Malcolm Gladwell tells the story about how a food industry consultant was put in charge of discovering what kind of spaghetti sauce people like to eat.  When the consultant asked the “experts”, they described runny sauces as the most authentic so the most preferred.  But when they were actually given taste tests, they overwhelming chose “thick and chunky” sauces.  At that time, there were no “thick and chunky” pasta sauces on the market even though that is what people wanted.  The consultant worked with Prego to come out with many of kinds of “thick and chunky” sauces, and no if you go to the supermarket you could find dozens of “thick and chunky” style sauces – the thicker and chunkier the better.  

 

How is this like “Chunky Learning”?   If I ask people what kind of training programs they want, they describe week long programs, and very complex delivery.   But when actually given the choice between getting their training in the “chunky” format (bite size chunks of learning) and week long programs (such as eLearning or half-day programs) some reach for the chunky style.   

 

How do people learn most effectively?  Studies tend to agree that learners need to find ways to apply their learning, and that learning should happen close to the time that it can be applied.  Also, retention rates of learning in a traditional lecture format are practically nil.  Now there are instructors that can make lectures or week long programs very effective, but I postulate that what they are really delivering is “chunky” in that they have broken down the learning into “bite size chunks” :  The learner takes a bite, then there is learner application, then another bite, and so on.  Please allow digestion between bites!