Mike Levy interviews educational revolutionary Roger Schank, a world authority on learning theory, and finds that he hates courses, traditional teaching methods, oh, and old-style elearning as well...

Talking to Roger Schank can be exhausting. One of the world's leading figures in artificial intelligence, learning theory, cognitive science, and the building of virtual learning environments, he thinks and talks at broadband speed.

"The problem with school and the problem with training is the same: people are usually employed to tell you stuff. That is a waste of time - people just do not learn that way. The question is: how would you do it some other way?"

"I am currently doing three or four new things at the same time", he says with the customary enthusiasm of a grandchild with a new toy. The analogy is apt – one of Schank's latest ideas is the online product 'Grandparent Games'.

"My grandson is thousands of miles away from my home in Florida so I designed a set of fun interactive activities that helps kids learn to read, do math, history and geography." The learning comes out of the virtual conversation between a grandparent and child, it develops naturally. Learning, says Schank, should be organic. "Whatever it is that interests him, I can turn into something else, something new to learn." Learning through 'conversation' and the harnessing of natural interest seems to be the core of Schank's learning philosophy.

Building meaningful and natural online learning comes naturally to this distinguished John Evans Professor Emeritus at Northwestern University. Traditional learning and training is one of Schank's bugbears. "The problem with school and the problem with training is the same: people are usually employed to tell you stuff. That is a waste of time - people just do not learn that way. The question is: how would you do it some other way?"

That other way, Schank believes, is through the same learning conversation that appeals so much to his three year-old grandson: "You learn by having someone help you talk through something – help you reflect, consider new things about the topic, offer challenges... A trainer should never be an imparter of information."

Schank's reasoning is based on a lifelong study of the learning process that has revealed that spoon-feeding information based on a pre-digested menu of trainer-led topics simply does not work. What we teach people by this old method is quickly forgotten. Why do we still do it then? "Because," says Schank, "we slavishly follow the methods designed by old universities to teach their next generation of professors. This is such a broken model."

Schank has a recent example to show his frustration with the old ways of learning. "I had a corporate client call me and ask for an online course in management accounting. I asked them, 'why would anyone possibly want a course in this subject?' They said, 'well it's very important for our people to learn management accounting.' Their people, it turned out, were guys who were going to be running a burger concession. I asked them if they would not prefer their people to learn how to run a burger bar? Of course, there will be financial issues that come up with the running of a burger bar but this isn't the end product." His end product was a long-running online simulation that taught people how to run a business, not just do the accounts.

Schank's point is that purchasers often do not fully understand what it is that their learners really need. They provide trainers (or the trainers offer) a prescribed menu of options which, thinks Schank, is usually more miss than hit. "People get caught up in designing courses", says Schank with more than a sneer in his voice. Courses, he thinks, maybe for horses but not for people. "Courses are designed to suit the teacher not the student. I am very happy to run a three-hour per week course for my undergraduate students. That may make their professor happy but it doesn't teach them anything." Yet the course-model is slavishly taken up by corporations, says Schank.

I ask if this is not a question of savvy trainers second-guessing what their clients need or providing a big enough menu of training courses. Surely one will be right? Schank dismisses this notion, "We have to re-orientate people – learning is not about a menu of courses that don't relate to each other. Learning has to be within the context of where we are and what we need." He also might add, 'what really interests us.'

Schank is fond of the learner driver analogy. "We don't teach learners the physics of the combustion engine – we get them behind a wheel and they learn by practice, and making mistakes." To Schank, making mistakes is an essential feature of learning. So is practice, and progress built through ever-more complex challenges to the learner. "You make things harder and harder".

Why are the old ways still well entrenched? Schank is sure about his answer: "We all went to school and remember how we were taught. Having a teacher-led set of courses seems the obvious way to do things. What we don't remember is that this archaic teaching method was designed for the elite of the elite of the elite – not for the ordinary person." In other words, we have been following a learning model designed to train professors of Latin or philosophy.

Yet Schank is equally damning of the modern computer-based course. "The corporate world is not getting the message. They are falling for the purveyor's line that ‘we have a great computer learning programme – just give us your content and we will stuff it in. What you get is elearning which I used to think was a good thing, but do not any longer. Putting a book on a computer is not any kind of advantage."

Isn't this the man that wrote 'Designing World Class E-Learning' though? Ahh, but here's the rub, there's a difference between just putting something on-line and calling it elearning and really making it work, he says.

"Elearning has not been done properly and has reverted to text sent to a person in a new way. I still like the idea in principle, of course - the revolution will not happen anywhere but on line."

Many years ago he devised some elearning which helped trainees deal with a large string of typical customer complaints for a British water company. The key, says Schank, is that they had real experiences and plenty of opportunities to practice (he actually is fond of repeating that word three times). Practising 'real' situations and giving people plenty of repeat situations, is the key to success.

"We have a lot of success with people practising skills in writing business plans and strategies. The important thing is to make it real and give opportunities for plenty of repetitions. That doesn't take a lot of computer memory – what is essential is that the trainee gets lots of online support and advice. It can all be on the web."

Schank's view of learning is that it is a journey and the trainers role is as guide and explorer. "What is the real outcome – and how do you teach people without telling them the answer?" In other words, training should be exciting, learner-led and at times, damned difficult. An exhausting thought.

For more information about Roger go to: http://www.rogerschank.com

To hear Roger speaking about learning go to:
http://www.socraticarts.com/schank/index.htm

Schank is the author of more than 20 books on learning, language, artificial intelligence, education, memory, reading, elearning, and story telling including 'Virtual Learning', 'Coloring Outside the Lines: Raising a Smarter Kid by Breaking All the Rules', 'Scrooge meets Dick and Jane', 'Engines for Education', and 'Designing World Class E-Learning'.

About the interviewer: Mike Levy is a freelance journalist and copywriter with 20 years' experience. He is also a writing and presentations coach. He especially loves playwriting and creating resources for schools. Mike is director of Write Start Ltd. For more information go to: www.writestart.co.uk

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