Learning Reimagined: Dr. Jeff Bergin's Insights on Education and Workforce Development

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Living the Dream Podcast with Curve Ball. If you believe you can achieve. Welcome to the Live in the Dream with Curve Ball Podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate, and inspire. Today's guest is Dr. Jeffrey Bergen. He is a leader that works at the intersection of learning science, workforce development, and artificial intelligence. Dr. Bergen is the chief learning officer at General Assembly, and he focuses on helping people around the world gain the necessary skills that they have in an evolving economy. Dr. Bergen is the author of the book, It's Already Smarter, and he focuses on helping people learn more effectively and unlocking their potential. So we're going to be talking to Dr. Bergen about General Assembly and everything that he's up to and gonna be up to. So, Dr. Bergen, thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Thanks so much for having me. Thrilled to be here today.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Uh sounds good. I have uh my entire career has focused on learning and education. And uh the great irony in that is that I never felt like a strong learner uh growing up and felt, in fact, I would describe myself as a reluctant or anxious learner, and uh ended up kind of devoting my career to it. Um, began working uh very early in my career uh with learners who were struggling with mental health issues and behavioral health issues, then moved into working with community college and uh and college students, and then moved into uh doing some corporate work where I was leading uh program design and delivery for uh higher ed institutions and workforce development institutions. And then right at the beginning of the pandemic, I thought, oh, we're going into lockdown. This will be a great moment to uh write a book, and naively thinking that I could do it super quickly, um kind of compiling some strategies around learning. And uh it was finally complete uh just last fall it came out, and so I'm glad to be uh to be finished with that project.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Well, I know you've spent over two decades in education and workforce development. So talk about what has changed about how people learn today.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

I think you know, a couple things have changed that are top of mind for me. One is um the one that's most important to me is that people are now more aware that you know, training yourself to be a better learner and and using learning strategies is a part of an important part, a foundational part of the learning process. And, you know, it was something that when I grew up was invisible. And it, you know, often the belief was, you know, you either had a skill or you had a talent or you didn't. Uh, you may be able to learn certain things, but not others. And the uh emphasis was not on how do I go about becoming a better learner or how do I improve or optimize my learning. It was really around finding the thing that you thought you could learn. And uh that meant uh limiting yourself in a bunch of other areas, uh, things that you thought you weren't good at, that you couldn't learn, that you weren't supposed to learn or weren't meant to learn. And I I'm happy to say that I think that that those attitudes are shifting. And uh the focus now is on how do I go about the process of learning? And if there's something challenging I want to learn, or something daunting, or something that I feel uh insecure and nervous about learning, that I'm capable of it, but I need to uh I'll improve my odds, so to speak, if I uh if I leverage the right strategies. So that's one of the big things that's changed. Obviously, one of the other big things that's you know uh top of mind for many people right now is uh how AI can enable learning and and how it can open up um information for us, practice strategies, um, resources, and um help us to kind of speed up the learning process in in different ways.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Well, as AI reshapes industries, what are some of the biggest misconceptions people have about learning in the age of AI?

SPEAKER_00 4:45

Um, I mean, one of the big misconceptions that I that I find is that AI is, it's a simple one, that AI is always correct. And, you know, I think we find many cases where uh there are you know AI hallucinations, AI mistakes, AI um accessing um limited information, and it's certainly gotten better, um, but it still is a ways to go in terms of accuracy. So it's important to be doing cross-tray, cross-referencing, fact-checking, those sorts of things, and to know what to ask and how to use it. Um another misconception is that we don't actually need learning strategies, that we can just purely lean on AI, uh, at least when it comes to acquiring knowledge or acquiring information, and that we don't need the strategies. I would argue quite the opposite. We still need the learning strategies, but we can use AI to help us to facilitate and to build and to create those learning strategies.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

Well, that General Assembly. Uh, talk about General Assembly and uh also your leading AI integrated training. So talk about what that looks like in practice.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Yeah, that's uh so AI uh General Assembly provides a whole host of AI training and AI uh implementation experiences. Many of them are related to technology careers and technology fields. So, for example, um, how do you become an AI-enabled product manager? How do you become an AI-enabled engineer? How do you become an AI-enabled user researcher, uh, et cetera? And others are a little bit more broad than that yet. How do I um think about AI if I'm in a leadership role in an organization? How do I think about AI if I'm doing some organizational redesign or if I'm in uh an HR or finance role? How might I go about thinking about AI? What one of the things that we've learned, the more customers and the more clients that we speak to, is that because of the rapid rise of AI and the proliferation of AI solutions and tools, there's a lot of different use of those tools in industry and in organizations. And a lot of it is experimental. And it's not necessarily improving workflows, it's not necessarily improving uh the quality or satisfaction uh of the workforce, the feeling that, oh, this is actually making my job easier or more enjoyable or more satisfying. It just becomes uh a sort of pet project for different individuals. And so we're spending time helping teams really think about okay, what are the best ways to use AI in specific workflows, teaming environments, functions, and how can those choices be enabled and adopted strategically so that organizations are being really thoughtful about not only which tools they're using, how that those tools are affecting teams, um, and also what the ethics are that they need to consider, what the governance strategies are that they need to be considering, and then what's the impact on things, very practical things like their tech stack, or uh the way that they go about ensuring um compliance and safety and security. So all of those sorts of things uh we do and more. And uh General Assembly operates uh worldwide and has campuses in different um countries and then works with a whole host of different um enterprise clients.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

We'll talk to the listeners about your book, Already Smarter. You know, tell them why you decided to write it, what they can expect when they read it, and where they can get it.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Yeah, thank you. It's uh the the purpose behind Already Smarter uh that I was inspired by was there are many, many, many books about learning that exist. And many of those books seem to be written for people who are already strong learners or at least strong readers. They tend to be pretty academic, they tend to be dense, um, they tend to go deep in certain areas and omit a whole bunch of other areas that are also really important to uh to learning, um, like sleep and exercise and nutrition and uh the beliefs that we hold about learning. And they're not always actionable, they're not always books that you can easily apply and put into practice. And even if they are, they may not be principles or practices that are appealing to individual learners or that are or uh are that are appropriate for a learning context. So what I wanted to do, what I was inspired to do, is think, okay, what if we could distill down all of the things that have shown to work, all of the things that are evidence-based and that there's research indicating, hey, this is actually a principle or a practice that works. Distill it down into simple actionable language so you could um very easily absorb those things that were appealing to you and uh develop your own set of uh principles, practices, and study strategies that appeal to you and that work for you, knowing that no two uh learners are the same, knowing that no two learning contexts are the same, and that you could sort of mix and match and pick the things that are gonna be most appealing to you. So that was the intention is to have something that was really readily available to uh anyone, regardless of what they were learning, regardless of how they were gonna go about learning it, regardless of what their learning goal was, and that it would be um kind of a an easy reference or handbook that they could use and pass on and also revisit over time. So that's the intention. It's available um on Amazon and Barnes Noble. And uh it is something that I'd love feedback on as well. So if anyone does uh pick it up, please don't hesitate to reach out to me or to leave a comment uh with your feedback on it. Would love to continue to improve it as we go forward.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Well, what is one simple strategy you feel people can implement right now to start learning better?

SPEAKER_00 11:21

The place that I start is a strategy that I think is important for everyone to start with. And it's something that I think can help any and every learner, regardless of what they're learning, and that is to start by thinking about the things that might be limiting you. And to have like an honest appraisal are of those things that may be concerning you, worrying you, um, maybe giving you pause about the thing that you're about to undertake and learn. You know, we go into learning for a variety of different reasons. Sometimes it's out of necessity with something that's been required of us to learn. Sometimes it's out of aspiration with something we would like to achieve or do uh in our lives, maybe a big dream or a career shift or a huge goal. Um, it may be something that's, you know, a required part of a degree program or a job or something that just comes up in the course of life, you know, when you find you have to do something that you didn't expect to have to do that day. And in any of those cases, the thing that can get in our way is the fears and beliefs that we have about our own abilities and about um the difficulty of something and whether we can or can't do that thing. Uh, and that can really slow us down. It can cause us to procrastinate, it can cause us to have, you know, negative chatter in our minds and brains as we uh undertake learning. And that can be very uh counterproductive to the entire process. And so I think you know, being able to name those things and think about the challenges, the obstacles, the limitations that we perceive ourselves to have, and just be aware how can I how can I avoid those or how can I resolve them? How can I sidestep them? Um and what do I need to be able to do to be successful? Is it good practice for everyone to have, um, especially if the thing that that we're learning is challenging or is difficult or potentially dreaded. So I'd say start there. Uh that can't that uh that that can only do you some good to have those things top of mind um, you know, before you go forward.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

Well, you were you work with both individuals and organizations. So talk about what separates those who thrive from those who struggle.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

I think um when you talk about individuals and you know separating those who strive from those who struggle, I think part of it is what I just described. You know, I think the those of us who are able to um squarely address the fears that we may hold and find a way through those fears um are more likely to carry on and get a little bit further in our learning, in our learning journey. Um I also think that those folks who are able to be really intentional about their learning and to incorporate learning strategies in and think about things like neuroplasticity and the fact that their brain is evolving and changing, changing as they're learning, and think about memory strategies and focusing techniques and uh also the bigger picture things. Are they getting enough sleep? Are they you know fueling their learning uh the right way? Uh people who use all of those strategies and some of those strategies uh are more likely to be successful. The folks who I've found struggle are the ones who don't suspend some of the limiting or address some of the limiting of beliefs that they may have. And they tend to be the people who take a little bit more of a haphazard approach to learning. They're not quite as thoughtful about okay, how am I going to plan my learning? How am I going to support my learning? What am I going to do when I hit the hard points? And how can I use those to help me improve my performance or to reach out for help or to get support or to get an accommodation or to um change course in some way. And they're the ones who tend to, you know, that we may not see persist or that we may not see have quite as rapid of performance. So I think on the individual level, um, those are the those are the two big differences, you know, addressing those those doubts and then employing the right strategies for that situation. Uh organizationally, I think the that organizations that go into learning programs with a really solid appraisal of the skills that they're looking to sharpen or um or or uh fill you know that maybe skill gaps in their organization, and with a really intentional and solid program design for uh resolving those skills and for doing that upskilling, are the ones who put themselves at risk if they don't have the that appraisal and that um that intentionality. And when it comes to program design, I think one of the things that's missing often is the human element. And what I mean by that is really making sure that we're supporting learners emotionally and and cognitively at every step in the process and giving them opportunities to get help, to get feedback, to get coaching and support, to get mentorship, uh, to get their questions answered, to be able to work closely with peers and cohorts that we're designing programs that are robust and that have uh human-centered uh design to them that really includes uh a lot of support along the way to help move people from, you know, kind of point A to point B.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

Well, what are the most important durable skills that people should be focused on right now?

SPEAKER_00 18:36

I mean, obviously, I'm gonna say uh learning is in my mind the most important durable skill. Um, and it's it's an a skill that is an enabler. It unlocks all of the other skills. You know, we hear about um durable skills that are really valuable in certain work contexts. And based on your job, it could be your communication style, it could be your ability to um balance stakeholder requirements, it could be how you frame a problem and go about solving that problem, it could be how you conduct, synthesize, and present research and insights. I mean, there's these are all valuable, durable skills, but the one that sort of sits beneath those skills that is often considered invisible is the ability to adapt and to change. And that's all rooted in learning. You know, every time we think about how we adapt to the evolving workplace, how we gain new skills, um, and in the, in many cases, new AI skills or new technical skills or new collaboration skills, all of that is rooted in learning. And I think we do ourselves a huge disservice by not really uh enabling people to become better learners and therefore more adaptable in the workplace. And it's changing so quickly now that um it ends up, you know, we may just have people drop off, so to speak, who don't have that kind of learning agility or uh that those learning skills. So I would say the most the most important durable skill to me is the ability to quickly switch contexts, to quickly adapt to change, and to do that by using really strong learning strategies and a learning mindset, a growth mindset that tells you, yeah, I can do this. I am capable of making these changes, and in fact, I may enjoy life having made these changes.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

Look at hey and talk about how you see education and workforce training evolving in the next five to ten years.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

I think uh that uh education and workplace training are going to be evolving in in a few ways. One is simply the prioritization of human training is gonna be reaching a much higher point. I mean, I think that there is there is recognition of what we've been saying for you know the past 20 years, which is that um folks are gonna need to be able to reskill and upskill much more frequently and uh gain, you know, gain new skills uh and new technical skills much more readily. And so I think that focus on learning is gonna become deeply interwoven in the workplace and even in day-to-day life at work in in real time. You know, it's not gonna be, oh, I need to go to college, get a four-year degree, and then go off and get a job and periodically maybe add another degree, or periodically add a certification or a certificate or some isolated training. It's gonna become just in-time training in real time, integrated with work all the time. And that's where we're headed. It's gonna be served up using AI, and part of it's gonna be directly in AI uh enabled environments, part of it's gonna be through deep integrations with uh AI learning tools. But in either case, it's going to be happening in real time. And I'd like to think it's gonna be happening in a much more collaborative, realistic way than learning has happened before. I mean, you know, previously you kind of learn in almost like a case study way. You know, you go off, you do the learning, it's disconnected from the work that you're actually doing and the context for which you're doing it. And then you have the whole process of transferring that learning to that new environment, uh, which may or may not fit nice and neatly. But when work, when learning is deeply integrated with work, you have the opportunity to use the workplace as the actual case study, as the um practice area or sandbox. And uh it is immediately applicable. And therefore, it's also immediately rewarding. It's more engaging because it's you know, quote unquote, real. And uh and it's happening in real time. And I think there's got to be more um support and incentivization for learning that actually happens in that context. But that's the way I see it shifting in a much tighter. Tighter integration between what people are learning in unique and traditional educational environments outside of the workplace, where it's not quite that separation that we have seen where it used to be, hey, I'm going to get a degree and I'm going to get that degree in something, and then I'm going to go get a job in something totally different. I mean, obviously that has been shifting quite rapidly toward, you know, uh agreements and data transfers that enable people to be directly applying uh their education to the workplace. So I think we'll see a lot more of that going forward as well.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

Tell us about any upcoming projects that you're working on that listeners need to be aware of.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

Um I am working on I'm contemplating some, you know, a sort of second edition of the book. Um it is not totally clear to me yet uh the direction that it's gonna take, but I am thinking about how to how to focus the book a little bit more on um using the strategies and and heightening the strategies in the book using AI. So a little bit more of AI enablement um in terms of those strategies. So that could be coming out if I actually get down to it. Uh again, I'm not quite there yet, but that's what I'm that's what I'm contemplating. So that's one thing. And then I also uh am working on uh ways that I can better support learners through uh different types of programming and coaching. So those are two areas.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

Well, so people can keep up with everything that you're up to, they'll add your contact info.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

Uh the best way to contact me or to follow along is uh looking for me on LinkedIn. And uh it's Jeffrey Bergen uh on LinkedIn. B-E-R-G-I-N.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

We'll close this out with some final thoughts. Maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on, or any final thoughts you have for the listeners?

SPEAKER_00 25:24

Um, I think my final thought would be um, you know, while the book that I've produced provides a lot of learning strategies, and there's over a hundred, over 125 distinct and unique research-based strategies, um, the big takeaway from the book is that anyone can learn, and we all learn a little bit differently, we all approach things a little bit differently. Uh, but just if readers are able to walk away with a sense of agency, a sense of empowerment, and a sense that they can tackle something that uh they have not been maybe been willing or able to tackle quite yet, uh, then the book has done its job and I've done my job. And I hope that it helps all of us identify our learners within and become better learners and therefore achieve the goals and the dreams that we have uh in all of our lives.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

All right, ladies and gentlemen. So for those of you who who are on LinkedIn, please check out Jeffrey Bergen and check out his book and keep up with everything that he's up to and get that new book when it comes out. And also follow rate review and share this episode to as many people as possible. Also, to keep up with all things living the dream, please visit www.curveball337.com and share the website and the show to everybody that you know. Drop by on the site, leave us a review and any comments or questions you might have or suggestions for the show. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. And Dr. Bergen, thank you for all that you do, and thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here today.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, visit www.curveball337.com. Until next time, keep living the dream.