We are told time and time again that we need to practice.
That we need to work hard. That’s usually a load of rubbish. Learning depends less on you as a learner and more on how the learning is designed.
Here’s an understanding of how “prompts” in learning make the client eager to get to and finish an assignment, even if the learning journey is extremely long and complicated.
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What's the connection between a car wash and how we move forward quickly?
Joseph Nunes and Xavier Dreze wanted to explore how people progress towards a goal. Weird as it may sound, they chose a car wash to conduct their experiment. The participants were given loyalty cards for a car wash. Both groups had the same car washes to complete before they were entitled to a complimentary bonus wash.
Here's how the experiment rolled out.
The first set of participants was given a card that had eight stamps. The second group had ten stamps. However, two of those stamps were already marked. As you can tell, they are headed towards precisely the same goal, but how it is presented is slightly different for each party.
As you probably guessed, and guessed correctly, the group with the pre-stamped card were more likely to get to the finish line.
Why is this the case?
It's simply a factor of a bit of a prompt. A prompt is given in advance, and it seems to ease the required work. When the journey seems a little shorter, our perception takes over, and we are more likely to do the same task – and then even do a little more. When a prompt is in place, the client feels there is a little less to do and is motivated to do a lot more.
For example, I am currently learning French, and it's not easy.
In the past, when I learned a language, I would do so with flashcards. The flashcard system is where you are shown a single word and must remember that word in your target language. At first, we were all very excited about the learning process and added words to some kind of flashcard software.
However, you have to do a fair amount of work over a long period. You have to add new words and their translations. If the pronunciation is crucial, you must find the correct pronunciation and add it to the flashcard. Learning a language might take well over a year of dedicated study. All of this work seems very tedious.
However, let's say there is a system that gives you complete sentences.
It's still a flashcard system, but you don't have to add in the pronunciation, and the sentence gets read to you. In the second instance, you will likely find the progress more significant.
Almost everybody will fall off the bandwagon without diligence, but people will more likely go much further when given enough of a buffer. Or, in other words, a bit of a “prompt”.
Why is the prompt so important?
The obvious reason why it is important is because we lose steam as we go through a learning process. We all start incredibly excited, but learning new concepts can be exhausting. It takes a fair amount of willpower to show up consistently and face a mountain of new information.
This information must be assimilated and there must be a percolation process. Only once we go through these steps of assimilation and percolation can we implement what we are learning.
Hence, if a client has to fill in “eight stamps,” it feels much less tiresome than filling in “ten stamps”. The amount of work required might be the same, but combining the work and the perception causes tiredness.
The second reason the prompt is essential is that it negates the nonsensical concept of “hard work.” We are told time and time again that we have to work harder, but we have no proof that working harder makes anybody better.
All it does is make you more frustrated with the learning process. Since the goal is to create a tiny increment, giving a client one small step is much better.
For instance, we used to have an assignment on the earliest storytelling course. The goal was to get the clients to connect just about any story to any article.
Here is what the assignment looked like:
- Write a personal story in about 10 to 15 bullet points.
- Connect that personal story to an article.
- Drum up three ways to connect that personal story to an article.
When you read the agenda above, it might not make sense because it is related to the course itself.
However, let's examine what's happening. It takes an enormous amount of effort to write a personal story. You have first to dredge your memory to get a story.
Your next step would involve determining whether the story is exciting or boring. After that, you must summarise it in 10 to 15 bullet points. In the assignment, it seemed like a single piece of activity.
All you had to do was “write a personal story in 10 to 15 bullet points.” But when you expand it, it requires three separate time-consuming activities. The problem is that the assignment keeps going on.
You still have to connect the personal story to an article, and then you have to drum up three different ways to connect that personal story to an article.
However, what if we were to turn this around a bit?
Using the prompt concept, you give the client the story. You also give them 20 different words or phrases, and they can choose any three. And as you can see, the goal is still being achieved.
After all, you planned to get them to connect a personal story to an article. Your goal wasn't to fry the client's brain. By ensuring you give them almost all the steps, leaving them with only a tiny bit to achieve, you ensure they reach their destination.
At this point, we are not just dealing with perception.
In the car wash story, it was merely a factor of perception. The activity was precisely the same; the only difference was how the audience perceived it. In this case, when you are using the prompt, you give the client as much help as needed, and the challenge is a small portion of the entire assignment.
It's because they don't have to do so much work that the tiny task becomes more manageable. When you consider that a course of learning might take weeks, months or even a year, having these small tasks, these tiny increments, is what nudges the client to move ahead bit by bit.
Strangely, the client will do more work than normal if you turn things around.
Let's look at the assignment yet again and then turn it around.
Here is what the assignment looked like:
- Write a personal story in about 10 to 15 bullet points.
- Connect that personal story to an article.
- Drum up about three different ways in which you can connect that personal story to an article.
When we turn it around a bit, it looks like this.
- Here is the story for your assignment.
- Here are about 20 words; feel free to choose any 3 to connect the story to the article.
- Finally, when you are done, write a personal story in about 10 to 15 bullet points.
Invariably, clients finish the assignment because they have been given enough prompts and don't have to go through a sludge of activity. They already have the story and just have to pick three words.
Usually, they finish the activity in minutes and then have all of this time to spare. What did they do in their spare time? Yes, they write a personal story in 10 to 15 bullet points.
This is what happens when I'm learning French as well.
The goal is to learn just 25 new sentences per day and about 50 existing sentences that I have already gone through. However, since I don't have to spend all the time putting all the elements together, I do much more than I expect. Instead of just 25 sentences per day, I may reach a hundred or even two hundred.
Granted, that is excessive, but the point remains. We must examine the goal we are trying to achieve for the learner. When we overburden the learning process, we are not doing ourselves or the client any favour. We are not thinking through the process, not using prompts and making the entire exercise tedious.
Whenever possible, it's important to use prompts.
They feel like we have been given seven stamps on their car wash, and they just have to fill in the eight one to get that free bonus.
Now, that's something that almost all of us feel we can achieve, isn't it?
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