What are the principles upon which to build effective and engaging learning experiences? Is there a set of principles common to any and all delivery modalities (face to face, online, blended, synchronous, asynchronous, etc.) that can serve as a guidepost to learning design?
I believe there are five such principles, all beginning with the letter C: Credibility, Context, Communication, Collaboration, and Competition. (And by the way, I believe these are common not just to all delivery modalities, but to all learning experiences, period, regardless of age range, pedagogical or andragogical intent, etc. But that’s an argument for a different article.) Let's look at each one individually.
The first is fairly obvious and straightforward. In order to be open to instruction, learners must trust the source of the instruction: the professor, the teacher, the subject-matter expert, the book, the journal—whatever it may be. Even in the context of a constructivist, project-based pedagogy where the instructor’s role is more guide on the side than sage on the stage, learners must still trust the guide in order to commit themselves wholeheartedly to the learning process.
For a long time, it seemed fashionable to suggest that content is king. I’ve never believed that. In my mind, context is and always has been king.
There’s not a human being on the planet who doesn’t love to learn. We're hard-wired for it—it's how and why we’ve progressed as a species. But whether we’re one year old or one hundred years old, we learn only what we want to learn: only what's relevant and useful to us, what has meaning for us, what we can make meaning out of.
Knowledge without the ability to apply it is merely information, and we’re awash in information. The question is: What do we do with it? How do we construct meaning from it? Engagement in the learning process doesn’t happen in the absence of relevant context.
We are, by nature, social beings. None of us wants to be alone in front of a computer screen consuming information and trying to make sense of it. We all prefer the community of a cohort, whether physical or virtual. We feed off the energy and synergy generated by a group of fellow learners. Community helps to sharpen focus and discipline and lends affirmation: the fact that others are pursuing the same knowledge, skills, competencies, or behaviors lends legitimacy to our own pursuit of the same.
Learning is a social phenomenon: we learn as much from our peers as we do from our teachers. Collaborative learning enables us to take advantage of the wisdom of the crowed, extending the scope of subject-matter expertise beyond that of the teacher or instructor. And to the extent that, in our professional lives, most of us work in teams, collaborative learning reflects, teaches, and reinforces the real-world skills that help us succeed in the workplace.
It's true that, in the context of an asynchronous, non-cohort-based modality, real-time collaboration and team-based activities aren’t feasible. But that doesn’t preclude opportunities for commenting, for discussions embedded organically within the flow of the learning, for contributing user-generated content, and so on.
To a greater or lesser extent, we are all competitive beings. It’s an ego thing: we all need to feel good about ourselves, and we can’t help but measure ourselves against others. As a former colleague on a project team once pointed out, we all want to win at lunch, by which she meant that, in the company of our colleagues and coworkers, we want to come off as being more than just capable and competent; we want our colleagues to see us as being at the top of our games. And we all want to win at dinner: in the company of friends and family, we want to come off as interesting, well-informed, and good at what we do.
So why not cater—lightly—to those competitive instincts in our learning experiences? That’s the idea behind gamification: infusing learning experiences with game-like elements such as point systems, leader boards, rewards in the form of badges, and so on. It’s a great way to increase engagement and, by the way, provide incentives for students to take advantage of opportunities for collaboration.
I have long struggled to get learners to contribute to discussions, for example, in the context of asynchronous online learning experiences. One can adopt the “stick” approach of requiring such contributions as a condition of successful completion. Or one can try the “carrot” approach of rewarding contributions in the form of points and acknowledging them in the form of a leader board. I’ve tried both. Not surprisingly, the carrot has proven to be much more effective.
These five Cs—Credibility, Context, Community, Collaboration, and Competition—are the essential characteristics of an engaging and effective learning experience, independent of pedagogy. Together, they won’t guarantee successful learning outcomes, but their absence significantly undermines the chances that any learning experience will be successful.
