The Digital Learning Journey: Motivate and Tinker

When we answer the question of why we want to perform the skill, we need to test it out. This phase is when we are developing the value to ourselves primarily, and we are seeking safe environments to grow, fail, and build confidence.

?So, why the hell are you doing this?

Phase I: Motivate

When people start their journey, they often have a spark in them that is super bright at first but can quickly extinguish for a bunch of reasons. As soon as some people see the need to learn something, they immediately convince themselves they can’t do it. Why? If you can’t do it—which is totally possible—shouldn’t you base that on actual evidence? And if you truly can’t do it—isn’t it better to have tried and learned that the skill isn’t for you instead of having this infinite “what if” question circling in your mind?

Learning new stuff can be scary. I get it. I don’t like to learn new stuff that I perceive as hard or super foreign to me. But we should at least give it a try.

When you start something out though—you are just doing that: starting. You aren’t solving world problems, or transforming your entire company, or redefining everything about yourself. You are starting something new. Something small. Something safe.

You are taking that spark and are giving it fuel to power your engine. This phase has three steps that will grow your value of self and prepare you to demonstrate these skills with others next. But for now, you are doing these things just and for, you.

Step 1: Tinker

When we tinker, we are kicking the tires. We are going through our first guided tutorials from beginning to end, we are pushing through doubt, and we are careful to not make a mistake.

When I think of the word tinker, I think of Tinker Toys. By using basic sticks and hub pieces, kids can use them to build all sorts of things from buildings, to cars, or costumes. The pieces that you have available aren’t complex in any way, but it brings out the creativity and possibility of what you are able to eventually build.

When we start learning something new, we are essentially “kicking the tires.” We want to size up the skill we are interested in learning and walk around it to give it a good look, and then give it a test drive.

When we start out with something new, we rely entirely on the content, insight, and knowledge of others to guide us. We want to make sure we don’t make a mistake. In fact, some see making a mistake as their biggest fear, and the largest deterrent to learning the skill in the first place.

Guided tutorials that carefully take someone through a series of steps to create a finished product is a great way to get started. During those guided steps though, it is important to point out where people, even experienced professionals, make errors or mistakes. Guiding someone through the steps to complete, while at the same time, letting people know it is ok—even expected—that you will make a mistake at some time. Some of the best tutorials intentionally go down the path of making a mistake, and reinforce that making a mistake is normal, and there is a way to get out of it.

We start with a spark, and end with something tangible, recognizing that failure is ok.

I like to think back to when I learned how to ice skate. I learned when I was in my late 30s and remember when I went out on the ice without my skating instructor for the first time and was doing loops around the rink with my husband, who had learned how to skate the previous year. I was so proud of myself when I went around twice without falling, and then continued to skate for the rest of the night—all without falling. But when I tried to get some appreciation from my husband on my error-free skate, I didn’t get the feedback I was expecting. He said, while that was good that I didn’t fall, I also didn’t push myself enough to cause a fall—and I didn’t practice how to fall correctly.

This same applies to skills off the ice. We need that hand-holding at first to create our first examples of what we can begin to create with this new skill, all while initially removing fear of failure and then reintroduce failure as normal after we begin to play—to tinker.

Where the values grow

As the first step of the first phase, the focus is almost entirely on you. This is all about your confidence and your value. It’s the main reason why this phase is often overlooked and glossed over. Many feel that learning is about giving something to others, but when we recognize that we first need to give that skill value in ourselves, this step becomes critical for the others after it to be successful.

If you’re a learner…

Focus on the path of the tutorial, and slowly move from excitement about completing a series of steps successfully, and then start to look at the connection and flow between the steps.

For instance, you might have completed steps 1, 2 and 3 in that order several times now—but look at those steps—why do you think they are done in that order? Can you start to see patterns that are being introduced in how the steps and tutorial are being laid out?

While you might not know the answers to all the questions you have, take note of what questions you do have. You might find a better time to ask them, or you can find them out at some point. Give your questions space and validity by acknowledging them as questions and write them in a learning journal or note.

If you’re an advocate…

Tutorials can be difficult to create but consider them as an opportunity to reinforce different parts of the learning goal at different times. See each tutorial as an opportunity to introduce a new concept—even if it isn’t part of the tutorial’s central learning objective.

As you create your tutorial, think of the questions that the learner might have along the way, “Why is it done this way?” “Why is it called that?” And answer questions along the way to validate concepts that a learner might have at a certain point, but it is too early in the learning journey to answer fully. I have found writing tutorials for coding often hit this wall, and I at times have to say, “Yeah, this doesn’t make sense, and you are probably wondering what the hell this means—and we will answer this question, but not just yet.” This is perfectly acceptable, and preferable then not saying anything at all—because you are validating a question that the learner has and are reinforcing their inquisitiveness.

I also suggest building successful failures into tutorials and tell them that ahead of time. Give your learners a guided path to failure, so they can learn how to navigate their way out of failure on their own when they will totally encounter that. Also, make sure you acknowledge common points of failure in the tutorial that might get the learner in a bad state, and how to back up to a good place on the path—even if that means they have to start over, all while learning why so they can avoid it again next time.

Up next

After we have tinkered, kicked the tires and become a little more comfortable, it’s time to put what we are learning to the test—using experimentation. We’ll look more at that in the next issue.

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.