko :
32:59
And you mentioned checklist a few times and I think that they are, are they I know that they are so incredibly important. And I think a couple years ago, probably about 10 years ago now there was this book, The Checklist Manifesto for doctors, because sometimes even you have a mastery and I know I'm at fault of this too. You have a mastery in the small things kind of go into the background you like and so easy to have blind spots on on on just certain certain things, you know, especially when you're really because you're like, Oh, I know all this.
Michael Reakes :
36:10
Yes. You know, they often know the checklists. Well, like they come up on modern aircraft and directly in front of you and tell you what to do, but they're not perfect. But generally, for every situation, you're in better an aircraft or a car or any situation, there's the best way to respond. It's not sometimes there's two equivalent ways of responding. But generally, you know, there's, there's there is the best way and it's an instructional designers job to try and tease that out of a subject matter expert or static from the regulations. You often know if you get into A emergency or an unusual situation? There's, there's, it's, it can be a little bit vague. But you have. So you, you really have to watch that when you're doing tests, excuse me test questions, because the last thing you want is people complaining that it's not grounded in reality. It doesn't. It doesn't, you know, the answers wrong, you know, I failed this test because the answers are not right. You know, you've got to make sure that they're there. They're really based on either what the regulations are, assuming the regulations are correct, or what is known to be the best way of handling a situation.
Jeff Hrusko :
37:48
And for me over the last couple years, I've been working with the platform, which is basically just questions based, it's called Axonify. And the good thing about It is Well, a couple things that you said, that resonated with me because I never started with the questions I never did doing instructional design, but then through this, it then really made me see the value of that. Because they you really have to focus then on the exact thing that somebody needs to know, then you work backwards on that. But one thing that's really interesting is evaluating your questions. So if you have 100 questions, and you can see the percentage of people like them right or got them wrong, and it's not just right or wrong, but you can also see where they're making the error, but you can also see if the question is not formed correctly. Do you know it? If If 90% of really smart people get a question, wrong is probably not the right question.
Michael Reakes :
38:55
Absolutely. Yes, you you. You need to work in an environment where you have the capability of aggregating the statistics on your questions and, as you say, isolating the questions that are that are either not right, or they're there. They're confusing, or there's a mistake in the question and and
Jeff Hrusko :
39:27
yeah, and so many eyes I think has to have to see it because you got you got blindness, mistake blindness.
Michael Reakes :
39:35
Do Yeah. Yeah, that's a very important attribute of an instructional designer and is being able to see it from a novice learners point of view, somebody who just has not been exposed to the the experience that the subject matter expert has gotten you and that's what you have to do is build them up gradually or expose them to it and then say, Well, you know, you didn't get this right, and it could have had big consequences. So go and take this piece of learning, and that'll teach you how to do it, how to respond correctly. And of course, you need, you can avoid some of these problems by having small group tryouts or you can have larger scale testing, beta testing, piloting, with the correct with a typical student population or learner population. And I noticed many of these things but it's surprising with a large number of questions, how some questions sit there with problems in them for a very long time. And I mean, I was with your company for a very long time and sometimes they will questions that we be correcting an error. thing, years after the system have gone into service as drew
Jeff Hrusko :
41:04
Yeah, and it's humbling, I mean, your questions that are out there for three years and one guy Finally, which is why I think learner feedback is so important. When a guy finally flags it and says it makes you look at at it at first like, this is ridiculous. It's everything has been vetted, and then you and then you look at it with fresh eyes and you're like, Oh, I can see how a person could think this.
Michael Reakes :
41:29
Yeah, what we did is that we would have a sort of credits page and a feedback page right at the end, after the test, and it gave a gave instructions on how to report any problems if they thought there was something wrong. Encourage all the learners to report it, take a screenshot and email it to a particular which would then look at it and try and resolve it.
Jeff Hrusko :
42:00
Yeah, that's a beautiful thing too is it definitely learner engagement.
Michael Reakes :
42:05
Yeah, the other the other thing about you mentioned earlier social learning and social feedback or if you can include a social platform where all the learners can chat to one another, and socially learn together and help one another that that is all straining. I may give you an example of something we tried with the fire training, you know, you would go through the fire training and it was part of a complete package. The E learning was only a refresher to a course which was initially instructor led classroom course which included really putting out a fire with different types of fire extinguishers at our fire Training Center. Show me all the right things to do in a safe way to do it. But the elearning refresher had some of the links included a link to social pages where you could pose a question like, you know, have you ever encountered a real fire? Write up watch one What happened? And did did what we've just learned help you, you know? And and you can.
Jeff Hrusko :
43:26
Oh, that is brilliant. Yeah,
Michael Reakes :
43:28
every idea which can be done on our forum on the website, but
Jeff Hrusko :
43:33
I love that because everybody likes to tell their stories.
Michael Reakes :
43:36
Yeah, yeah.
Jeff Hrusko :
43:38
And I'm sure just about everybody has some kind of fire story and what they did and what what they wish they knew at the time
Michael Reakes :
43:44
and driver to accidents on the freight as well.
Jeff Hrusko :
43:48
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Loads I met with one before with the with the tire. Yeah, it's like everyone loves telling the stories. I think that's an incredibly motivating way. So that's it. In a good takeaway, the power of narration, storytelling and the power of having the learner tell their own story, if at all, if at all possible. What are the over your career? What other points or kind of takeaways would you have advice for instructional designers?
Michael Reakes :
44:23
Hmm.
Well, I guess the other thing is to keep it keep it short and never put in too much in too much of what people don't really need to know. Make that a reference document. I like to keep things as simple as possible and break them down into smaller parts as possible. Yeah, I guess the other thing I've learned is not to lock people in to courses, compliance courses, especially If you if a lot of companies will want was say it from the company's point of view that I have to prove that these people have been exposed to this message, so I'm going to lock them into the slides. There's nothing more frustrating than that.
Jeff Hrusko :
45:16
I have had to push back so many times when people and I've always convinced them eventually but yeah, they love doing that too. It goes to my rule number one, don't punish the learner.
Michael Reakes :
45:27
Yeah, absolutely. There's nothing
Jeff Hrusko :
45:28
worse you're going to screen and you see maybe a little progress bar maybe the does even have a progress bar. It's not letting you go. There's two paragraphs, and there's a person reading it to you speaking very slowly, you just want to jump out a window.
Michael Reakes :
45:45
Yeah, we we were able to make it so that the people didn't have to listen to the audio narration you could, you know, it wouldn't be your choice. Read it. Yeah, you could read the text. You could skip forward. And you could also, as I said earlier, just go directly to the test. It's the test is mastery test. So that if you if it was properly designed, it had enough questions suitably spanning the the range of the learning object, and you could pass that with a reasonable degree of competency. You really didn't go need to go be presented with all that information again.
Jeff Hrusko :
46:30
One thing that I learned over my career and this was a hard thing for me to accept is and they told us if you take a creative writing course to kill your darlings, and you know, I would love to over produce things, your fancy video and animation which, if done, right, and it was relevant, it works. But I remember the feedback that hurt, hurt worse, it's like and learn the feedback. We're not I'm here to indulge your creativity.
Michael Reakes :
47:02
Oh, ouch. Yes, yes. And also, consider the cons, the context under which people are taking this material. Often, people have pressured jobs, they got too many other things to do. And they, they want to be able to accomplish something quickly. So that's why we came up with like the 15 minutes of elearning. I think nowadays, they got micro learning even smaller pieces, but we thought 15 minutes was about right, you could take one or two of the learning objects and pass the mastery test, the course refresher course would might have 20 of these 15 minute segments and you could build them up. They would be presented in the optimum order, but sometimes you could take them in any order and a few you could build them up progressively over over several days, and it's, you know, be they have to be integrated with the corporate requirements as well and often the,you know, being able to do your job you have for like any old company, work permits hazard recognition, you weren't authorized to do your job unless your refresher compliance training was up to date.
So there was pressure from the line organizations to make sure that people were up to date course that sometimes they wanted to make it cut corners and reduce the number of questions but I think there's a balance between being able to properly master it but delivering it with elearning is a good way of getting the bulk of the material across. It doesn't, it didn't necessarily that wasn't the the sole method of compliance training the driver improvement refresher, you still have to go in and do a practice it with a real vehicle. I was trying to get them to introduce driving simulators, because I think you could do things like skidding, which weren't tested any other way. But yeah, it all has to be integrated together with the corporate policy. Some of it is hands on, some of it is simulation. And we tried with virtual reality as well, you know, various problems in refineries where you have to move around and do various things and sometimes better done with virtual reality.
Jeff Hrusko :
49:56
Another believer in the right medium for the right learning what In this psycho spatial relationship, then virtual reality is a good thing because it gives you a better sense of that. But not Yeah, yeah, exactly. So the right medium medium for the right type of learning. So psycho motors ago and all those types of things. Well, listen, I so appreciate you coming and being a guest. Is there. Now are you currently consulting? Is there? Are you active? Are you looking for clients? Or are you just enjoying
Michael Reakes :
50:33
enjoying life To be honest, son, I'm enjoying retirement, although if anybody wanted to use my expertise, I'd be happy to help design some questions or some elearning. I think I've got some expertise that coming up with good test questions. So if anybody wanted me,
Jeff Hrusko :
50:52
well, am I am I tough, that's a tough thing. Well, the end thank you very much and I will link up I will link to your LinkedIn from the Show page. All right, great. Thanks again. Take care.
Michael Reakes :
51:06
Thank you, Jeff.
