I had a great time moderating last night’s NELA panel discussion, Creating a Learning Culture in a Biotech Setting. The audience was great and only let me get through a few of my questions before they jumped in with their own and turned the night into a wonderfully interactive discussion.
One of my favorite debates came after we had finished discussing the difficulty faced by the panel due to the wide range of audience and learning types, from sales reps to scientists and researchers, internal support staff such as finance, IT, and marketing folks, and down to the folks on a 24×7 manufacturing floor.
A member of the audience pointed out that while we were talking about having to support multiple “learning styles”, we were talking mostly about “learner types.” The distinction seemed subtle, but it pointed out that many times we all assume that a specific audience all has a similar learning style. We assume that *all* sales people are outgoing and interactive, or we assume that all scientists are analytical.
This led to a discussion of how important it is to not make those types of assumptions. We should always remember to separate learner types from learning styles and do as much as we can to support them by providing multiple delivery methods if possible, or at least instructional strategies that take this into account.
A final point was brought up by Mike Laffin of Serono, who reminded us all to remember that our own personal learning preferences can color our designs and we need to keep an open mind and focus on the learner.
I have some more notes on this that I will share in the next few days, and you can also see my notes and other discussions that have been posted on the NELA Blog.
