Affordances of Learning

Affordances. It’s a word we don’t see in thelearning space as frequently as we should. Affordances.Is that asking whether you have the budget to do the training you’ve been askedto create? That could be one explanation, but it’s not what an affordance is. TheMerriam-Webster dictionary defines affordanceas:

The qualities orproperties of an object that define its possible uses or make clear how it canor should be used. <We sit or stand on a chair because those affordancesare fairly obvious.—Scott Lafee, San Diego Union-Tribune, 15 Aug.1993> <An affordance is a resource or support that the environmentoffers an animal; the animal in turn must possess the capabilities to perceiveit and to use it.—Eleanor J. Gibson, et al., in The MIT Encyclopedia of theCognitive Sciences, 1999>

Time for some science

A littleobtuse, isn’t it? OK, maybe more than a little. Let’s see if we can “de-obtuse”this definition. Think of an affordance as a conceptual match. From a cognitiveand educational perspective, it is. This is cognitive science. It’s brainscience used in a different way than the neuro-this and neuro-that rollingaround the learning space lately. A designer or developer using a little cognitivescience is a good thing for learners. But you only need to use a little. Knowinghow to use a little will help your training, and your learning audience won’teven know you used it.

So how doyou define an affordance? Something like a coin and a slot, or a ball and abasket, can work as an affordance.

A coin and aslot are two objects that have nothing in common, at least overtly. Conceptually,a coin is a flat disc of a certain size, usually made of some sort of metal.It’s also specie of the issuing country. A slot is a long, skinny, horizontalor vertical rectangular hole. Apart, neither is anything other than what it is,a disc or a rectangle. However, if you want to purchase something that requiresa coin, then that slot becomes very important to the coin … or the coin is importantto the slot. Either way, the modality of the coin has been changed by requiringthe slot.

A somewhatmore complex affordance might be a ball and a basket. A ball is a sphere. Thereare all kinds of spheres of all sizes: ping-pong balls, Wiffle balls,baseballs, beach balls, soccer balls, basketballs. Concept … a ball that goeswith a basket. Baskets are another concept. A basket is a cup-shaped thing madeof various materials, and baskets also come in a multitude of sizes. Here, thesize of the basket might be somewhat related to the size of the ball. Basketballstarted with a peach basket, of all things.In the case of basketball, over time, the ball and the basket got a more orless standard size and the “basket” became a hoop with a string net hangingdown. The hoop is mounted at a certain height. This is a confluence of affordanceand convention.

Let’s movethese concepts of affordance to learning. All learning has modalities: from a liveclassroom to a presenter talking in a video (it could be the same person), toeLearning, to whatever modality we use to get our training to learners. Videohas a lot of modalities as well. Taped instruction (the trainer again), motiongraphics, narrative video (video stories), documentaries, and the list goes on.Even still graphics and slides are a form of video. They’re all visualmodalities we use in training. Each one offers an affordance. So how do allthese affordances work in eLearning?

Affordances in learning—–what are they?

Note theheading above. It doesn’t say eLearning.It says learning. Learning other thaneLearning still exists, a lot of it. Probably most learning created isn’teLearning, per se. (See the sidebar, “Learning vs. eLearning.”)

Affordances area way of determining whether you need to create eLearning or live training orvideo—or a textbook, pamphlet, or some other form of printed material.

There are manytools and modalities in the training arsenal. You wouldn’t use a screwdriver topound in a nail. That’s an easy one. You wouldn’t use a hammer to pound in ascrew. You could, but the result isn’t ideal. Affordances are a bit of aslippery concept in learning. When eLearning started gaining a lot of tractionin the last few years of the 20^th century, it was the new thing. Alllearning was going to be eLearning in the future. All training would bedelivered via the Internet. There would be no more classrooms. No more books. Only“e.” Everything was going to move to the Internet.

Organizationswere quick to hitch their training to the rising star of this new learningmodality. It was the Next Big Thing, and companies thought that creatingeLearning would save them buckets of money because it could be so easilyreused. NOT! It’s been 10 years dawning on organizations that much of theireLearning just doesn’t work and doesn’t give the training returns, whethermeasured through immediate evaluations or on a second evaluation after sixmonths that shows the learners actually learned something. Maybe we shouldlearn from history (now there would be something new). There is no panacea. AndeLearning certainly isn’t a solution for good training done inexpensively. GoodeLearning isn’t cheap to produce. Here’s a table of training modalities and,for lack of a better word, submodalities:

Printed material	Live sessions	Video	Audio (usually combined with visual modes)
Textbooks Brochures Pamphlets Workplace signs	Lecture Role-playing Facilitated discussion Facility tour Demonstration	Live “taped” video with an instructor Scripted video Animation Cartoon Photo animation Motion graphics Interactive video	Podcast Live broadcast using phone Live broadcasting using Internet

Table 1: Training modalities and submodalities

There aremany different modalities you can use to teach, and there are many ways topresent each of the modalities. Are you creating HR (human resources) training?What kind? “Managing Workplace Aggression” is a very different topic from“Welcome to XYZ Company” or explaining rules of conduct. Whatever the title orintent, every training you design and develop is different. Each training takesa different kind of media strategy to appropriately and effectively reachlearners. Maybe your essential HR onboarding is best taught in a classroom witha live instructor. A course on managing workplace aggression seems an appropriatefit for some short video clips to demonstrate aggression scenarios. Does yourtraining mode fit your corporate (or academic) culture? Here’s where it getstricky. There are no truly established rules for affordances. And they’reconstantly evolving. In eLearning especially, it sometimes seems that we dothings willy-nilly and do a Captivate or Storyline slide deck with someinteractivity without thinking about whether this is the right thing to do.Since there are no established guidelines or rules, we’re making them up as wego along. That’s not a bad thing.

A little exploration into guidelines

It shouldn’tbe so complex. When you get an assignment, stop thinking about what you didbefore. Instead, ask yourself some questions:

• Does your training lend itself to scenarios? Workplace aggressioncertainly does. Little snippets of video can show and tell an aggression storyin 10 – 15 seconds as long as you keep it to one topic.
• Does your training lend itself to a live person being in the room?“Getting Your Healthcare Benefits Right” really doesn’t lend itself to scenariodevelopment and is probably best as live training so the instructor can answerthe inevitable questions. There’s always the question from left field. A bunchof slides can’t answer questions, no matter how sophisticated the interactions.There’s always the oddball question, and a slide that says “Contact your HR department”really doesn’t cut it. Here’s a place where a brochure could be a takeaway thatclearly explains exactly what the options and their ramifications are.
• Is your topic highly complex with a lot of facets? A book or ringbinder might be appropriate. (Internal corporate books can work.)

An example

Remember thecoin and the slot? Here’s how it might work for a particular kind of training.Video and learning by themselves are separate things conceptually. There is aninfinite (seemingly) number of videos and a vast number of learnings thatpeople need to have inculcated. We’ll call learning our coin, and video (or anyother media) our slot. When a learning topic comes your way, you’ve been given acoin with a specific purpose. Now you need to find the slot it fits into.

Let’s goback to “Managing Workplace Aggression” and look at what the learning might be.You could write a brochure or pamphlet, but would that demonstrate what aggressionmight look like? But we need to show what aggression might look like and demonstratedifferent behaviors of an angry or hostile person. The key word is show. Does printed material show thesethings? You could pay an artist to draw representations. You could takephotographs. Would drawings or photographs really show and demonstrate what theaggression looked like as well as methods to deal with it? Do you think a stillimage adequately demonstrates different aggression and anger managementscenarios? The function of video is to show. It doesn’t matter whether it’s aslide, a moving slide (motion graphic), animated slide, animation, scenario-basedvideo, etc.

Evolution of the concept

Affordance is a relatively recent topic in thelearning space. It’s a necessary topic, but like most topics, it should notbe construed as a panacea. Nothing ever is, although eLearning was in danger ofbecoming a cure-all for every sort of training there is. This is a topic thatbears further discussion and thought. I know others have been thinking aboutaffordances, too, although not necessarily by that name. What do you see asaffordances that are now or will be realistically available to us in the nextfive years? “Realistically” means without breaking the bank or busting thebudget, or requiring hundreds or even thousands of hours to execute. It meansmodalities and submodalities that are supported by available hardware in theworkplace, by available software, by skill sets, and by sufficient numbers ofpractitioners. Please list your thoughts in the comments here.