Learning and development (L&D) leaders worldwide are finding new and innovative ways to immerse their learners in training that drives business results. To learn more about experiential learning, we spoke with Meghan Castillo principal learning experience designer at HubSpot, and Hasti Mehta, learning and development operations specialist at HubSpot.
Listen now to learn more on:
- Creating immersive training experiences in a virtual environment.
- Leveraging experiential learning for increased learner engagement.
- The business benefits of experiential learning.
Listen Now:
Don’t have time to listen to the whole podcast? Catch the highlights in this video snapshot:
Additional Resources:
- 5 Ways Experiential Learning Programs Can Improve Training
- Training Industry Magazine: Training in Another Dimension
- The State of the Learning Technologies Market
- From Safety to Soft Skills: 4 Common Use Cases for Experiential Learning Technology
The transcript for this episode follows:
Speaker 1:
Welcome to the Business of Learning, the learning leader’s podcast from Training Industry.
Taryn Oesch DeLong:
Hello, and welcome to the Business of Learning. I’m Taryn Oesch DeLong, managing editor at Training Industry.
Sarah Gallo:
And I’m Sarah Gallo, an associate editor at Training Industry. This episode of the Business of Learning is sponsored by Training Industry Research.
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Taryn Oesch DeLong:
At organizations across the globe, learning leaders are finding new and innovative ways to immerse their learners in training that drives business impact. Today we’re speaking with Meghan Castillo, principal learning experience designer at HubSpot, and Hasti Mehta learning and development operations specialist at HubSpot, to learn more about experiential learning. Hasti and Meghan, welcome to the podcast.
Meghan:
Thanks for having us.
Hasti:
Thanks for having us. I’m super excited to be here.
Sarah Gallo:
Great. Well to kick things off today, why don’t you start by defining experiential learning for us.
Meghan:
Yeah. Thanks Sarah. I think it’s really great to first align on a definition because there are quite a few out there, but they originate from Kolb. So before we get into my very simple definition, I think it’s helpful to know a bit of context. David Kolb published his experiential learning theory in 1984, which was inspired by work from John Dewey, Kurt Lewin and Jean Piaget. Kolb’s experiential learning theory is a four-stage cycle of learning and also has four learning styles that compliment these stages. Holistically, the model’s [stages include] experience, perception, cognition and behavior. But now that we’ve had a little bit of that history lesson, I can give you my very simple definition. I think of experiential learning as just “learning by doing.” In essence, it’s creating an opportunity for learners to not only be introduced to the knowledge or concept but to apply it in a real world situation, then reflect on that either through feedback provided by an expert or through personal reflection. With that experience under their belt learners are then able to hypothesize based on the outcome and really apply this learning to a new and similar experience. It’s essentially learning in or as close to the workflow as possible in an L&D context.
Hasti:
Thank you so much for that super thorough background, Meghan. As someone who doesn’t have a formal background in instructional design theory, it’s always interesting to hear how things originate. But I’m so glad we’re aligned on the definition, which is [that] experiential learning is [essentially] “learning by doing.” My take is that experiential learning allows learners to start doing their job in an environment where it’s safe to fail. That makes it so much easier to reflect on what could be done better or differently in a low-stakes environment. [Experiential learning gives learners] more confidence when they’re doing it as part of their actual role. So here’s a quick example. If we’re trying to learn how to bake a cake, reading the instructions over and over gives you a great idea of what you need to do in the perfect scenario, but it doesn’t allow you to see some of the other variables that might affect your baking experience in the real world. So you don’t really know how much time it’ll take to prep ingredients, how much, or how little, to whisk the batter and you don’t know how much you’re going to have to check on the cake when it’s cooking because your oven might be different than the one being used in the recipe. You’re not going to learn all these things until you actually do it yourself.
Sarah Gallo:
Yeah. That’s a great example. Well, thanks both of you for breaking that down for us. So, now that we know what experiential learning is, and it certainly sounds exciting, I’m wondering how we can also make sure that it’s strategic. Can you all explain a little bit about how you’ve incorporated experiential learning into your overall strategy at HubSpot?
Hasti:
Yeah, of course Sarah. So, if we zoom out, we start at the company level. We can see that experiential learning is a core part of the company culture. Our motto is to “grow better,” which if you break it down, it’s a combination [continuous] learning and learning by doing. And I think HubSpot moves very quickly. And part of that is due to the fact that we encourage failing and learning from that failure. I think it’s called “failing forward.” And so we try to build this psychologically safe culture from the get-go, which allows folks to not be afraid to take action. And that’s really the key piece that allows us to move at a different speed and constantly iterate on our learning programs to make them as effective as possible.
Meghan:
Thanks for that, Hasti. If we continue to zoom in a little bit more into our L&D department, our L&D strategy consists of three pillars that really guide all the work that we’re doing. So these three pillars for us are to help HubSpotters to grow better, cultivate a culture of learning and ensure that we’re creating inclusive human experiences. So these [pillars] ultimately tie back to the broader HubSpot strategy [in] that, ultimately, learning happens while doing. When we look into our programs themselves, we’ve incorporated experiential learning in a myriad of ways. Some of our most effective experiential learning opportunities are these three. One is in our role-specific programs. It’s taken some time, but we’ve ultimately done away with the end-all-be-all exam. There’s so much anxiety that goes into that. Some learners just don’t perform well on those exams, and it’s not really that effective when we look at it through this lens. So instead we’ve incorporated numerous role plays that act somewhat as checkpoints to apply what learners have learned in that real-world scenario with their manager acting as the customer. The role plays conclude with personalized and timely feedback, which is objective and there’s a scorecard to really lead this scenario for the manager as well. And it ensures that it’s focused on the situation and the desired outcomes. We’ve also got learner-led group activities, which incorporate aspects of social learning and experiential learning. And currently those are done within breakouts that we’ll speak to a bit more about later. These really introduce the group to real customer problems, and we use them to encourage learners to use the resources that they have at their fingertips and really apply what they’ve learned to think critically and [identify solutions to problems]. And then we close that feedback loop through the facilitator in this role to really course correct. We also have mentorship programs, which allow people to learn from each other. There’s a lot of structure around these. We pair the mentor with those new hires, and they ultimately guide them through the process, and enable them to experience those concrete situations that are actually what they’ll be experiencing in a role. [These mentorships] have timeline and personalized feedback, and they’re ultimately guided by playbooks.
Hasti:
Thanks so much for explaining how that works with our strategy. I just want to add that we’re always looking to the future. We’re focused on the future of work. We’re thinking about that, and it’s becoming more and more apparent that in a remote-focused world, simulations are going to become more and more relevant. So part of our strategy, as Meghan mentioned, is focused on creating an inclusive [learning] experience. And part of that is creating personalized location, agnostic learning experiences. And I think experiential learning will really allow us to create meaningful experiences that help bridge any gaps we find between folks with varying skill sets.
Taryn Oesch DeLong:
That’s such a great point about inclusion and taking into account where people are learning because this year, of course, many people are remote, but I think even after the pandemic, it seems like we’re trending in a direction where [companies will have some] people at home, some at work [and] some a little bit of both. So that’s a great point. And with that in mind, what tips do you have for how learning leaders can create immersive learning experiences in a virtual environment?
Meghan:
Yeah, this is something that I am super passionate about. I’m a full-time remote worker, and I was before the pandemic [caused many others to switch to remote work], of course. So, when we look to that in the lens of experiential learning, there are so many ways to design for this inclusion of immersive learning experiences and feedback to occur in a virtual environment. It really doesn’t take much to set the stage [to allow learners to] engage. Let’s set a few ground rules, and then we can really let learners jump into these situations to apply what they’ve learned. A really key piece to note is that regardless of the modality that we determine, experiential learning really provides that context needed to make the learning relevant and meaningful. The ability for learners to experiment, be curious, ensure that they’re bringing their whole selves to work and building upon those experiences that they have within their lives and bring action to that learning process is really critical. So when we focus in on the virtual environment, we found really great success with breakout groups. There are so much that you can do within a simple breakout group. We’ve also built in some asynchronous opportunities, such as reflection and asynchronous conversation within threads that really encourage learners to use resources and build upon one another’s responses. We also have, as I alluded to earlier, learner-led group activities, whether that’s live or involves experiencing content on their own, and then reconnecting as a group to really debrief, especially getting some feedback there as well. And then [we also use] role-play assessments with scorecards [and] answer sheets. One really key aspect here that we hadn’t originally thought through to the fullest extent was ensuring that we’re essentially providing these answer sheets, whether that’s through a quick video format or whatever that is to allow for more of an asynchronous element to come into play within the virtual learning experience.
Hasti:
We’ve been experimenting with these different ways to create immersive learning experiences in virtual environments. And looking back, we found a couple of helpful tips such as having a smaller group of attendees. I think ideally, when possible, a group of 12 is the perfect size to engage more folks. That’s a lesson we’ve learned, but it’s hard to put into practice depending on the content that you’re delivering. You may have to go up or down in participant size. But another lesson learned is to have an additional person who’s able to engage with the participants or the learners while someone else is facilitating. I believe that this role is commonly called the producer role. I really think that it can help folks feel like they can engage more because someone else is there to answer questions, help them out. And of course, it helps the facilitator to manage all of the interactions with the learners so that they can foster this environment of increased engagement.
Taryn Oesch DeLong:
You bring up a great point there about engagement. I think we all have heard stories or even experienced ourselves of people just tuning out in virtual learning experiences. So, what tips do you have for really keeping learners engaged when they’re working from home in these experiential learning situations?
Hasti:
Definitely. So I think first and foremost, bring the energy. The energy is what sets the tone. Learners will play off of the energy and tone that you set. So, we know it’s exhausting to be on camera and engage in that way, but it’s so worth it to set the standard by having your camera on [and] encouraging your learners to do the same. We’ve worked a lot on our culture to create psychologically safe environments at HubSpot, shameless plug here, check out our culture code, but this has really proven to be a critical piece to increase engagement. But taking a step back, if we’re looking at experiential learning regardless of the modality, it’s really important to do two things. One, tie it to a metric that is relevant to the learners so they can better understand their improvement in relation to their role as they go along and complete the experience. And second, have clear objectives that really spell out the WIIFM, which is “what’s in it for me?” What’s the benefit that they will obtain by going through the experience? If this is communicated before the experience begins, they’ll be so much more motivated to put in the work for the experience and the results that you’ve laid out before.
Meghan:
Yeah. And adding to that Hasti, to be completely transparent, we’re thinking very much about the future of work. And I think we all are. That’s a really relevant term nowadays, especially going through everything that we are in 2020. It’s becoming more and more apparent that virtual experiences are here to stay. We want to continue to allow our learners to engage from wherever it is that they may be working. Looking at it from this lens of developing location agnostic experiences, any sort of tool that really allows folks to gather and be together virtually is going to make more experiential learning activities possible. The ability to create breakouts as I referenced before, and really infuse elements of gamification, such as creating healthy competition, really aim to drive that engagement. A crowd favorite here has been the use of Mentimeter. We used to use Kahoot. We recently switched to Mentimeter. It’s been really, really great for content debriefs alignment. And we’ve gotten some really promising feedback from learners on that. Shameless plug, we just released our 2020 Remote Work report, which highlights that nearly 50% of employees feel a great sense of belonging and connection with their team or with their company when everyone works remotely. This really supports what we’ve been learning over the past few months, [which is] that learners crave connection, the ability to get to know their peers, [and to] converse and learn from one another. This is just another reason we should focus our energy on creating engaging virtual experiences. Not only does this level the playing field, but it really aligns with where we’re going with the future of work. Collaborative learning is a critical aspect that needs to be more intentionally designed within the virtual environment because really when we think about it, there’s so much less opportunity for it to occur organically as it would in a typical classroom environment when we’re all physically gathered together. That banter just continues. It’s just more natural so, within the virtual environment, we really need to be intentional about that design.
Sarah Gallo:
Definitely. That’s a great point, Meghan. And I think while, of course, as learning leaders we always try to engage our learners … but it’s is definitely [even] more important when a lot of us are still working from home right now, due to the coronavirus pandemic. So, thanks for those tips. All right. So now that we’ve discussed how to keep learners engaged in virtual experiential learning initiatives, what other challenges are today’s learners facing and how can experiential learning help solve them?
Hasti:
That’s a great question. And I think it comes back to the current state of the world. I think the biggest challenges that learners face right now are competing demands and having everything at their fingertips and easily accessible. So, with the coronavirus pandemic, we’re all being pulled in a million different directions from being employees to caregivers. Our focus is no longer on one thing at a time. And in our 2020 Remote Work report, we found that 73% of folks have taken on childcare or caregiving responsibilities at home, which inevitably affects their levels of engagement when participating in anything — especially [in] learning programs. And this current reality is causing our personal and professional lives to blend together in a way that we’ve never seen before. That in conjunction with being in an age where there’s this need for instinct gratification makes it so difficult to be fully present in a learning experience anymore. So, if we’re solely relying on our asynchronous training to upscale our workforce, we’re really missing the mark. Experiential learning allows us to take a break, and it forces modern learners to change gears. There was a time when we could conduct isolated learning events in a classroom. We could engage with other people in person, and we could really immerse ourselves in that experience. With everything being virtual now, including our work, entertainment, family and basically everything [else] in our life [due to COVID-19], we’re really competing for attention in a way that we haven’t had to before.
Meghan:
That’s such a great point Hasti. Just a few weeks ago, when I was facilitating our virtual onboarding experience at HubSpot, I really observed some of these challenges that learners face in real time. For example, when I was introducing one of the first immersive learning experiences that we have them go through, the shift in energy was almost tangible, even though it was still in a virtual environment, I could really see that folks were more attentive because people were looking more engaged and dialed in through their video. And the little zoom square, the chat was suddenly a bit more active, there was a slight look of panic because at that moment, learners realized that they were going to have to fully participate. They could no longer sit in the back of the class with their video turned off. They were going to be in much smaller groups to participate in a learner-led activity. So this time would really allow them to engage and think critically with their peers to put what they’ve learned into action. And that’s really what it’s all about. The “moment of apply” is when things all come together for a learner. So, if we’re not creating these experiences for application of the learning and context, we’re really doing them a disservice to Hasti’s earlier point, [which is that] when unidentified variables surface and learners are confronted with additional possibilities and are forced to really test that and figure it out. It’s essentially creating that light bulb moment in the virtual environment.
Hasti:
Meghan, actually that makes me think as you’re explaining this and the future of work is changing, it makes me wonde … do you think that L&D’s role within an organization is changing? We’ve always done things in a certain way, but it feels like we’re on the brink of something new and exciting.
Meghan:
Yeah. I could not agree more with you on that, Hasti. I know we’ve been hearing this at conferences for years and things have been changing, but really this feeling that we’re moving at the speed of light and things are changing much faster than normal is exacerbated by this current situation that we find ourselves in. Companies have had to adapt and be profitable, get people up and running faster and with much less support than normal. It’s not that this wasn’t the case before, but it’s much more apparent during these unprecedented times as we live through a global pandemic. This is really the challenge that everyone is facing across the board, whether it’s learners or L&D professionals, L&D’s role is changing. It’s time we changed our strategy and our approach to really focus on performance. The business challenge that I think it’s safe to say we’re all presented with is enabling performance. Having new hires take calls, support customers, sell the product sooner, do the thing … actually perform in a role. This coupled with the reality that new hires are really eager to get into a role faster than sometimes our programs are built to allow them to do so [can be challenging]. It’s really where both experiential learning and performance support come into play and work hand in hand. I feel very passionately about giving credit where credit is due. And I really need to acknowledge that Bob Mosher and Dr. Khan’s five moments of need certificates design program has really been informing our approach here and he really helped to pave the way. So at HubSpot, we use experiential learning in our live experiences and are upskilling ourselves and continuing to build out performance support for learners in [their] roles, in their workflow and [through] on-the-job experiences.
Taryn Oesch DeLong:
We’ve talked about experiential learning when it goes well … but what are some common mistakes that you’ve seen organizations make, or maybe made yourselves, when you were first starting out implementing experiential learning?
Hasti:
I think this is a great question. It really forces us to take a look at ourselves and see where we could improve. But thinking about that, I think that there are three common mistakes that we as an industry make. The first [is] a lack of trust in our learners, whether that be to follow simple instructions or lead their own peer groups, complete the task at hand … whatever it is. We don’t always trust [our] learners. And that really backfires. We know that people will rise to the occasion and if we lay a solid foundation, explain the WIIFM, the what’s in it for me and we encourage them. They will definitely surprise us. We’ve got to learn to trust our learners and give them that chance to wow us. Second, I think I find that we’re often jumping into AR/VR and new technologies too soon. I’m a learning technologist. This is all very exciting. I love looking at new technology, but it’s really difficult and tough for us to make a connection between our experiences and our technology. If we’re not scoping out the use case enough to make a solid connection to the business outcomes. Not doing that will make the experience feel difficult and disconnected from the rest of the training process. And third, I don’t think that we invest much in the feedback part of the experiential learning process. We never really know how well we’re doing something until we actually perform. And that’s when everything really comes together. That’s [the] light bulb moment. And the ability to receive real-time personalized feedback from experts is really critical to being able to quickly improve and adapt, you know, it’s imperative to design those feedback loops within our experience so that we can ensure learners are receiving that feedback about the application of knowledge on time. And from a learner’s perspective, I think it could be nice to learn the concept and do the thing. But it’s not great if you’re not receiving that timely and personalized feedback because it can lead to frustration and misalignment because they’re not getting the confirmation they need. And just another thing is that our learners want to be able to perform better as Meghan said, and do well in their role, whether or not they aced a 10-question quiz embedded in a 30-minute eLearning course is not going to affect them in the same way as real-time relevant feedback might.
Sarah Gallo:
Just a quick follow up on that. You mentioned the importance of feedback in the experiential learning experience. Do you have any tips for how learning leaders can actually integrate that into the experience for all learners?
Hasti:
I think it’s really critical to just keep it simple, especially in terms of when we’re asking managers or other subject matter experts to jump in and provide this expertise. I think it’s really helpful to boil it down to, maybe there’s three outcomes that we are looking for them to get that objective feedback on. So [it’s] really important to help our experts that are coming into the solution to really make that easy for them, whether that’s through a quick scorecard or bullet points that can really help to guide them rather than leaving it up to them or leaving that more open for subjectivity there. So three words that one of my peers and friends in the industry really recommends around feedback, Meghan Underwood, is for feedback to be constructive, meaningful and timely. So, however we can put some really brief and overlying guidelines around that to provide that structure can really help.
Sarah Gallo:
Great. All right. Well, I think it’s important to remember when we’re talking about experiential learning that, today’s learning leaders are responsible for delivering training on a variety of topics. Whether it’s a course on racial bias or a new coding language. Are there any training topics that you believe are more suited for experiential learning than others? And if so, what are they and why are they good fits?
Meghan:
This is such a great question, especially because as we all know, things change so quickly. We are expected to have higher skills as you mentioned coding, there’s data that’s coming into play. There’s so much going on, but really given what we know about experiential learning, there doesn’t seem to be a wrong answer here in terms of topics that you can solve or help to bring to learners through experiential learning. So really, I think it boils down to [the idea that] your imagination is the only thing that will limit you in this way. Of course, it’s imperative to really partner with the business and align on the performance metrics so you’re aiming to build proficiency in before concluding on a learning loop and a format and all of the details that really come into the experiential learning process. As we mentioned, a lot of our learning experiences contain aspects of experiential learning, and we’re actively working to revamp and increase the amount of connections to that enroll performance through our onboarding experiences and beyond but really the topics can be endless. I think there’s so many different ways to work [experiential learning into your learning program] and to formulate it and make it fit. So whether you’re in your first day at HubSpot or you’re well into your career, you’re really likely to encounter experiential learning in one way or another throughout your career.
Hasti:
Just to add to that, we’ve got an example from HubSpot. We’ve got a program that really exemplifies the experiential learning elements, and that is Skill Spot. It’s a global professional development program. Every learning experience created for Skill Spot has been modeled on experiential learning theory. So for example, those courses focus on more than just the virtual experience itself. We have practical application and feedback loops embedded into the journey through nudges, which help the learner prepare for the experience on their own time and through reinforcement tips after the experience to encourage application.
Taryn Oesch DeLong:
That’s a great example. So, to wrap things up today, why would you encourage other learning leaders to embrace experiential of learning in their organizations?
Meghan:
I would really encourage it because it’s so much more effective than the traditional one-way lecture or content delivery via an eLearning course or an isolated training event, which we’ve been so accustomed to doing. We’ve been so accustomed to pushing knowledge at learners, and it’s so important to really engage them in this process. As we mentioned earlier, our role is really changing within L&D. The outdated approach is really centered around the simple exchange of that time for information. And it’s ultimately taking too long. It’s a lot of learners time invested in learning such high level concepts. It lacks context and ultimately, it’s not actionable. Learners are having to unlearn that and relearn in the context of their actual role to try to understand what they’re going to do each day in role and what that day in the life is in terms of performance. So, we’ve found a way to make this transfer of information much more effective and more meaningful. As I referred back to Kolb earlier, this has been around for quite some time, but we’re not really doing it, and we’re not doing it across the board. There’s so many opportunities to do so. I really like to always come back to this quote that one of my mentors told me many years ago. And she said that the seven most expensive words in the English language are, we have always done it this way. And it’s so true because if we continue to do things the old way of essentially doing things in L&D, where we’re pushing information at learners and not necessarily engaging them as we should, it can be very costly as we can see. Our budgets aren’t changing. Again, another reality that’s coming at us is that we need to be much more effective in this. So through experiential learning, the combination of content, the application, the reflection, and really the synthesis of that activity to create new knowledge for learners is incredibly effective. And it’s so much more meaningful and memorable for the learner. So I think ultimately, it’s the right thing to do.
Hasti:
Not going to lie. I was counting the words in that statement, “we have always done it this way.” There are definitely seven. But I think for me, the lesson about giving a man a fish versus teaching them how to fish really sums everything up when it comes to experiential learning. If we continue to only provide the materials for folks to learn from, we aren’t setting them up for the same type of success as we could if we gave them the actual hands-on experience. And I think this brings us back full circle to my bake a cake analogy. That makes me think that maybe we could update the saying to, give a person cake versus teacher person to bake. Just a thought.
Meghan:
I love it.
Sarah Gallo:
I like it. What a great way to end. Perfect. Well, all right, with that, Hasti and Meghan, thank you both so much for joining us today on the Business of Learning.
Meghan:
Thank you so much for having us. It was really a pleasure to be here today.
Hasti:
Thank you both. It was awesome.
Taryn Oesch DeLong:
I have to go find some cake now. To learn more about experiential learning. Check out the show notes for this episode at trainingindustry.com/trainingindustrypodcast.
Sarah Gallo:
And if you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to rate and review us on your favorite podcast app.
Taryn Oesch DeLong:
Until next time, thanks for listening.
Speaker 1:
If you have feedback about this episode or would like to suggest a topic for a future program, email us at info@trainingindustry.com or use the contact us page at trainingindustry.com. Thanks for listening to the Training Industry podcast.
