“It used to be that formal learning programs in a corporate environment could be a week long. People would pack up and spend an intensive five days in a dedicated facility and immerse themselves in a new skill set.
Then the tolerance by employees and middle managers for a formal learning program shifted to two days. Then one day. Then half a day. Then one hour. Now it is probably about fifteen minutes,” according to Simulation Designer Clark Aldrich on his Simulations and Serious Games blog.
Of course, technology has improved instructional design, significantly reducing the amount of time it takes to complete training and learning courses. And since the advent of Google, we’ve been trained to find and learn information using the fastest methods available.
Whether it’s in response to the recession or not, training has gone from weekly retreats to days of on-site training, to an hour-long webinar. We’re trying to get the most bang for our buck by racing through a mountain of information as quickly as possible.
What do you think? Is it possible that we’re losing out on quality because we’re so focused on efficiency? Are we trying to squeeze too much training and learning into a window of time that’s way too short?
Is cramming it all into 15 minutes ever a good thing?
