What it takes to drive effective design for complex skills in the workplace (The theory)

Mirjam Neelen

Paul Kirschner and I have written about complex skills before (here (2018) and here (2020), a guest blog (2020) and a chapter in our book). The main reason why we go on and on about them, is because when we talk about ‘upskilling’ and/or ‘reskilling’ in organisations, both ‘business stakeholders’ and L&D people often overlook and/or misunderstand what a skill – in particular a complex skill – really is, what it takes for people (‘learners’, ‘workers’) to develop them. As a consequence, they forget or don’t think about what it means to design learning experiences or interventions for them that are effective, efficient, and enjoyable. What I mean by that here, is that learners can and will transfer what they learned to their job and apply it in a competent and flexible way.

On 13 October, I gave a presentation at the Learning Technologies Autumn Forum about…