Which books changed my view on learning?

These 5 books I found unbelievably useful to understanding learning.

To be clear the kind of learning I am interested in is specific. It is around how people learn complex skills as an adult at work.

So not education, not simple behaviour change and not how to run a training programme. How does someone get to be good enough at something to be valuable?

This feels like the important question in a world of rapid technology and skill shifts. The good news is that there are answers out there. Understanding how to accelerate the build these complex skills becomes a competitive advantage for any business

These 5 books are all brilliant

HOW WE LEARN - Stanislas Dehaene. Loads of useful research based ideas in here. Particularly like his four pillars of learning around the cycle of learning.

"And all learners benefit from focused attention, active engagement, error feedback, and a cycle of daily rehearsal and nightly consolidation— I call these factors the “four pillars” of learning, because, as we shall see, they lie at the foundation of the universal human learning algorithm present in all our brains, children and adults alike."

HOW PEOPLE LEARN - Nick Shackelton-Jones brilliant book really focuses in on learning needing to help people do something not just share more content. He has great examples of how very often the best way to resolve a learning need is to focus on what a person is trying to achieve and get rid of the need to learn. Don't learn to read maps, get Google maps.

"In a corporate context we routinely make the mistake of starting a learning project by asking people (business leaders, for example) what people need to learn. This ensures that we get off on the wrong foot; they will doubtless come up with a list of topics, which we will translate into courseware, and which will inevitably bear no relation to the things people are actually trying to do."

I also love the question he poses of "Would someone be more excited and attentive to hear Nelson Mandela talk about his life or listen to someone from the training team talk about Nelson Mandela's life?"

This links neatly to the next book which is THE SECRET OF OUR SUCCESS by Joseph Henrich. This book digs into the mechanisms of who we choose to learn from and the importance of both prestige and status. Who we pay attention to is not equally distributed. Evolution has built up survival mechanisms that are playing out in the modern world.

"We figure out from whom to learn by assessing who others think are worthy models. From this, prestige status is born. Individuals who receive this kind of attention, imitation, and deference are prestigious, even if they turn out not to be very knowledgeable or skilled."

He uses this to explain this is why celebrity endorsements work in advertising. Why do we pay attention to Kevin Bacon talking about mobile phones when we know he is just a paid actor? It is built in to our makeup.

If these 3 books highlight what learning is and who we learn from, the next 2 get far deeper into how we can apply this to complex skills.

ACCELERATED EXPERTISE - Robert R Hoffman et al. is a bit more technical. It has a super clear description of what Expertise is and how it builds through the different stages from Novice through Journeyman to Master and how the best learning for each stage is different and distinct. Really interesting examples from military and medical contexts where expertise really matters.

Some interesting insights on feedback in the learning process and the importance of the appropriate mentor. How we need to give different feedback to a novice versus an expert, how we need to change who the mentor is etc.

"What counts as useful feedback depends on the proficiency level of the individual whose performance is being evaluated."

The book also shares some research which shows how if you can accelerate the start of the learning process, you have a major impact on speed to expertise, and value.

The final book is WORKING MINDS. APRACTITIONERS GUIDE TO COGNITIVE TASK ANALYSIS - Beth Crandall, Gary Klein and Robert R Hoffman. Rooted in Gary Klein's Naturalistic Decision Making, this is a practical guide to some of the tools and techniques you can use to build the scenarios and experiences for learning. What is super useful is that they are focused on the types of cognitive challenges that most knowledge worker jobs are all about.

If you want to train people to do a better job, what exactly do you want them to learn... However, in many cases people have to learn new mental models of how something works, or they have to learn perceptual skills so they can make important distinctions. Sometimes, people have to learn how to do a better job at managing their attention.

These 5 books together give the answer to how to accelerate complex skills learning. They combine to offer a workable framework at the big picture level of what is the overall approach and at the detailed level of how you can teach and how people learn.