Simplifying Complexity: What Learning Does NOT Look Like

Learning is a complex process.

It is a never-ending and evolving process, experimentation, classroom, peer-to-peer, on-the-job, formal curricula, tacit and informal experiences, reflection, failing forward, change management… the jargon, theories, buzzwords come and go… Learning IS complex. It IS a process, not a finite event.

Metaphor for Complexity – Author Unknown

The complexity above, however, is NOT what learning experiences (as designed by professional Instructional Designers) should look like. We have to make the complex simple, we have to make learning seamless, transparent to the learner… perhaps even something they don’t recognize as “learning” sometimes but that can help them accomplish real-world tasks in the context they live/work in…

What Learning professionals design should look like this:

Simple, Not Simplistic

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”  – Albert Einstein