How to measure "Understand"?

TLRD: The article consists of two parts. Part 1 shared what I did back then. Part 2 shared the conclusion and my application. Feel free to skip to Part 2 if you are in a hurry. :)

1.

A few years ago, while I was in the process of content planning for a workshop on improving presentation skills for university students, I asked a few of them to complete a survey for better insights into their current challenges.

In the survey, I intentionally included a question: "What is your learning objective?" and I still remember myself almost bursting out to tears receiving nine out of ten responses to be: "To understand how to give a great presentation."

Words like "Know," "Understand," and "Effective" are not helpful.

Back in those days, I decided to take more time to conduct 1-on-1 interviews to ask more specific questions, hoping to gain further insights. Some of the questions in the lists were:

• Why do you need to conduct a presentation?
• Your frequency of delivering a presentation?
• Which technique have you attempted? Which technique fell short of your expectations and why?
• Who is an excellent presenter to you and why?
• What, in your opinion, is the biggest problem in your previous presentation?
• Does your friends or teachers have the same feedback?: This question provides me with a wealth of insights, as the interviewee (i would say especially Vietnamese people) tends to look down on himself, for example:

1. Interviewee A shared that he was not comfortable with his accent, saying it was uninspiring and wished to improve his accent, yet his friends feel indifferent.
2. Interviewee B believed that a good presentation should have lots of jokes to keep the audience engaged and that he needed to become more humorous, yet his friends find it easy for them to lose their focus on the core content with those jokes.

Hours of interviews allow me to conclude with two vital insights, later used as learning needs for my workshop:

• Students are aware of various techniques for delivering an effective presentation due to information readily available on the internet. Still, they are having difficulty understanding the presentation requirements and so are unable to match them with an appropriate strategy.
• Despite the fact that students seldom present and practice presentation skills, many wish subconsciously that there are some sort of "buttons" to activate and become a TedX speaker.

With the above-mentioned insight, I shaped the 2-hour workshop as below:

• 30 mins: Demystifying common assumptions on presentation, for example, Attention span, Sense of Humor.
• 30 mins: Strategy to customize your presentation, where I introduce a few frameworks that I usually apply, for example, 5W1H, Extreme Presentation Method.
• 30 mins: Discussion on available tools and techniques for practicing, where I once again reinforce the importance of practice.
• 30 mins: Exercise to practice the process of delivering a presentation, where I focus on boosting the confidence of the audience by highlighting their strength/uniqueness and facilitating cross-feedback in small groups.

Eventually, the workshop received great endorsements from the participants, allowing me to unconsciously know that I somehow identify the right learning need.

2.

Later, when I first began to learn about Learning Design, a respected senior recommended I to read the book "Design How People Learn" by Julie Dirksen. She mentioned that many of her fellows refer to this book as the first go-to one for a Learning Designer.

The book is indeed effortless to read with great examples, visual illustrations, and analogies, providing me an excellent opportunity to reflect on my previous days working instinctively.

One of my favorite sessions, which also provides the answer to the clickbait title is Chapter 3: "What's the goal?"

"A lot of learning projects start with the goal, rather than the problem, but that puts you in the position of solving problems you don’t actually have while failing to address the real issues." (Dirksen).

Indeed, most of the students in my workshop refer to their learning objective as an ambition (most of the time is to become a TedX Speaker), yet fail to state clearly their current problems or gaps.

Along with the statement, Dirksen shared a great framework to help us define an actionable goal, combining Bloom's Taxonomy and Gloria Gery's Competency Taxonomy.

"Understand" in this framework is defined as the ability to comprehend the materials and ideas to either classify, discuss, describe, explain and identify. "Understand" is a higher level than "Remember", which describes the state of recalling information only, and a lower level to "Apply", which describes the ability to execute, implement, use.

The rest of the framework is comprehensive and you can read more here: Bloom, Gloria Gery's Competency Taxonomy.

As for myself, I'm currently applying the frameworks in three ways:

1. Asking learners more pertinent questions to tailor the content and experience, for example:

• Learner: Hey, I need to learn X in HR in order to improve my performance at work.
• Me: Are you responsible for performing the task that requires the skillset? Or are you the supervisor, or their business partner?

2. Convincing learners or line managers to select the appropriate learning content.

3. Organize my self-learning management system., for example:

• If my learning goal is only to remember the concept (Remembering/Familiarization), I will apply the spaced repetition method, combining it with Quizlet flashcard.
• If my learning goal is at a more advanced level (Evaluate / Conscious Action), I will need to write synthesis or articles, or read relevant case studies.

Dirksen's sharing gave me an "Aha moment" and I hope that this useful information may reach one in need. May every one of us have a wondrous day!

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