Fearful of the Present and Terrified of the Future

While reading Hallenbeck's letters from 1955 in which he asked several colleagues for their working definitions of Adult Education I was taken by the difference in tone and tenor of each answer from 1955 as it felt so much more like there was "building" going on, whereas now I feel we take a lot of systems for granted. We are fine-tuning so much that has been given us, rather than creating from whole cloth.

Regardless, I gravitated toward Schwertman as well. The focus on experience drew me in. This is what I like most about Adult Education is our ability to use our experiences and build on experiences to become something more and to add to the education of others through the use of our experience as examples for them. I highlighted that same quote as you, "adult education is the constant expansion of experience in desirable directions," (p. 141) but also highlighted this passage from the Minich definition about how adult education must be diverse, "adult education should still represent a partnership among these groups and agencies in the community which have a genuine concern for the education of adults" (p. 140). In a past life as a Director of Career Development, I worked with a community college that wanted to provide associates degrees to our workers for having finished our training and experience over the course of two years. This was a blend of both Schwertman's experience and Minich's partnerships.



Honorable mention for highlights in this article I feel must go to Frank for the passage where he states, "As Otto Rank once said, "We cling to the past not because we are in love with the past but because we are fearful of the present"; and, it might be added we are terrified of the future. If we are to recover from the seemingly widespread demoralization and growing failure of nerve, adult education has the great office of helping people gain confidence in themselves, to renew their courage and their faith in human potentialities, in order that as a people we can overcome our many resistances to change and replace our anxiety with hopefulness toward the future" (p. 145). I read this several times and liked what it had to say more with each reading.



Hallenbeck, et al. (1955). What is adult education? Adult Education, (5) 3, 131-145.

A Couple More from the North

Why do I love these (see here, and here for more) so much? I don't think a long preamble is really necessary anymore. For context go back and read the others, but needless to say these are pretty good ones too.

This one comes from Suits and Shorts

Then sometimes you just need to hear from a friend but you don't want to reach out. 

Leadership as Adult Education

I believe that management and leadership training are forms of adult education. To demonstrate why I feel this I will point out a series of classes that we provide at our organization. I've discuss our LEAD series before but basically our LEAD series are classes designed to help leaders develop within our industry. There are three classes that currently make up our LEAD series; Foundational Leadership, Insightful Leadership and Speaking as a Leader.

Foundational Leadership focuses on basic leadership skills. We have noticed that first time crew leaders and supervisors are not necessarily promoted because of their skills at leading, but rather for their ability to complete projects.  Do they have any true leadership skills? Do they know how to lead and motivate and inspire their crews? We created this class to give first time leaders in our industry tools and techniques they can use immediately on the job including employee retention techniques, change management, conflict management, and situational leadership. Insightful Leadership is the next step up in leadership development from Foundational Leadership. It focuses on personality identification, understanding different personalities of the leader and within the team, being able to identify the type of personality, and how best to work with that team member successfully.  Speaking as a Leader helps field leaders present themselves to their teams, to their management, and their clients. What is the point of giving leaders the tools and techniques to lead if they can't use them with their teams, clients, and bosses well? This class is perfect for helping new or mature field and office leaders overcome their fears of speaking and presentations.



All of these classes are taught more in a Developmental Perspective rather than a Transmission Perspective as so many of our other classes are. Our primary offering are CBT's for safety training and Instructor Led classes for skills development. All of these are lecture style classes where the trainee is a passive participant, absorbing information. These LEAD classes are led by a facilitator who has been in the industry for many years, knows what the new leaders are dealing with, and can help them understand the best way through the challenges. Secondly, we facilitate, we don't teach. We allow the participants to understand and grow and develop rather than just tell them what they need to know.



In terms of this being true "adult education" I look specifically at one of Malcolm Knowles' 4 Principles of Andragogy where he states; "adults are most interested in learning subjects that have immediate relevance and impact to their job or personal life" (Pappas, 2013). We provide these LEAD classes using stories, experiences, and exercises derived directly from the facilitators lives' and from experiences within the industry. We endeavor to make the training directly relevant. When I look around at all of the training we provide, it's point of need rather than developmental. LEAD provides us the ability to help direct and grow our trainees and provide them a career path in leadership.



Pappas, C. (2013). The Adult Learning Theory - Andragogy - of Malcolm Knowles. eLearning Industry. https://elearningindustry.com/the-adult-learning-theory-andragogy-of-malcolm-knowles

More of the Same, and I Couldn't Be More Excited

I'm sure many who read this blog regularly get tired of these types of posts (see here and here), but I can't get enough of em, especially this most recent one. 

This first one is particularly noteworthy, as any review might be that is titled, "Unbelievably Beautiful."

The only other review that I might have enjoyed more is this one (here) that I got for On the Edge. Anytime you read a reviewer write "any reader would feel like the characters are real people" then the author has had a really good day. 

This second one is nice as well. Also five stars. "Plenty of twists and turns kept me engaged right to the end of the story." Again, I can't get enough of these awesome positive reviews. 

More with Micah

 As a part of my budgeting presentation (see here) I included a micro-learning spaced reinforcement exercise (see here, here and here for ore on that learning technique). But I had the chance to discuss this with Micah in another in my series of conversations with Micah (see more here and here).

It’s a fun tool. It’s not ideal in that it’s only text. The last micro-learning tool I used we were able to develop in Articulate Rise. That gave it a far sleeker look.

Text alone isn’t the best and is very limiting in terms of transfer of learning. The best model would be a hybrid model that delivers to the trainee via text or via micro-learning app so that they are reinforcing between the two. Haven't quite figured out how to make that happen yet, but it’s still early. Something will come up.

At work we use it to augment and reinforce learning objectives for our eLearning, our instructor-led classes and our virtual classes. It's just one more thing that helps get the message across and sticks in the learner's mind. We use "Mobile Coach" to create them. We hope to have our own system built and set up to use soon. 

At the moment, the most effective way we use the tool, is in using it to gauge how well our Virtual Reality training is doing (see here). We test the learner directly after the training then again a week later to determine if their memory after virtual is more resilient than the memory after traditional training. 

Great to be able to provide a tool to augment even the most simple presentations that I have. 

Another From the North

 I've had several lines that I've been quoting lately from Miss Great White North on Twitter (see here).

This one comes from Love n Chill, and is a fun one!

I knew I was yours by the way you held my hand . . . and a fistful of my hair.

How awesome and telling is that line!

Elizabeth, Betsy 

Evershade, evershades, ever shade, ever shades, shades of Betsy

A Strategy for Nonprofit Organizations to Deal with Ethical Challenges

As a Vice President of Learning and Innovation for a nonprofit training organization, I work with departmental directors to produce programs and develop courses for industrial safety and skills. The organization I work for is a nonprofit training delivery resource for workers in the petrochemical and oil and gas refining industry. We provide training development and delivery services for refinery "owners" and contractor "members." Although not experts in the specific techniques and skills, we bill ourselves as experts in training delivery. As with many nonprofit organizations (NPO), ethical concerns and perceptions of ethical challenges should be anticipated during our program and course development.

As a nonprofit that acts as a training provider between the refinery owners and the contracting members, public trust is paramount to our mission and business model. Without the trust of both sides, the owners, and the members, we would not continue to exist. This makes dealing with ethical issues quickly, effectively, and in a manner that is deemed correct by the members and owners a paramount concern for the future health not just of our organization but the safety and health of the employees in the industry. Additionally, "trust is essential to NPOs because, for the most part, they are engaged in delivery of public or quasi-public goods yet without the oversight and built-in accountability mechanisms usually required in government" (Frederickson and Ghere, 2013, p. 267). Having an effective, internal strategy for addressing ethical concerns must be a focus for continued success of our organization. As Kearns writes "in the absence of clear, analytical framework for identifying (and even forecasting) accountability issues and controversies, nonprofit professionals are hindered in their efforts to respond effectively to stakeholder expectations and mandates" (Kearns, 1994, p. 186). As our organization occupies this space between two companies and is organized as a nonprofit organization, it is vital that a strategy for dealing with ethical issues is created and followed when developing programs to maintain that public trust that is so key to their existence.

There are several ethical issues that could come up in the creation of programs that we develop. One of the first revolves around the confusion our members have over the cost and pricing of our products. A second ethical challenge that could come up is that we develop and produce training courses and programs primarily in English even though over 25% of our trainee's speak English as a second language. By investigating just one of these and creating a strategy for dealing with it, that strategy can be applied to the other potential ethical issues to help ensure that our organization acts ethically no matter the ethical dilemma. 

The primary issue is the ethical concern regarding the perceived pricing model we follow when creating programs for our members and owners. The pricing model that allows us to remain in business is to develop training courses for members for free and charge the members for that service with each employee that comes to their eLearning lab for training delivery. Program design and delivery to include eLearning, follow on reinforcement training, hands-on training, follow up training, career development, all starts with that initial course and its delivery via this model. We are the owner and distributor of the material for the contractor member and refinery owner, but we also create the training hand-in-hand and for the specific use of the members and owners. Instead of charging companies at the beginning, during the development of the product, we charge members on each delivery instance. In some cases, we will provide volume discounts for large contractors that will lower the price for delivery of each training instance. This discounting is not well publicized and could cause our members to believe that we are fixing prices or providing preferential treatment, although this is a model that is followed throughout the safety council community. As Kearns states in Frederickson and Ghere (2013), nonprofit organizations "must develop revenue strategies as a part of their annual business plan to ensure that they will have resources sufficient to support their mission," (p. 267). Our organization is facing headwinds in this business in the form of private organizations willing to provide similar training for free to increase their customer base and open the door for them to sell other opportunities. 

To counter this threat, our organisation applies levels of security and integrity to the delivery process that these competitors cannot. When learners show up for training by registering at our front desk, they must present a valid picture ID that is checked against the picture we have on file for that learner. Before entering the eLearning lab, learners are again asked to provide their registration forms and proof of ID. Finally, throughout their training and just prior to getting their certificates of completion the learner's picture is constantly compared and checked by our roving learning proctors. If at any time these proctors detect a person has covertly infiltrated the training for someone else, they terminate that training instance and ask the suspected impostor to re-register and restart the process of ID check-in or to leave. Our organization successfully hinders approximately one impostor a week using this method of ID checking. This level of integrity is our greatest asset to their training delivery product and the competitive advantage they hold over other organizations who cannot offer this level of service. 

Many contractors are confused about the nonprofit status of the organizations, and the pricing models used, especially if they do not qualify for a volume discount. The uptick in competition could lead to members being focused more and more on pricing which could lead to perceived ethical challenges and undermine public trust. For many in this industry, nonprofit translates to "cheap" or "free." As Kearns writes in Frederickson and Ghere (2013) "when seeking income or other essential resources, NPOs must "sell" or legitimize themselves in the eyes of the public, usually in competition with other NPOs that are vying for the same finite resources" (p. 267). Since there is the challenge that many members could tend to believe that our organization is fixing prices and maintaining high price points at the expense of the contractor members, and as public trust is so critical to our survival, the ethical challenge that our organization faces is continuing to price their programs at a level where they can remain in business, continue to deliver training with the same level of integrity, and compete with competitors who price similar training for significantly less while not losing the trust of their members. The perception of unethical dealings could remain over our business due to these challenges. In what ways can our organization's leaders ensure that they aren’t price-gouging their members while pricing their product at a point where they can remain in business? 

As Caffarella and Daffron (2013) write, "ethical frameworks are useful in initially thinking through ethical dilemmas when program planners are confronted with such dilemma's they also need strategies they can move through what can be, as noted earlier, messy and emotionally charged situations" (p. 43). Although Kearns (1994) proposes a framework for NPOs in his text that focuses on implicit and explicit external controls against reactive and proactive internal responses, a simpler strategy for dealing with any potential ethical challenges can be found in the text of Brockett and Hiemstra (2005) when they write “perhaps the best way to promote ethical practice is to work toward creating an open climate where potential ethical concerns are addressed upfront, in a non-confrontational way" (p. 6). This idea of letting sunlight into the decision-making process is an ideal way to allow members a level of trust that our organization is working to keep their member's employees safe without undermining our ability to make a profit. Secondly, providing an open climate in showing the integrity behind the system that we have produced for delivery, the layers of ID checks, will provide a differentiator to guard against the threat brought on by organizations trying to undercut their deliverable. Finally, a part of this strategy should be the application of the ethical problem against our mission statement. Applying the ethical challenge to the mission statement can act as a handrail for us to help guide our decision-making processes, even in terms of pricing. When this potential ethical issue that revolves around the member's perception of high pricing is applied against the mission statement, improving the quality and integrity of the workforce, both the integrity of the ID verification process as well and providing a higher quality product by hiring and employing better, more professional, program developers, would fall within the mission statement's strictures. 

 “Creating an open climate where potential ethical concerns are addressed upfront,” (Brockett & Hiemstra, 2005, p. 6) when applied to the other two ethical challenges introduced in the second paragraph of this paper yields positive results as well. By showing that creating training in Spanish for every course we make would necessarily increase the cost of the training development and delivery to our contractor members, those members would understand why we cannot provide translations across the board for all training. Additionally, by explaining that providing training in Spanish undermines the organization's mission of creating a safer workplace since so many of the safety signs, standards, procedures, and policies in refineries and other places of work are in English, the test of checking the ethical concern against the mission yields revelatory information to help guide the decision making process. 

We are working in a unique field that prizes highly skilled and safe labor resources and occupies a unique segment of the U.S.'s industrial safety training and learning community. With the advent of virtual reality (VR) to safely simulate real-world dangers in training, the introduction of training on demand through text alerts via cell phones, and the ability to stream all training to individuals where they are, rather than bringing them to a common place, NPOs are living through great times, but maintaining the public trust remains a key to their success. By applying the two simple two-step strategy proposed in this paper, opening up decision making to the company, the members, and all other concerned parties, and ensuring that all decisions follow our mission statement, we can ensure that they are doing what they can to keep the public trust they have earned over the past thirty years.  

References

Brockett, R. G., & Hiemstra, R. (2005). Promoting ethical practice in adult education. American Association for Adult and Continuing Education, 16(3-4), 4-6. https://doi.org/10.1177/104515950501600301

Caffarella, R. S., & Daffron, S. R. (2013). Planning Programs for Adult Learners; a Practical Guide. Jossey-Bass.

Frederickson, H. G., & Ghere, R. K. (2013) Ethics in Public Management. Routledge.  

Houston Area Safety Council. (2020). Vision and mission statement. https://www.hasc.com/about-hasc/vision-mission/

Kearns, K. (1994). The strategic management of accountability in nonprofit organizations: an analytical framework. Public Administration Review, 54(2), 185-192. https://doi.org/10.2307/976528 

More Lines From the North (maybe a line or two more than needed!)

 Ran into even more lines (see here) from my twitter friends. Just love em.

First from Mrs. Great White North there is this:

I used to look for you everywhere, in everything, but now I know you exist only in private moments

Too True

 Sometimes it just helps to feel these things. I’m glad that others feel them and can express them so well. Just more of the great lines/ever shade posts that I keep compiling . . . See the rest HERE!

No one breaks up these days, they just start behaving like an asshole and the other person can't take it anymore. 

How Much Are You Forgetting?

I had the opportunity to speak to new leaders participating in our Foundational Leadership classes. In both cases, I referred them to this LinkedIn page to discuss their experiences, continue learning about leadership techniques, and stay connected with other trainees, other leaders, and our facilitators. 

One of the reasons for this LinkedIn page is to help overcome the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve. As Nikhil Sonnad writes in Quartz, "The forgetting curve is a mathematical formula that describes the rate at which something is forgotten after it is initially learned." 

Proposed by Hermann Ebbinghaus over 100 years ago, it suggests that memory does not fade in a straight line or leveling off, but rather as a curve shown in the image on this page. Memories begin to fade immediately, and they do so quickly. 

At HASC, we work to design and develop training to help overcome this forgetting curve. We identify learning objectives to help learners remember the most important material and reinforce those objectives through knowledge checks, quizzes, and tests. 

At HASC, we use a "scaffolding" technique to develop training. We build on the knowledge already learned and implanted in our trainee's memories. Lastly, we work to interact with learners once they have left our classrooms and labs through chatbots and micro-learning. All of these are designed to delay forgetting that occurs and reinforce the memory for the learner.

In creating these reinforcement mechanisms, or "retrieval practice" events, we work to move the learning from the learner's short-term and working memory into their long-term memory. 

By making those memories of the learning objectives more resilient and strengthening those neural pathways, we make our learner's memories of those learning objectives stronger. In our industry, critical information must be remembered when it is needed and without hesitation. Finding ways to make memories of training objectives stronger goes hand-in-hand with our mission of "building safe workplaces."

Undermining the forgetting curve by creating retrieval practice mechanisms, extends the memory and makes it stronger; this is what this LinkedIn page is designed to do.

By visiting our HASC Leadership LinkedIn page, discussing aspects of leadership with other leaders here, and asking questions and engaging, you will be undermining the forgetting curve and making better use of your training time and money.