In this episode of the Leading Learning podcast, Tagoras founders Jeff Cobb and Celisa Steele talk about two of the key concepts from a recent Leading Learning Webinar on trends and predictions: grand design learning and boutique learning. Both concepts build upon recent trends while in many ways standing in contrast to them.
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Read the Show Notes
[00:18] – Jeff Cobb and Celisa Steele preview the two key concepts they will discuss on this podcast: grand design learning and boutique learning.
Grand Design Learning
[01:14] – Jeff talks about design thinking, including what it is and why it is a recent trend.
Celisa and Jeff continue to discuss design thinking and how it ties into the concept of minimum viable product. They explain that design thinking takes a much more human-centered approach which is important when designing learning experiences.
Jeff shares an example about an organization working to address childhood obesity to illustrate the various elements of a design-oriented approach.
[07:31] –Jeff continues to exemplify the use of design thinking and explains how when using design thinking, you identify patterns to form design principles. He says that although the concept around design thinking seems simple, we often neglect the principles behind it, which should be instrumental when designing learning experiences.
[09:37] – Celisa and Jeff reiterate that design thinking takes time and that it needs to be built into your development timeline. They also address how this changes the instructional designer’s role since it involves such a collaborative process.
[10:23] – Jeff talks about grand design learning as connecting all the different channels for learning that currently exist (e.g., mobile, micro, MOOC’s, gamification, social learning, informal learning, etc) with opportunities of scale and the concept to lead learning broadly.
He explains that by doing this, you can create a learning experience that is impactful and optimally realizes the possibilities for the learner.
[12:21] – Jeff shares about the impactful role that grand design learning/design thinking can have when used to help organizations create change.
Boutique Learning
[13:36] – Celisa talks about boutique learning as a prediction for the future based on the current personalized learning trend. She explains that personalized learning is the idea that the learning environment/curriculum is tailored to the learner and that increasingly it has come to rely on technology. Although the technology is helpful, she says that it eliminates the human-to-human contact that often drives learning.
[15:53] – A discussion about the fact that with both of the trends there is interplay between technology and humans. Jeff says that the technology should be leveraged for the opportunities it creates but it shouldn’t dominate.
[16:20] – Celisa continues to explain boutique learning and says it is more about personal learning rather than personalized learning. This is because boutique learning is more focused on the personal/human element of learning, rather than just being personalized.
She also draws the comparison between boutique retail stores which tend to be smaller in scale, have limited inventory, and are often founded behind passion, which all apply to boutique learning.
[19:08] – Jeff highlights the importance of passion in boutique learning by comparing the music business and the learning business. He explains that vinyl records are the boutique arena of music because that’s where people get passionate.
And for many organizations, boutique learning is going to involve what they are uniquely good at and gets to the heart of their overall value proposition.
He stresses that boutique learning can offer opportunities to help organizations really stand out, increase their value, and build their brand.
Celisa explains that on the upper end of the Value Ramp, it’s about being one-of-a-kind, rather than a one-stop-shop.
[20:52] – Celisa and Jeff emphasize that you don’t have to get rid of ‘big retailer’ types of approaches to education but that you can offer boutique brands that exist as sub-brands.
What This Means for Your Learning Business
[21:41] – Jeff offers advice on where to start to implement design learning. He suggests starting with the obvious/low hanging fruit by putting together a team to look at something such as conferences. He explains how you can use design thinking to look at ways to reconfigure various elements of the conference and then expand this to the grand level by making connections at a higher level beyond the conference.
[23:17] – Celisa offers advice on where to start to implement boutique learning. She says that you can begin to think about where you have an expertise or can provide the most value and she makes the point that boutique learning doesn’t imply anything about a particular format.
[24:01] – Celisa and Jeff share their final thoughts about grand design and boutique learning and say that it will be exciting to see if/how these predictions pan out.
[24:29] – Wrap-Up
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[26:47] – Sign off
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