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by Rich Mesch

This is the second entry based on my conversations with Dr. Keysha Gamor, a fellow aficionado of 3D learning. In the last entry, I wrote about Keysha’s experience implementing Virtual Reality solutions in secondary education. In this entry, I wanted to share some of the conversations we had on the effectiveness of Virtual World platforms and the acceptance (or lack thereof) that we’ve seen in organizations. As Keysha works mostly with government and military, she brings a unique perspective (I work almost exclusively with corporations). Generally speaking, government and military have had a higher adoption rate for 3D learning than the business world. What are they finding effective about the virtual environment, and what does the corporate world have yet to learn?

I asked Keysha if she was seeing higher levels of adoption of Virtual Immersive Environments (VIEs) in the public sector, and she agreed that was the case. However, many of these initiatives are in a pilot or exploratory phase. And the biggest concern in the public sector is similar to the private sector: how do we ensure data security?

So how do we mainstream this capability? We brainstormed many possibilities, but it really comes down to three categories:

• What are the barriers to adoption now? Much has been written about the technological barriers, but not enough about the cultural barriers. For example:

1. Treating VIEs as if they are a unique technology. Most people see learning and performance improvement as a system; they want to understand how each part of the system contributes to the whole. VIEs are too often introduced as the hot new technology; that builds temporary interest, but actually works against adoption. We need to answer the question: how will VIEs contribute to overall performance improvement and not just be a flavor-of-the-month.
2. Cognitive Load. The good news is that VIEs (like many simulated environments) can create a profound emotional reaction from learners. That’s a good thing, because we want a learning environment to mirror the real world and evoke the same response the real world does. But we also need to be prepared to address and process those reactions. It’s okay when training makes people upset (or elated), as long as that response is used for growth.
3. If you build it, they will come. Yes, they will. Once. So many VIEs are just like billboards, just a shingle hung on the wall where there really isn’t anything to do. There needs to be a reason to come back again and again and again. There needs to be a compelling reason to return, a reason to engage, not just watch.

• What are the clear success stories? One of the most successful implementation of VIEs today is military simulations. Military trainers have identified real problems troops face in the field and created scenarios to address those problems. Obviously, many military situations involve life-or-death decisions, so accuracy is critical. Military simulations use real geospatial data to map the terrain to closely match what the real life experience. And the military is not satisfied with 3D learning, but is also looking to bring smells into the virtual space; not only is the ability to analyze what you smell critical in combat situations, olfactory is often identified as the most evocative sense as pertains to memory.

• What’s changing in our culture that will support adoption? Some of us are old enough to remember when e-mail was a new and scary technology. But not only was it adopted, it became integral to the way we live our lives. As we move to adopt VIEs, we need to consider the social climate. We need to realize that we aren’t in the mainstream. One of the factors that is helping us to move forward is Social Media. Social Media has become highly integrated into our lives. Now that people have had their eyes opened to the possibilities of online social environments, they’re starting to dream a little bit. That’s the momentum we need to make this capability mainstream.
  
  One of Keysha’s parting thoughts was how much the movie Avatar helped her talk about VIEs. While the movie itself doesn’t have anything to do with VIEs, many people were unfamiliar with the word “avatar” before they saw the film. Avatar helped build the common language that allows us to have these conversations with others—and a common language is the first step to successful change.

by Rich Mesch

So what’s the goal of this story?

Okay, so there’s a question you don’t often get when discussing novels or plays. What’s the goal? Well, the goal is to get to the last page of the book, or the curtain call at the end of the play. But when you’re writing stories for learning, the question takes on a different meaning. Not only are you telling a great story, you’re supposed to be helping your learner improve his or her performance.

Great learning stories include Goal-Based Scenarios. In simplest terms, the story includes a goal or a set of goals that need to be achieved; the point of going through the story is to achieve the goal. That sounds simple enough, but here’s the key: the nature of the goal impacts the way you perceive the story. Confused? Let’s break it down.

• First and foremost, the goal of learning is not just to make you smarter; the goal is to help you build the ability to do something. A Goal-Based Scenario begins to answer to eternal question of performance improvement: what am I going to be able to do as a result of this effort? Why is it important that I’m able to do this?

 

• In the business world, almost everything we do has a goal. Why should our business learning be any different? What kinds of problems can I solve with this knowledge?

 

• Ultimately, storytelling for learning works best when it presents real life conflicts. It can be pretty easy to regurgitate the “right” way to handle a problem, but can you really do it under pressure? You need to recreate that pressure for the learning to have emotional impact—and Goal-Based Scenarios do that. Rather than applying learning in a vacuum, you’re attempting to solve a real business problem—and actually having to apply what you’ve learned.

So how do you create a Goal-Based Scenario? In order to create good story-based learning, you need to be consultative. You need to understand the subtleties of the job and challenges your learners face in achieving success. For example, if I’m learning selling skills, my ultimate goal is probably to close a sale. But what are the subtleties of effectively closing? Is my customer more likely to buy if I take one path over another? Will I sell more if I’m able to meet my customer’s boss, who has more buying authority? Will I sell more long-term if I’m able to build a good relationship? Am I afraid to talk too much for fear my customer will realize I don’t know as much as I claim to know?

If you’d like to know more about Goal-Based Scenarios, here are a few references:

http://www.eduweb.com/goalbasedscenarios.html

http://www.edtech.vt.edu/edtech/id/models/gbs.html

http://www.engines4ed.org/hyperbook/nodes/NODE-227-pg.html

by Rich Mesch

I recently had the pleasure of speaking at the SALT conference in Arlington, VA. While there, I was fortunate enough to meet Dr. Keysha Gamor, a fellow-presenter who also has a passion for Virtual Immersive Environments and 3D Learning. Keysha was good enough to allow me to interview her for this article.

Given its location, it probably won't surprise you that the SALT conference attracts many participants from Government and Military, some of the earliest advocates of 3D Learning. Keysha works extensively with both areas, so I was anxious to learn about her experiences. But what most intrigued me is that Keysha's perspective was firmly rooted not in Virtual Worlds, but in Virtual Reality. What connections can we make, I wondered, between the effectiveness of Virtual Reality (VR) and the effectiveness of Virtual Worlds?

As part of her graduate work, Keysha worked with the University of Georgia and NASA to determine how fully immersive VR could be used to teach complex abstract concepts. The goal of the study was not to look at VR as a unique or special interaction, but from the perspective of everyday usage in a teaching environment. The study, called “The Science Space Program,” focused on teaching science concepts to middle school and high school students, and utilized some pretty serious VR equipment that was shuttled from school to school.

Activities in the study included exploring concepts like velocity (what happens to an object going at high rates of speed?), static electricity, and other types of physics issues. Except that rather than focusing on abstract concepts, students were actually able to get inside a particle; they could actually become the particle to understand what happens to it. Students participated in groups of 3; one student would wear a head-mounted display, another would direct his/her activities, and a third would observe. Each student got to play each role.

For the final exam, each student designed their own rollercoaster, using physics concepts they had learned. Keysha says she was amazed at how well they were able to do—the accuracy of the mathematics and physics used by the students in creating their rollercoasters was remarkable. It’s worth noting that these were “average” students, not gifted; students who were incapable of comprehending these concepts before succeeding with the VR exercise.

It’s a great story, and a great example of how contextualized learning drives comprehension and application. In fact, the first question I asked Keysha was around context; didn’t the success of the study indicate the value of contextualization, and not necessarily VR? Aren’t their other ways of contextualizing learning to have a similar outcome? Her response was, yes, it was definitely about context, but the VR technology provided a contextualized experience that couldn’t be provided any other way.

Most of us don’t have Virtual Reality equipment cluttering up our offices. So are their ways to have a similar impact using more readily-available Virtual Immersive Environment (VIE) technologies? Well, Keysha and I discussed that as well… and I’ll report out on our conversation in the next entry in this series!

by Rich Mesch

Do you want your learners to collaborate? To demonstrate leadership skills? To drive towards a goal? To evaluate and analyze situations before committing to a decision? To value the perspectives of others? To improve performance?

Then you definitely want them playing games.

Most of us have probably played Monopoly. You know, the strategic decision-making, asset-leveraging, and negotiation skills tool?

What’s that you say? Monopoly is a kid’s game where the biggest decision you make is whether you want to be the thimble or the dog? And it’s just a game, because you roll dice, and the dice determine what happens?

Well, let’s think about that. Yes, Monopoly has an element of luck (so does real life!). But what drives a winning strategy in Monopoly?

• Strategic decisions on what assets to purchase

• How to leverage those assets by improving them and driving larger ROI

• Building alliances that enhance your ability to compete

• Negotiating with others until you’ve maximized your revenue stream

In fact, the winner of a Monopoly game is usually the player who has the greatest strategic vision (which properties to acquire and improve) and the best negotiating skills (at some point, you’re going to need to sweet-talk other players into selling or trading you their properties).

Does your audience need any of those skills?

But let’s not stick with old school board games. Today’s Role-Play Games (RPGs) and Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) are not the single-user joystick games of years past. They require collaboration, team building, smart use of resources, strategy, and follow-through. And the most successful RPG players also tend to be great leaders and team-builders.

So am I recommending that we commit large swaths of business time to playing Monopoly and World of Warcraft? Not really (although that would be fun!), but I am recommending that we identify and utilize the elements that make these games so effective:

• Competition: Every business is a competition. Many internal function are a competition, too; competition for attention, scarce resources, funding, etc. Games are inherently competitive. Learning how to be a better competitor will also make you a better businessperson.

• Engagement: I can’t learn anything if I’m not paying attention. Why teach me an abstract skill when you can get me to engage in the actual behavior? Games get me involved, give me a goal, and help me understand what I have to do to hit that goal. All fairly painlessly—in fact, I might not even realize that I’m supposed to be learning.

• Social learning: Whether we’re playing our game in a real-life room or playing online in a virtual space, we’re still working in a social environment. That means that we can create our own experience (within the rules of the game, of course), and the experience changes based on the people present. We can share our knowledge, experiences, assumptions, and learn from (and teach) each other. We may be playing a game, but what we’re learning from each other is very real. And that leads us to…

• Informal Learning: Game environments create wonderful opportunities for informal learning. As a team of people driving towards a goal, we inevitably share all kinds of knowledge. All the notebooks in the world won’t drive knowledge like an experienced colleague sharing a great story.

• Collaboration (or lack thereof): Great games use goal-based scenarios (more on that in the next post), where teams of people need to collaborate to achieve success. This is a great opportunity for participants to understand what each role brings to the table, how collaboration drives a better outcome. Learning this kind of behavior in a game is “sticky;” it will stay with you long after the game is over.

Next time: we’ll examine 5 Aspects of Effective Learning Games. Not every kind of game leads to learning, but great games can lead to great insight.

 by Rich Mesch

I first started talking to businesses about using games to improve performance way back in 1985. Back then, I was working mostly with mid-level and senior mangers, so talking about games required hushed tones and euphemisms. After all, busy important managers couldn’t spend time playing games. They had big, big decisions to make. And so what if the game was designed to help them be even more effective in making those big, big decisions? This was serious business. They weren’t games; they were “experiences,” or “competitions,” or “challenges.” Or maybe you just didn’t talk about it at all.

What a difference a couple of decades make. We no longer have to apologize for using games for performance, and there are a few organizations that actually champion them. But we’re not out of the woods yet. With many organizations, the business case for games as a performance improvement method remains to be made. And even in organizations that support games, there is still the question of how to design and implement effectively.

In this series, we’ll look at several aspects of gaming for performance, including:

• The reasons that games are an effective performance improvement methodology for almost all audiences—even senior executives. Especially senior executives.

• Some common myths about gaming; your audience may be more receptive to games than you think; and getting a great game experience doesn’t have to be hard.

• Aspects of effective learning games; there’s a good reason why some people are still talking about the experience months and even years afterwards.

• Types of games; computer-based games are great, but technology isn’t the solution to every challenge. Think you’re too grown up for tokens, cards, and dice? Think again.

Up first: in the next post in the series, we’ll look at 5 reasons games are an effective performance improvement method. See you then!

by Reni Gorman

Social networking should not be about adding people to your network willy nilly to get the highest number of connections. All too often I get a LinkedIn request from someone whose name just doesn’t ring a bell. There I sit, agonizing over who this could be and wondering why I don’t remember them. Then I write back and say: “I am sorry, can you remind me how we know each other?” Sometimes I get no reply, other times I get a reply that says: “We don’t know each other directly but we both worked for ABC Company.” It all depends on where you draw the line. 

However, I do believe there are other reasons to connect even when you don’t know the person previously. In fact, isn’t that what social media is about? Making new connections you didn’t have before? I don’t look at it as just a tool to put my address book online, I look at it also as a tool to find new contacts, for various reasons. The benefit of the social web is that I can see into my friend’s contact list and connect with people who I would not have connected with otherwise. For example, I interview people for PDG’s Strategy Consulting team and often after the interview, they send me a LinkedIn request—and I accept. Especially if I spoke to them, I liked them, and I feel we had a connection. I have sometimes received requests to connect with people who have read my blog, sent me theirs, are in the same industry and want to be connected—and I accept. And despite all the examples I just gave you, I still don’t consider myself an Open Networker, who, according to Wikipedia, is a member of a business-oriented social networking site such as LinkedIn who positively encourages connections from any other member, whether or not they have had a previous business relationship.

I don’t think having people in your network means you have to contact them once a month or at any other interval. I know people with whom I only speak once a year and there is nothing wrong with that in my eyes. Based on the examples above, I have contacts I may never reconnect with—and I am okay with that too. I might even eventually remove them—once I no longer remember them. The goal of my network is not necessarily to have “relationships” with every single person, it is to have connections that can help me and who I can help when needed. Isn’t that the goal of networking to begin with? Social media allows me to do something I could not do before and that is to see my connections’ connections’ connections and so on. It is, therefore, about connections—therein lies the power.

by Reni Gorman

Tip #6: Provide many examples and practice exercises in which the same underlying concept is at work.

Cognitive Psychology: Provide examples to facilitate transfer and meaningful deliberate practice to promote understanding and increase memory performance.

Why (Justification):

Bransford et al. (2000) recommend that teachers provide “many examples in which the same concept is at work”. (p. 20) In a study by Gick and Holyoak (1980), they presented subjects with a story of a general who breaks up his army into several smaller groups to take different roads to avoid setting off mines. They still all arrived at the same time and were able to take over the capital. Then subjects were ask to solve a problem where the doctor had to radiate a tumor with enough force to destroy it but without harming the tissue around it. Subjects were told to use the story as the model to solve the problem and most subjects realized that the strategy is to break up the radiation source into smaller rays and focuses them only on the tumor so that the strongest radiation is only there.

“Hands-on experiments can be a powerful way to ground emergent knowledge...” (Bransford et al., 2000, p. 22) However there are different ways to practice. Consider doing math homework with the use of formulas and theorems. If you just followed the rules of the formula, you may have completed your homework in less time than if you truly went through the formula to fully and deeply understand all the ins and outs of the formula. Students who understand the reasons behind a formula can usually remember it much better and apply it much better in the long run. They may even be able to more easily learn or transfer to related mathematical (or other) information that shares the same abstract underlying core concepts, or knowledge elements. (Anderson, 2000) “In mathematics, experts are more likely than novices to first try to understand the problems, rather than simply attempt to plug numbers into formulas.” (Bransford et al., 2000, p. 41) Paige and Simon (1966) conducted a study where they presented subjects with an algebra problem. The expert group quickly realized that the problem was logically impossible.

In addition, practice will help your learners remember and recall faster. According to the power law of learning, your memory performance improves as a power function of practice. (Anderson, 2000) In a study by Pirolli and Anderson (1985) subjects practiced sentences and their speed to recall the sentence improved the more they practiced, before leveling off.

“Students’ abilities to acquire organized sets of facts and skills are actually enhanced when they are connected to meaningful problem-solving activities, and when students are helped to understand why, when and how those facts and skills are relevant.” (Bransford et al., 2000, p. 23)

Therefore, just as we draw a line between memorizing facts and learning with understanding, we must differentiate practice from deliberate practice. Practicing the mathematical formula by applying it to problem after problem is not the same as “deliberate practice” where you may apply the formula, and as you do, continuously check and recheck your own understanding. This means you use metacognitive strategies to insure a deep level of understanding. (Bransford et al., 2000) This is also consistent with the depth of processing theory that states that information processed at a deeper level of analysis improves memory for that information.

How (Application):

1. Try to weave in an example to every section, definitely for the main points that communicate the core concepts, and, if possible, for the sub-concepts as well.
2. Also follow-up at the end of each section with a practice exercise to let learners practice and apply what they have learned themselves. Design practice exercises where the same underlying concepts are at work. They shouldn’t be too simple, as that will not engage the learner, but they shouldn’t be too difficult as that would discourage the learner. For example, if you are teaching addition and show examples of adding two numbers, give students a practice exercise of adding three numbers. It is more challenging than the examples you used to teach but still manageable for the student to solve.

References

 Anderson, J. R. (2000). Cognitive Psychology and Its Implications: Fifth Edition. New York, N.Y.: Worth Publishers.

Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (2000). How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

Gick, M. L., & Holyoak, K. J. (1980). Analogical problem solving. Cognitive Psychology, 12, 306-355.

Paige, J. M., & Simon, H. A. (1966). Discipline-specific Science Education and Educational Research: The Case of Physics. Paper prepared for the Committee on Developments in the Science of Learning for the Sciences of Science Learning: An Interdisciplinary Discussion.

Pirolli, P. L., & Anderson, J. R. (1985). The role of practice in fact retrieval. Journal of Experimental Psychology; Learning, Memory and Cognition, 11, 136-153.

by Reni Gorman

I have been designing and delivering learning interventions for nearly 20 years (dare I say), and I always tell my clients that the learning intervention is just the start of creating change in behavior. There are many other components and models but I boil it down to the most necessary:

1. Goal setting—people need to know what is expected of them. Sounds simple? Too simple? I agree and yet many people do not even consider it. I have seen this assumption so many times. We as learning professionals know better than to make assumptions. Help your clients check their assumptions! All you have to do is randomly ask a couple of learners. If goals are not clear then depending on the level of behavior change needed you can address it multiple ways:

• The easiest and the simplest is a communication strategy and plan, however that is only for simple changes, like learning to use new software.

• If, on the other hand, you are changing your sales model, a pretty important and difficult change, you need a change management strategy and plan.

• Finally if you are totally reengineering the way people work because of, for example, a merger (not uncommon these days) then you need a new or adjusted performance management strategy and plan in addition to a change management strategy and plan.

2.  Learning intervention—I think we all have this one down!

3. Reinforcement and feedback—As we all know, learning is a process, not an event. Therefore, there always has to be some reinforcement and feedback to truly affect performance. This could manifest in:

• Providing short snippets of content to remind people what they learned, as well as,

• Setting up informal learning opportunities such as a social media site,

• However, what is MOST IMPORTANT is manager coaching and feedback. I have heard clients tell me that while the training program their employees went through was great, they ended up going back to their day-to-day and doing the same thing they did before. Why? Primarily because the managers did not reinforce the new behavior. In some cases the managers did not even know what their teams were taught so they couldn’t reinforce the behavior if they wanted to. Without including managers the learning intervention weakens over time and information learned is forgotten. (See Wikipedia’s explanation of the forgetting curve.) Finally, remember that managers are also responsible for setting goals—see #1 above. Therefore getting the managers onboard is key!

So, the lesson learned, to use L&D lingo, is: make sure every one of your training plans at lease considers these topics and ask your clients the tough questions. They may not understand and resist at first, but you will start them thinking, and that, is the first step to recovery.

by Rich Mesch

A few months back, I interviewed Chuck Hamilton about the way Virtual Immersive Environments (VIEs) are used at IBM. One of the concepts that Chuck introduced me to was the idea of “affordances,” and how they change in VIEs. According to our old friend Wikipedia, an affordance is “a quality of an object, or an environment, that allows an individual to perform an action.” The term doesn’t really have anything to do with VIEs on its own, although the concept of affordances is frequently used in describing the way people interact with computers.

Affordances become interesting in VIEs because VIEs “warp” the common way we use affordances. For example, what are the affordances of a chair? Well, it can be used for sitting, for decoration, for standing on to change a lightbulb… you get the idea, I could go on and on. But in a VIE, what is a chair? For sitting on, sure… but your avatar never gets tired, so you never really need to sit. Nor do you have to change light bulbs (and if you did, odds are you could fly up and do it).

Or a roof. What are the affordances of a roof? It keeps out cold, rain, snow, burglars, etc. But what if you lived in a world where there was no weather (unless you wanted it)? Would you need a roof at all?

But if you’ve spent any time in a VIE, you know that we typically recreate the affordances of the physical world. There are a lot of good reasons for this; one of the reasons we have VIEs at all is so we can recreate some of the emotions and interpersonal effects we get in real life. But, of course, there are some things we can leave out: roofs are purely aesthetic; and we have drinks in VIEs only to recreate the conviviality of happy hour, not because we're thirsty.

For VIEs in learning, we often recreate classrooms—which is controversial to a lot of people. Some like the classrooms, because it recreates the affordances of the real world. Others (myself included) question why you would simply recreate classrooms. Sure, we want to create environments for people to learn. But we aren’t bound by the affordances of the real world. In VIEs we can learn anywhere. And what’s the point of creating a 3D space if you don’t use all three dimensions?

Tony O’Driscoll and Karl Kapp talk about The Seven Sensibilities of VIEs in their book, Learning in 3D: 

1. The Sense of Self
2. The Death of Distance
3. The Power of Presence
4. The Sense of Space
5. The Capability to Co-Create
6. The Pervasiveness of Practice
7. The Enrichment of Experience

Tony does a great job of explaining it all in the video below. Watch and enjoy!

by Reni Gorman and Rich Mesch

55 and Older Execs Don’t Like Training

Reni: I read an article on The Economist titled: Executive education and the over-55s: Never too old to learn. The focus was about the trend that older executives are shunning corporate training. The reason? To put it bluntly: They are sick and tired of going and sitting in training. Why? Many assume they will not learn anything earth shattering, while others just don’t have the patience/time away from their job. Training has to be “worth it”. The article goes on to discuss what does work, one being sending executives to prestigious schools. They won’t go to internal executive training, but they will go to external training at reputable institutions. Why? Probably because they feel like they will really learn. So, it is not really that they don’t like learning, rather they don’t like corporate training.

The Generational Lie

Rich: I attended several learning conferences this year, and at each one, I heard some variation on this message: it's time to get past old school training models, because the generation of 20-somethings entering the work force don't learn that way. We need social media for the 20-somethings, because that's how they learn. We need virtual environments for the 20-somethings, because that's how they learn. And every time, I wanted to scream from the back of the room, "HEY! I'M A 40-SOMETHING, AND I LEARN THAT WAY, TOO!"

Where on earth did we get the notion that because employees of a certain age have greater exposure to "traditional" learning methods that we like it better? Or that we're somehow resistant or techno-phobic? Every generation has its share of resisters, but most of us like trying new things, and we especially like making good use of our time and being successful.

55 and Under Don’t Like Training Either

Reni: I don’t know about you, but all of the above applies to me and I am not yet in the over 55 category. Perhaps the under 55s “fake it” better and at least show up to training but most of the time don’t you want to run screaming? I know I do—and I admit that even though I am a learning and development professional. Yikes! What does that say about most corporate training? I also know when I go to internal training events I am antsy and can’t wait to get out and go back to work, but I am attending graduate school at Columbia University’s Teachers College and, most of the time, once I get there, I really enjoy what I am learning and am really focused and “present”.

Henry Mintzberg and the Role of the Manager

Rich: The driver behind the article in The Economist is researcher Henry Mintzberg. I might have guessed that we'd find Mintzberg at the bottom of this. Mintzberg did a groundbreaking research many years ago about what managers actually do each day. Prior to his research, there was a general belief that they sat in big offices, smoked cigars, and made big strategic decisions. Mintzberg followed managers around for weeks and recorded everything they did. Ultimately what he found was that a manager's day is a series of meetings, most of them 5 minutes or less, and that they are generally focused on dozens, if not hundreds of things at once. For us today, that seems pretty obvious; but when Mintzberg originally did the research, it was startling, since it didn't fit the perception of the role. He effectively changed the perception of management, and a lot of the way we perceive management now can be traced back to Mintzberg. Glad to see he's still trying to change our perceptions.

So How Do You Train an Executive and What is the Role of Training?

Reni: Short bursts/chunks of training, making content really relevant to the workplace, and learning from peers such as through mentoring and communities of practice. I don’t know about you, but when I read this bells went on and my experience and intuition said: YES, but not just for 55s and older—for the rest of us too! At the end of the day we all want the content quick and relevant, and the conversations (with peers and SMEs) meaningful. We learn from each other best and most of all. My first thought when I am stuck is to ask a peer and/or expert. The content snippets are just an appetizer. So, what training professionals could best do is provide the short snippets of content and help put learners in situations, where they can have the conversations. Mentoring meetings, communities of practice gatherings are perfect for such things. Perhaps give people a learning guide to spark the conversation and then let it go where inquiring minds want to take it and learning will surely flourish. 

What does this come down to? Highly interactive, excellent, out of the ordinary instructional design. It is possible, just ask yourself: would I run screaming from what I am designing or would I get into it? Be honest with yourself and great design will flow and flourish too!