The Digital Learning Journey: Motivate and Experiment

While still in the Motivate stage, we can build on the tinkering we got started with and start building momentum. Working with experiments that give us more flexibility and the opportunity to touch our creativity will give our growing digital skills a great environment to grow.

Step 2: Experiment

When we experiment, we begin to take these tutorials and when the tutorial ends, we begin to ask questions. We are curious on what could happen next; potentially adding more, with comfortable risk.

Curiosity. It is a giant part of learning. It compels us to ask questions, and to act based on instinct and impulse. It also can get us into a bit of trouble—just ask your local cat. But the trouble we can get into at this point has low risk. We aren’t building anything that is a giant loss if it crumbles. We are building on the things we tinkered with earlier, and are asking—and answering, tons of “what if” questions.

Tutorials take us down a path where we cannot fail (or are designed to guide us down a safe, failure path intentionally). When we experiment, we are taking our first steps off the path and into the wilderness. Not far—but far enough to begin answering our own questions.

You may remember back in your general sciences classes in grade school covering the scientific method. Essentially, we have a hypothesis. That is, essentially, an educated guess on why things work a certain way. We then want to prove or disprove this hypothesis using some sort of example: an experiment. Experiments then will support or denounce a hypothesis and the more times that a hypothesis is proven, it becomes more accepted and becomes a theory.

We stop along the path, and ask what is beyond it, and we venture out—but keep the path in clear sight.

We are doing the exact same thing when we build our own experiments, but it happens silently in our head. Based on what we learn in tutorials, we are starting to establish patterns of how things are assembled and put together. We have a built-in curiosity to challenge those patterns and test out what the limits of those patterns are and start to branch off on our own.

No matter where you are in the learning journey and in the development of your skill—you will need to experiment. So, starting early will help you know how to experiment and give you confidence to venture out further off the trail in the future.

Where the values grow

With that first phase behind us, we begin shifting our value slightly to create more value for others. Through experimenting we are beginning to build examples of how that skill can be valuable in isolated and controlled ways. This process slowly shows us how that value can begin to be applied in larger circumstances, but we acknowledge that there is more that we need to explore and build on.

If you’re a learner…

Put on your hiking boots—because you are going off the path! Think of all the questions you took note of but didn’t necessarily have an answer to before. Are there experiments or tests that you can kick off to answer them?

Go back to the tutorials you completed before and go beyond the last step. Discover—and answer—your own “what if” questions. What if you did this…or that? What happens? What you do, when you (ultimately) will fail?

Based on what you learn in experimentation—what are patterns that are starting to hold up? What are common workarounds you have built? What pitfalls have you learned to avoid? These are all important things to acknowledge as you are building your own critical thinking about a topic or skill.

If you’re an advocate…

It’s possible to harness this desire to “venture off” by building experiments into learning content and curriculum. What are the assumptions and patterns you hope that learners have at that point, and how do you want them to see beyond them and create their own hypotheses and experiments to test them?

Build experiments with intent for your learner. Revisiting older examples is a good path since the learner has already built confidence with the steps you carefully laid out for them—and are encouraging them to go beyond them with your own prompts and encouragement.

I personally love challenges. These are where you can take the learner through steps of a tutorial and then set them up for a challenge. Present just enough information to help them see how to solve it and encourage them to try it on their own, and what it should look like when they are finished. Then, after they have attempted it, come back, and walk through a solution based on the viewpoint of the learner. Review common mistakes or paths that someone could have taken, and how to navigate back to a good place, or what to look for as signposts in the future to avoid it in the future.

Since experimenting is such a core part of learning, it is critical to build safe experimentation in your content. Make it part of the instructional experience and be where you can learn key parts of a lesson, and not just some “on the side” play area. For instance, if you were building a lesson that is teaching three key concepts, wrap the last one in an experiment so learners can find it out on the own and get their own “A-ha!” moment. Then reinforce that experiment with instructional backup—but keep the learning in the experiment.

Remember—the learner is going to need to experiment and try things on their own all throughout their development of the skill. So, take advantage of this need, and build the confidence to experiment early and often.

Up next

Experiments give us isolated and controlled micro-experiences for the uses of a technology or digital skill. Next, we need to start thinking a big picture with prototypes that aren’t the complete solution, but still gives us a safe environment to see in our minds how things could come together.

Doug Winnie is the Chief Learning Officer at MentorNations a startup focused on fostering digital skills around the globe and Director of Learning Experience and Organizational Effectiveness at H&R Block. Doug previously worked in various digital skills, education and product management roles at Microsoft, LinkedIn, and Adobe. Doug is also a LinkedIn Learning author with multiple courses on digital transformation, product management, and computer science. Doug is also the editor of the LinkedIn newsletter, “Digital Mindset” that publishes weekly on LinkedIn.