Getting it right: how the corporate learning world must change

"People learn by doing. It isn't complicated. Plato spelt it out, and his message has been repeated in the 2,500 years since. Yet it seems as if we are condemned to repeat the mistake of imagining that learning by telling works. It doesn't," said Roger Schank looking ahead to his opening keynote at Learning Technologies 2011.

Roger Schank, one of the world's leading visionaries in artificial intelligence, learning theory, cognitive science and the building of virtual learning environments, will ask why workplace learning so often insists on repeating the errors of the educational system. "Schools and universities are the way they are as a result of accident and compromise; they are not based on an understanding of best practice in learning. Instead of using lessons as our model for learning at work we could base our work on sound psychological research, including twelve cognitive processes that all learning requires," added Schank.

Calling on his extensive experience and on practical examples, Roger will draw a compelling picture of how the mind learns and will then challenge us to question how well our own practices match up to this. Finally, he will suggest practical ways in which we can adapt what we do to produce more exciting, engaging learning.

The Learning Technologies 2011 conference takes place on 26-27 January 2011 at London Olympia 2. Learning Technologies conference programme and bookings.

About Roger Schank, CEO, Socratic Arts, Inc. 

Roger Schank is one of the world's leading visionaries in artificial intelligence, learning theory, cognitive science, and the building of virtual learning environments. He is CEO of Socratic Arts, a company whose goal is to design and implement learning-by-doing, story-centered curricula in schools, universities and corporations. In the early 1970's, while an Assistant Professor at Stanford, Roger Schank achieved worldwide fame when he was the first to get computers to be able to process typewritten everyday English language sentences. In order to do this, Schank developed a model for representing knowledge and the relationships between concepts that enabled his programs to predict what concepts might be coming next in a sentence. This spawned an entire field in psychology devoted to determining how people make inferences from what they hear.

He was also one of the influential early contributors to artificial intelligence and cognitive psychology and his major innovations in these fields were his concepts of case based reasoning and dynamic memory. Both of these were opposed to more traditional views of memory and reasoning in the field.

Schank has written more than 25 books including Virtual Learning: A Revolutionary Approach to Building a Highly Skilled Workforce, Coloring Outside the Lines: Raising a Smarter Kid by Breaking All the Rules, Dynamic Memory: A Theory of Learning in Computers and People, Engines for Education, Designing World-Class E-Learning, Making Minds Less Well Educated Than Our Own, Scrooge Meets Dick and Jane, and Lessons in Learning, e-Learning, and Training.

Roger speaks all around the world on on education, corporate training, innovation, the human learning and memory system, corporate memory and artificial intelligence and has an unabashed commitment to learning.

About Learning Technologies 2011, 26 and 27 January 2011, Olympia 2, London
The Learning Technologies Exhibition and Conference is Europe's leading showcase of the technology used for learning at work and provides a wealth of content from the leading exhibitors in the field and a free seminar programme running in five theatres in the exhibition hall. The conference, running alongside the exhibition has expert sessions on learning technology, strategy and the issues facing L&D from some of the leading learning thinkers and visionaries in the industry.

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About Learning and Skills 2011, 26 and 27 January 2011, Olympia 2, London
Learning and Skills 2011 is co-located with the Learning Technologies Exhibition and Conference. The Learning and Skills exhibition showcases the entire spectrum of methods, products and services for workplace learning with a focus on people development, learning and performance, learning resources and HR systems and services and is built around a multi-streamed programme of free seminars in four theatres on the exhibition floor.

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The combination of Learning Technologies and Learning and Skills provides access to more than 200 exhibitors and over 120 free-of-charge seminars and is the must attend event for all learning and development professionals.