Posted: July 1

Context is the kingdom. I wish I had come up with this clever line but I didn’t. My friend, Tony O’Driscoll, Professor of the Practice of Business Administration at Duke University, did.  He is a diver too.  Tony’s line comes as a response to the often quoted phrase, “Content is King”.

We all know that training requires a lot of complete, accurate content. For many of us, content has become king. But the point that my fellow diver, Tony, is trying to make is that content alone will not change behavior. Receiving information or performing skills in context has become the kingdom and the key to real performance. I recently read a debate in, of all things, Scuba Diving magazine on the effectiveness of training standards. In defending the standards, H. Kelly Levendorf talks about the recent proliferation of independent study and online learning, which is completely content centric. He says, “Rather than bemoan less time in the classroom, instructors should embrace the additional time it provides to teach where it’s most valuable: in the water.”  In learning scuba, water is the context.

By teaching scuba, I re-learned something I already knew; that people learn best by using content in the context of how they will use that content. This can be successfully applied to any kind of learning situation. This is really the whole basis for the concept of blended learning. Content may be delivered by one means, but application in context may need to to be delivered by a different modality. What does that say about the value of stand-alone, page-turning e-learning courses?

In addition to pointing out the importance of context, Mr. Levendorf goes on to say, “Student divers need ample time for practice and mastery. Instructors must focus on performance-based—not time-based—learning. I’ll take that topic on next week.