Lessons in Learning, e-Learning, and Training: Perspectives and Guidance for the Enlightened Trainer, by Roger C. Schank

Perhaps Schank’s book could have been renamed “Perspectives and Guidance for the Enlightened Distance Education Trainer.” Every education and learning story that Schank mentions can be applied to improve distance education practices. Allowing for a little reflection, I (Steve) remember well the lessons Linda Wolcott (Utah State University) taught me about distance education and learning. Wolcott emphasized the ability for distance education to deliver learning in a way that a four-walled, straight-rowed environment could not. These lessons impacted 10 years of corporate training experience and continue to drive me toward even better practices. Schank’s stories capture a bit of the revolutionary thoughts and perspectives that Dr. Wolcott taught me about distance education and learning. Distance learning-based technologies help the enlightened distance educator deliver better quality learning experiences, content, and activities. As an enlightened distance educator, you will know that Schank’s story-based approach is working when you read about the proverbial chef in Groivenbroich, Germany (and many other characters) and from that story question what you and your organization are doing and delivering. This questioning leads you to reach out and enhance the processes, projects, and programs to better serve your constituency and stakeholders.

Schank’s stories ranged the gamut of topics— from the evil of knowledge-based test sorting by knowledge-based testing, the foolishness yet irresistibility of trying to tell anyone anything, the reality that “training and real life are different things,”—to the exquisiteness of French food. Following the tapestry of Schank’s stories as they weave in and out of enlightened trainer principles and knowledge provides valuable to new and experienced training professionals. Hidden in the stories are contextual clues around the way people learn, what motivates people, and how to avoid common pitfalls in training and e-Learning. Schank’s point is that people learn by stories, and he practices his craft by embedding everything within the larger story context and frameworks.

Below is a partial list of the stories you will encounter in Schank’s book:

• “Everybody Talks and Nobody Listens”

• Avoiding LIBITI

• Chicago and Educational Reform

• Trainees Playing Managers; Managers playing trainees

• Little League Baseball vs. Retirement Community Softball

• Knowing vs. Doing: Remembering vs. Applying

• Working with SME’s: SME’s Telling Stories

• Enron and Goal Based Scenarios (GBS)

• French Food: Great Experiments ReAttempted

• Fig Newtons and Airport Security

• Slaying Dragons: What About Taming Dragons?

• e-Learning SNAFUs

• Alternate Approaches to Copying the University in Corporate Training

• What Blended Learning and Knowledge Workers Really Mean

Throughout the book, Schank provides glimpses and all-too-obvious pointers toward battles won and lost. Among the battles Schank won are the establishment of Goal Based Scenarios (GBS) into the corporate training arena, the extension of Bartlett’s findings that when people are asked to remember stories “their recall diminished over time, but also became more coherent” (p. 94), and the realization that some knowledge and skills are difficult to teach. The “Good” Schank points out lessons learned providing valuable experiences of learning how to better discover, design, and deliver training.

On the other hand, Schank provides stories that reflect the “Not So Good” Schank. Schank’s stories about the low hour course teaching load at universities, the practices of consultants who repackage a solution to various clients, and Enron’s communication issues make you wonder what exactly Schank is attempting to communicate. At times, the “Not So Good” Schank stories and references seemed to be thumbing their nose at society and the trainer’s professional acumen. In rereading the “Not So Good” Schank stories and references, we noticed that in telling these stories, Schank appeared to be intent on flouting the educational mores that he believed were outdated or antiquated. After rereading the “Not So Good” Schank stories, we recognized that Schank had accomplished the goal of getting the reader engaged. Perhaps Schank’s intent was to capture the interest of the enlightened trainers, regardless of an enlightened trainer’s motive or intent.

Wondering what Shank is driving at is part of what makes reading the book fun and interesting. In the beginning, there is a “read the book” guide that briefly outlines the author’s suggestions for continued reading. In the introduction and throughout the book Schank encourages the reader to think, make comparisons, and evaluate the suggestive text to other sources of wisdom. “Be it research evidence or your own experience,” it is important to evaluate the ideas presented in the stories against what the reader already knows or is curious to discover. In addition to reflecting on the content, Schank encourages the reader to reflect on what “the stories tell you about the author,” when and how the book can “fit” into daily life, and why you think what you think about the stories or the book. Not that every reader needs a reminder to be meta-cognitive, but it is nice to know the author finds this important.

One nugget rotated and inspected by Schank is Bartlett’s finding that stories help to refine and make learning more coherent. Bartlett’s finding creates a paradox to education and learning professionals who rely on measuring residual knowledge as a key accomplishment to ascertaining learning and training gain. Perhaps Bartlett’s finding provides a way to explain why stories are a powerful learning instigator and that learning devoid of stories remains lifeless and largely forgotten.

Reading Schank’s work will get you in trouble. While flying home on a plane, I (Steve) read Schank’s story about a methodology rollout that Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu hired Schank’s company to help with. Schank’s story of how designers built artificial scenarios to support the rollout raised a question of why enlightened trainers insist on avoiding the real by creating the artificial. Reality is all around and very encompassing. Responding to the book in typical fashion, I started writing notes in the margins and wrestling with the story’s ideas and issues. When a reader does this, it is evidence that Schank achieved his purpose. These written comments were such as “Deloitte is barraged with real live clients, why were they not considered as potential training fodder?” “Why did the designers avoid Deloitte’s existing and new clients to provide learn-by-doing opportunities for the participants?” Just as I resumed my scribbling, my as-to-this-point-in-the-flight quiet seatmate turned to me and asked “what are you doing?” I explained that I was a learning strategist, which caused a furrowed and questioning brow. This seatmate got right to the point and asked what I was reading and why was Deloitte mentioned in the book. I explained and the seatmate responded that I might just be in on something. My seatmate explained that he was a partner with Deloitte and that he would have enjoyed having those trainees help him with existing client projects. I thought of the missed opportunities that Schank and other trainers miss when trying to create an abstract artificial environment in which to train others. Several stories sprung to mind of similar experiences and my resolve stiffened to avoid performing similar “tomfoolery design” again.

Go ahead and read the book, see what trouble you can swirl up, about, and throughout your instructional design adventure. The irony is that the generated trouble builds understanding and improved practice. However, be aware that this understanding and improved practice may not always be welcome with practicing training Luddites. You can recognize practicing training Luddites by their entrenched positions in the classroom, curriculum, and student sorting-based bureaucracies. Applying Schank’s stories and lessons learned to your instructional design adventure will help convert the Luddites to more enlightened approaches and perspectives.

If you are familiar with Schank, you can expect the promise of artificial intelligence (AI) to seep into the book somewhere. Schank closed the book with a flashback to earlier heady AI days. The advances described by Schank are probably taken for granted by most people today. The accomplishments of the AI pioneers (Schank claiming one of the AI pioneer-ships) should be remembered and respected for laying the ground work of numerous technologies that we consider normal and standard today.

Schank did reiterate the importance of stories to learning. In describing a database-driven story system, Schank addressed an area that bridges the learning, performance improvement, knowledge management, and various other fields. In the database-driven story system, Schank envisions an organization’s culture and performance being improved by increasing access to contextual stories that can be accessed at any point in a person’s work cycle. In an extension to Bartlett’s work, “their recall diminished over time, but also became more coherent,” Schank provided a helpful basic design. Learning and performance improvement professionals can use it to help organizations become “more coherent” through the use of and access to the stories that support the organization’s vision and mission.

Overall, Lessons in Learning, e-Learning, and Training is a quick read that provides “perspectives and guidance for the enlightened trainer” (book cover). Schank’s shared stories address the very crux of what enlightened trainers attempt to do. They meet the training challenges enlightened trainers face by encouraging the roads less traveled. The book provides all-too-familiar contexts, while encouraging friendly opposition to the typical learning and e-learning solutions.

If you drink deep at the Schankian well, this book will not disappoint. If you have yet to join Schank’s band of merry pranksters, than this is a good introduction and you will likely find yourself hitching a ride, or at minimum, flipping your chin at appropriate discombobu-lated processes and approaches to training and learning. If you are familiar with and disagree with Schank, then at the very least you will be up-to-date with the stories that Schank reflects on and attempts to use in starting a dialogue between the book’s readers and their training and learning environment.