Connie Bowman is an instructional designer and part-time Spanish teacher from Ohio, who has a real passion for learning design. Having been in the field for over thirty years, Connie’s love for learning is strong as ever, because as she says – there’s always something new to learn. Connie discusses her opinions on all things learning while speaking with Stella. Including her belief that the learning industry need to flip their mindset, focusing on problem-solving first.
Connie Bowman is an instructional designer and part-time Spanish teacher from Ohio, who has a real passion for learning design. Having been in the field for over thirty years, Connie’s love for learning is strong as ever, because as she says – there’s always something new to learn. Connie discusses her opinions on all things learning while speaking with Stella. Including her belief that the learning industry need to flip their mindset, focusing on problem-solving first.
Welcome to the stellar labs podcast. Future learning today at Stellar labs, our mission is to bust the technology skills crunch with effective measurable engaging training. We consult on design and deliver the technical and people skills and competencies you need in business. In these podcasts you'll hear from industry experts and practitioners from the worlds of technology and training. They'll share their experience, insights and inspiration and their visions for the future with you. Keep listening to start your future learning here today. Hello, I'm Stella Collins, Chief Learning Officer at Stellar Labs. Today's podcast episode was recorded live at the learning technologies conference, 2020 in London. Connie Brownman is an instructional designer and part-time Spanish teacher who I bumped into at learning technologies. This was her first visit to the conference and we had an interesting conversation about her long career in Allen day and some of the changes she's experienced.
Stella:So welcome to the stellar labs podcast, Connie. It's really nice to have you here.
Connie:Thank you. This is fun and interesting to do.
Stella:So Connie, we were just having this conversation. You said:"I just happened to be at learning tech" and I said,"what do you mean you just happened to be, it's not a place you just happened to be at." So tell me a bit about why you're here at learning tech.
Connie:Well that's, that's interesting because I'm actually, if you can't tell from my accent, I'm not from the UK. I'm from based in Columbus, Ohio, but my boss and several of my colleagues are actually in Bournemouth. And so I came over at my own initiation for a couple of months to work with my team in Bournemouth. And as a result of that, my boss sent me to the conference. So when I say I just happened to be here, I guess it's because I wasn't planning on doing this at all when I set up my work experience. But it just worked out really great to have this opportunity.
Stella:So what's kind of led you into learning?
Connie:Oh, that's an interesting question too. So I've been doing this for 32 years. Actually, when I was in university, I had no idea that there was a training and development field whatsoever. But coincidentally I was studying business and education and couldn't decide what I wanted to do. I was studying Spanish as well, so I was going to be a Spanish teacher maybe. I had no idea when I got out of school what I really wanted to do. And somebody said:"you should join the field or it sounds like you would like to be in training and development", and had no idea what that was. Never heard about it in all my years in university. And as luck would have it, I got a job with the federal government and moved into a learning specialist role and had a great mentor there and been doing instructional design and training development for 32 years now. So I got into it accidentally, but in some ways I was planting the seeds and didn't realize it.
Stella:I think that's how a lot of us got into learning development and clearly it is more common now at university, but I think people of our age on the whole accidentally fell into it and then kind of found their idea.
Connie:And I'm so grateful. It's been a great career. I actually ended up getting my master's degree then in learning in human resource development it was called at the time. I've just had so many great opportunities to travel the world and to work with so many different subjects. So I've been doing it for 32 years, but I don't ever feel bored by it because it's always something different, always something new to learn. So I constantly feel challenged.
Stella:That's great. And I heard you earlier on say to another person that was talking about using text messaging as a learning tool and you're immediately kind of:"that sounds really interesting". So what other technologies are you really interested in at the moment?
Connie:Well our firm is kind of going through a transformation to more modernizing our learning and digitization of our learning. I think those words get thrown around a lot. I'm really interested in whatever works for the problem. So, I heard an interesting quote here today:"we should fall in love with the problem, not the solution". And so I think that some of what we suffer from is that we see a tool and we think: how can we use this tool versus what's the problem and what's the best tool to solve it. If it's a class with a facilitator, old school type of thing, then good. But you know, there's so many technologies and all that we can use today to look at problems differently. And that idea of text messaging, people are always on their phones, using that and just ties in with their lifestyle so well and what they like to do. So that's the kind of things I think I'm interested in, is what are those things that people are naturally drawn to and are using? And how can we embed learning with those tools?
Stella:Fantastic. And at Stellar Labs one of our things is to use evidence and science based learning methodologies to train really quite technical subject. So what are your thoughts around the science of learning, using neuroscience within learning?
Connie:Actually, there was a speaker that talked about that this morning and it piqued my interest because it's something that I would like to learn more about. I don't know a lot about it, I'll put it that way. But I also am always looking at things like, when you look at gaming and other types of learning tools, is how that ties in. I guess it's like what I said before that ties into what are people naturally drawn to. So I'm not sure if that answers your question, but looking at the psychology of what are people drawn to, what do they like to do and how can we use that as a platform for learning? So, I just have to admit, I don't know a lot about it. It's something I'm really interested in learning more about, but maybe just kind of on a gut level.
Stella:And I think you're absolutely right. It's about finding people's motivation for learning, isn't it?I was talking to some teachers the other day and they were talking about one of the challenges they have is children will not sit still and listen. And I actually explained to them perhaps what they were doing was inflicting medieval torture on these children.Tthat is not how people learn. We've evolved to learn in a very natural way. And if we can tap into that natural desire to learn and the natural physical ability to learn and use the physicality of learning as well as the mentality of learning, then that's really powerful.
Connie:Yeah. I'm a strong believer in active learning. So learning by doing, learning by immersing yourself into situations and learning through discovery type of learning, through making mistakes or through experiencing something. So that's my preferred way of trying to build learning experiences.
Stella:For which there's plenty of evidence. One of the things I always say is that just because there isn't any evidence yet doesn't mean you shouldn't carry on doing what works. You sound like you're a very practical practitioner and doing what works and looking to solve to solve the problem.
Connie:Exactly. And I also am a strong believer that people learn most when they have a pain point. So, you know, obviously there's people who just learn for the sake of learning. But I would say in most cases, people learn something when they're at a pain point:"I don't know how to fix something, I go look at a YouTube video" or"I'm not going to get a promotion, if I can't do this particular item, I'm going to lose my job", you know. So, I think finding what people's pain points are and focusing on those is where I think you get a lot of motivation t oo.
Stella:I think there's the pain points, but I think there's also the will. What will help me do the next thing? So for instance, I moved to Spain three years ago. I'd always wanted to learn Spanish. I'd always sort of toyed with learning Spanish, but when I had to move to Spain and it wasn't the pain of learning, it wasn't the pain of not being able to communicate, but it was the joy of being able to communicate. So, I think there is also just the joy of learning that you can.
Connie:Exactly. And maybe pain isn't the right word. It could be that there's a motivation there. Either pain or like you said, to get to the next level. So, I am also a Spanish teacher, by the way. And I lived in Spain as well.
Stella:Do you have any learning heroes?
Connie:My first manager would probably be my learning hero because when I interviewed for the position with him, I knew nothing about training and development or anything at all. And he hired me because he said he just felt like he saw something there. And so he mentored me. He helped me get my master's degree paid for and just always believed in me. So maybe that's not something that's well known to anyone, but I consider him my hero because he gave me the career that I love and really helped me find my path, find my way, and believed in me. So 32 years later, I've had a wonderful career that I've loved and I really owe it all to him.
Stella:So that's a lovely story. Anything else that's kind of interesting you and exciting at the moment that you've seen at the conference?
Connie:I would just say that I haven't been able to come to a conference like this for many years and so really jumped at this opportunity and it really ignites that spark in you and gets you even at this advanced stage in my career. I could be thinking about retirement, but now I'm fired up thinking about different things that I can do in the future. So I would just say it doesn't matter where you are in your career, how old you are. There's always something new to learn and I hope everyone just can always find that spark or passion.
Stella:So thank you Connie. It's really, really lovely talking to you. Good luck with the rest of the conference, happy trip home.
Connie:Thank you very much. Bye bye.
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