Achieving Change with Author Henrik J. Mondrup

Introduction (various voices) 00:04

Welcome to the Empowered Author podcast. 

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The Empowered Author podcast. Your podcast hosts are Boni and John Wagner-Stafford of Ingenium Books.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 00:53

Hello and welcome to another one of Ingenium Books’ virtual book launches. I’m here today with Henrik Mondrup. Hi Henrik. 

Henrik Mondrup 01:05

Hello. 

Boni Wagner-Stafford 01:06

So we are Ingenium Books. I’m Boni Wagner-Stafford, co-founder of Ingenium Books. And, Henrik is launching his book, “Achieving Change: A practical guide to online courses for workplace learning”. This is a timely topic, I would say: more timely than we could ever have known when we first started working together on the book. Henrik, you hadn’t of course – who had foreseen a pandemic? But the COVID-19 situation has certainly heightened the need for online learning, I would say. Would you agree?

Henrik Mondrup 01:45

I definitely agree. And I think there are a lot of people who have been pushed forward to embrace online learning compared to before Covid.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 01:53

Yes. Right. So the purpose of today is really to let people get to know you a little bit and hear about your book. We could go into lots of detail about online learning and how to create it but that’s not the purpose of today. We have a special offer for that kind of thing, which we’ll talk about in a moment. We’re going to, with Henrik, offer a free webinar to talk a little bit in more detail but – so this is about Henrik and celebrating the achievement of the book, “Achieving Change”. Henrik, I’d like to get you to start telling us what was the driving passion that led you to write the book in the first place.

Henrik Mondrup 02:40

So, it’s difficult to find just one passion because I have many different passions combined into creating this book and also to – my interest into online learning. But one of the main interests that put me into it was an experience with a lot of bad e-learning. And I used the term “e-learning” instead of “online learning” because I refer to the e-learning that were in the old days, that were made for compliance purposes. And that is kind of teaching for the test, where you go through some content and then you answer some quizzes and then the compliance department is happy but you have not learned anything. You have not achieved anything. So all the bad e-learning made me want to prove that online learning can make a difference for people and it can happen. So I actually wanted to prove that it’s possible to do it. And I think I have done that very well now.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 03:40

Yes. Through the book but also through your practical application of it. I wanted to pick up on something that you said there, which is – so your education and your work experience are both in the area of education technology and online learning. And in the book you talk about university and higher educational settings as well. But really the focus of this book is about workplace learning and the bad e-learning experiences that you’re referencing. You and I talked about this a while ago, that in one of my former lives, the, you know, a very large organization, everybody was required to do a – whatever it is – online thing. And you’d go, “Click, click, click, click, click, click. Next.” Okay, HR department gets to say we’ve accomplished this: 97 percent of employees have now completed the learning but how did we, you know – who remembers anything that they went through on the clicking? So, one of your case studies in the book, that I just think is – I love this story – and is one of the things kind of earlier on in your journey was your work with Fairstart. Can you tell us a little bit about what you did with Fairstart and what that told you about the potential for online learning?

Henrik Mondrup 05:11

Yes. And that’s also related to one of my second reasons for going into online learning, which is the difference it can make – the impact it can make – when bringing education to places and people that are not able to get an education in other ways. And with Fairstart, I was doing a talk in the settings of Rotary International and I was approached by a psychologist – children psychologist – who is the CEO of the Fairstart Fond. And he approached me with a challenge because he was traveling with his organization around the whole world to educate children at orphanage. And he wanted to bring education out to more countries and more people working with those homeless children. So what we did was to convert his original training program into an online setting and it worked very well. Now it’s four years ago and today the program is implemented in more than 30 countries and has helped more than 30,000 children by educating their staff. And it doesn’t stop here because there’s also been some scientific assessment of if the program works or not. And it shows that, through comparative studies with orphanages that does not have educated Fairstart instructors and the ones that have, that the orphanage where they have educated staff there, then the children, they have an improvement of 20 percent. So they have a 20 percent better life and also the way they grow up, which has tremendous impact for their life.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 07:08

Right. So it’s more than a digital concept. It’s more than an educational concept. This is an application that can dramatically improve the lives of people who otherwise wouldn’t have these opportunities. The – just, you mentioned the number of countries for Fairstart and I should make it clear that I’m a Canadian in Mexico and Denmark: you’re in Denmark and Danish. People can tell from your English accent. And so really this is a global – a topic of global interest and, you know, for organizations like Fairstart or many, many others where they’re, you know, decentralized or dealing with a pandemic situation where you can no longer gather people into a classroom. So very, very applicable. 

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Boni Wagner-Stafford 08:42

Another one of the concepts, in terms of setting up in the book why a new approach to online learning is important: you talk about what is the gas pump pedagogy – the, you know, dumping information. And can you explain what you’re talking about there? And I’ve got the term wrong but can you explain what you’re talking about with that?

Henrik Mondrup 09:08

Yes. And that’s one thing that I think is very important to understand also – and to move away from: and that is the perception that you can take a student and then you can fill water in the head of the student – or knowledge as if it was water. When I create online learning with the method I have developed and which has scientific proof that it works, through different settings, instead of just viewing that the student as like a unit – or glass – you can fill in knowledge, then instead you have to create a connection with practice and you also have to facilitate reflection. And that is like the opposite of the petrol pump pedagogy. So it’s more …

Boni Wagner-Stafford 09:56

That’s it: petrol pump. Yes. And the traditional education systems – our university systems – do you see that they are making progress in this way? One of the things at the beginning of the book is, you say, you know, you take an operating theater in a hospital and look at it a hundred years ago and look at it today and it will look quite different. Then you take the university lecture hall from a hundred years ago and the university lecture hall from today and they will look very much the same. Are you seeing some progress on that front in terms of a recognition that education needs to be handled a little differently?

Henrik Mondrup 10:47

I see it somewhere and somewhere I don’t. And in the places where I don’t is – one example is, for instance, MasterClass, which is a new concept: they have some great teachers and from Martin Scorsese to Bob Iger and like, it’s very great videos but they’re not relating to practice. They’re not creating that connection. So you have to be a special type of person with a higher education, I would say, to be able to take that knowledge and apply it into your own practice. And I see that among most of the online learning that’s happening today, that it’s not creating this connection. And in my point of view, knowledge is worth nothing if you’re not able to apply it into your daily life, where it makes a difference.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 11:35

Right. Which is …

Henrik Mondrup 11:37

That said, there are some universities who are embracing online learning in a great way. And however, I will still say that it’s only for higher educated people who have the right prerequisites for learning.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 11:50

Right. So that business about taking the information and having the ability to apply it on the job is really where the rubber hits the road, to use a North American phrase. I don’t – maybe it’s only a Canadian phrase; I don’t know: the rubber hits the road. But for workplaces, where they invest – companies, organizations – invest time and money developing their teaching and training programs, take the employees out of their regular workday to subject them to the training. So the ROI – the return on the investment – for that can be a waste or zero if there is not the checks and balances in place to make sure that they’re able to – the employees are able to take what they’ve learned and change the behavior when they get back to the job. So in that vein, Henrik, what is more important: how the brain learns or the technology? I think those two things are – either one or both things can trip workplace educators up when they’re trying to put together their training programs. What would you say is most important?

Henrik Mondrup 13:04

It’s a difficult question to ask because there are some ways the brain works that need to be facilitated online through some technology that needs to support that. But I would say that having knowledge about how the brain works and how it learns, it’s the most important thing to know because then you can tailor-make the technology to make it work. And when you talk about technology, we can also take, for instance, video and video quality. I see some educators and online courses who have crisp video with very good quality but the content is not sound. It’s not a waste but it’s very bad designed and there’s no, again, connection to practice; there’s no user journey. And I think that part is the most important. So taking the learner into consideration and also how he or she prefers to learn.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 14:10

Right. I realized that we haven’t shown folks either watching live or on the replay – because this is going to be available and is available on both YouTube and Facebook and we’ll be sharing it elsewhere as well – but can you hold up a copy of the book so people can see what it looks like?

Henrik Mondrup 14:28

Yes, I definitely can. I have a cover right here. So this is the final cover and also with some great endorsements on the back from some great people from universities and workplaces.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 14:44

Very nice. I’m going to just post a link here where anyone can find out more about the book. There are links there to the free webinar that we’re talking about coming up on the 18th of June. If anybody’s watching this after the 18th and we don’t have – the webinar has passed, stay tuned and let us know: we’ll come out with some more news then. But there’s also at that link that I just posted is you can get your own copy of the book. So that is fantastic. And what I’d like to do now, Henrik: you’ve developed five steps, new and unique and that you’ve used your scientific method, your research methods to set up these five steps. I’m going to ask you to walk us through what those steps are. And the first step is what?

Henrik Mondrup 15:39

Yeah. I just want to step one level back and say that the steps are created by reading a lot of different literature all the way back from Aristotle to the most contemporary today about how the brain works and neuroscience and neuropedagogy and then combined with my hands-on experiences. And then I have done my very best to combine them into five simple steps that you can use when you develop online learning. And the first step is to know how the brain works because that is the foundation to know how you’re going to design the whole learning experience for your learners. So having knowledge about how new knowledge is added to existing knowledge and also how you can promote something called transformative learning, which is very hot those days because it makes people able to relearn and learn to do new things in new ways. And also how social learning impacts like the learning experience. So that that’s the first step in my five-step approach.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 16:50

Great. And then, once you – and your book provides a foundation for that. Then, once you understand how the brain works, what’s step two?

Henrik Mondrup 17:00

Yes, step two is about initiating course development. So that’s when you go down and find the learning goals for your whole – for your online course and then find out what content should there be to support those learning goals and what tools can we give to the learners so they’re able to apply the new knowledge into practice. And also how can we make them reflect in a way that make them think about what happened when they applied to new knowledge and how they can improve in the future.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 17:34

Great. Alright. Then understand how the brain works, initiate your course development. Step three would be what?

Henrik Mondrup 17:43

That’s about how you engage the learner. So that’s more, now we go down and get ready: we’re getting ready for writing down our content. So it’s how you can use different approaches to create motivation for the learner and to engage them in the videos you’re doing. Also how you can use ethos, pathos and logos and why that’s important. And also verbal and non-verbal expressions and just how you can engage the learner.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 18:14

And I’m interested in this because this is really, very different from the petrol pump pedagogy, where you just try to dump the knowledge in. What is it about the engagement that makes this approach to online learning so much more effective?

Henrik Mondrup 18:33

In my point of view, it is combining the knowledge you get and then with the practical experience you get in the workplace, so actually you’re able to apply the knowledge on the workplace and to get a feeling of how it improves you every day. And then also creating the connection to having some – it could be some groupwork with some colleagues where you discuss and reflect about – you know, also co-create knowledge together. So you can, develop your own way of using the methods and knowledge and tools to your specific workplace. 

Boni Wagner-Stafford 19:13

Great. Okay. So, you’ve gone through the three steps: understand the learning brain; you initiate course development, think about what goals you want the learner to achieve; figure out ways to engage the learner. Then you’re at step four. What is your step four?

Henrik Mondrup 19:30

Then you’re ready to write the scripts. And you can – yeah, so that’s all the … So when you have the understanding of how people learn and you know what you want to teach them and how to engage them, then it’s time to write the material down that you want to teach them. And I recommend using a teleprompter where you can read out the texts that you have on your – yeah, on the teleprompter because it can be very difficult to remember a lot of content. However, I also in the book write about how you can do it without using a teleprompter and some tips and tricks for remembering content in a way that makes you – that makes it possible for you to do it without the teleprompter. But in my own experience, I have saved a lot of time with the clients where I have used the teleprompter for recording videos. And also …

Boni Wagner-Stafford 20:26

Right. So – sorry, carry on.

Henrik Mondrup 20:30

Yeah, I’ll also say in the process of writing down the scripts and getting the knowledge out of your own head, in my experience with all the people that I’ve worked with, they really like get new views on the things they’re doing and they get a lot of aha moments and they’re like, “Oh my God. Okay, actually, we should do it this way.” So when they say it out loud or when they write it down, it creates some great reflection in the – yeah, that will be in your head, in this case.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 20:57

Right. So, this is an important point, I think: so online learning, you know, there are, I guess, a limited number of delivery methods and your steps very clearly talk about using video as a key tool. Do you have thoughts about, you know, there – you can sign up online for an email course and you get an email every day for five days or whatever, you know: it’s got some information in it or – tell me why you think video is so much more powerful.

Henrik Mondrup 21:34

Yeah, there are some, like, a lot of benefits with videos also: you – it can be more motivating and engaging because you get a connection with the person talking to you. And also, it’s possible to show illustrations, to show role-plays and you have a lot more options than you do if you have just written down.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 21:56

Thank you. So we’ve now got the scripts written; the videos created after we understand how the brain works. We’ve talked about what we want the learner to achieve. We figured out how we’re going to engage the students. We’ve created the scripts and the videos and now we’re ready. We don’t need a fifth step, do we?

Henrik Mondrup 22:17

We do. And the fifth step is assessment. And in the book I have called it not just “assessment” but “assessment for learning” because if you use assessment in the way that I write about in the book and that I also shared in the webinar, then it’s about how you can use assessment to create a learning experience for the learner. And in the – like most of the tests and assessment you see today, it’s more about the testing and it looks backward. But you can also use assessment in a way where it looks forward and it guides the learner to achieve better results. 

Boni Wagner-Stafford 23:00

Right. And I know when we were developing the outline and working on the book together that I came – and maybe many other people or maybe I’m the only one – but I came with a misconception that the assessment label was about finding out what people thought about your course. So it’s not that kind of assessment at all. It’s the assessment of how effective the learning program has been for the learner, yes?

Henrik Mondrup 23:27

More in how it can help to close the learning experience and how it can create a connection to the learner’s workplace and also with the groupwork projects and also comes from assessment in that setting. And I will say more that the – so again about assessment: it’s not about assessing what scores the learners have. Because in my point of view, I don’t care about how great the scores are; I care about how good they are about applying the new knowledge and about the results they achieve on their workplace. So in the Fairstart case – just to go back to that – it could be that some instructors had great scores in some quizzes and the like but they could be very bad at (indiscernible) the children. And I would like it to be the other way around. So it’s very important about the impact and the effect you have on your workplace. To me, that’s the most important thing and using assessment, we can help people to achieve that. And we can also guide them to do even better in the future. It’s called formative assessment.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 24:47

Right. Yeah. Fascinating, fascinating stuff. And really groundbreaking, as we’ve been talking about. And heightened in importance, as we said at the beginning, because all of a sudden the options of gathering people together in a single room or a single place aren’t quite so attractive anymore. And so, organizations around the world still need to make sure that their employees and workers and the people who deliver the services or make the products on their behalf know what they’re doing on the job. We’re closing in on our promised 30 minutes and I wanted to just take a moment and also ask you if you could tell us, since we’ve been working on the book together, you’ve actually launched a new endeavor where you apply the five steps that you were writing about in “Achieving Change”. But can you tell us about the new endeavor that you’ve launched?

Henrik Mondrup 25:52

Yes. Right now it’s only in Denmark but we’re going to scale to all of Europe and probably also US within the next few years. And we are prepared for that. And – but in Danish, right now, it’s an initiative for relatives to mental illness. So through educating people who are relatives to a sick person, we create a difference for them. Among the relatives to mental illness, one out of four, they will become sick themselves because it’s so stressful to be a relative. And with using the Achieving Change method, we have scientific proof that we moved 36 percent out of those people out of the risk of getting sick. So it’s like significant results and it’s possible because, yeah, I used the method I have developed and because it takes starting point in the learner and I look at what should they be able to achieve of results in their daily life rather than are they able to enter this test.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 27:02

Yeah, it’s fascinating and a much needed resource, I would say. And that gets quite a bit of discussion here on the North American side as well, in terms of how people support loved ones who are suffering from mental illness. So, we didn’t talk about this in – as we were preparing how we were going to discuss today – but I wonder if you might think about and leave us with some thoughts about what your vision for the future is of online learning. We kind of talk about that a little bit at the end of the book but, so, you know, we’ve with the book journey – the “Achieving Change” journey – we’ve laid the groundwork on where education has come from and we’ve said, “Here’s a way to make online learning much more effective for the workplace.” Where do you think – and then, here we are in the middle of a pandemic. Where do you think and hope the approach to online learning is going to go in the future? 

Henrik Mondrup 28:07

I would say it also depends on the technology but I hope that it will be more tailor-made to each student and that we can use AI to create the tech bots that can be personal assistants or like, it also depends on the learning goals: if it’s people working with wind turbines or if it’s a relative to mental illness, it’s two different skills they need to learn. But I think that technology will make it more personal: a more personal experience for the learner. And that they will get teaching assistance, so to say: so a person who will guide them, who will be artificial and who will ask them questions – reflective questions; ask about how everything is going and more be like a learning friend. And that said, having knowledge about how the brain works and also how to create the reflective questions is going to be useful. It is now and it’s also going to be that in the future. So I would say to some of the groundwork I have in “Achieving Change” is also going to be needed 20 years from now and 50 years from now.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 29:19

Yeah, I would agree with that. Okay. So thank you very much, Henrik, for joining us and sharing a little bit about your journey and with the new approach to online learning. Repeating for folks who perhaps joined us partway through, “Achieving Change: A practical guide to online” learning – “online courses for workplace learning” is available now. You can order the book wherever you buy your books. There is no distinction. It will – so Amazon, Barnes & Noble, wherever you buy your books. And if it’s not in a physical store, you can walk in and ask for it to be ordered. It’s there on all of the bookstore catalogs. So we have appreciated, taking this time to listen to us and to Henrik and Henrik, I want to say congratulations to you on the publishing of your book. And with that, we’ll sign off.

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