NicheCon 2024: Key Points and Takeaways

Submitted by Olivia Kolosna

I had the opportunity to attend the NicheCon 2024 Virtual Conference to learn more about learning and development trends in libraries, and I wanted to share what I learned with anyone who may be interested.

The theme of the conference was “Dive Into Learning,” and we opened with keynote speaker Julie Dirksen, a learning strategy consultant and author of Talk to the Elephant: Design Learning for Behavior Change. Julie used the analogy of an elephant and a rider to describe our decision-making process. The elephant is emotional and prefers what is familiar, easy, and offers a short-term reward. The rider is logical, considers future consequences, and is open to learning new behaviors. Variables that influence which decision-making process we listen to depend on four reward factors: size, availability, tangibility, and likeness. The bigger, more immediate, more tangible, and more likely the reward, the more probable it is that we will complete the desired behavior. Rewards can be intrinsic, such as feeling accomplished and productive, or external, such as a positive performance review. Rewards can also become devalued as they are pushed further into the future, a concept called hyperbolic discounting. Julie concluded that to encourage learning and development, it is important to understand what motivates learners to offer the support needed to see consistent change. 

Jeremy Tuttle led a breakout session on the importance of creating learning objectives to help learners know what to expect and give trainers a pathway to follow. He explained that learning objectives need to be observable and speak directly to the learner. Learning objectives should also follow a consistent sentence structure, such as:

        By the end of this tutorial, you will be able to…

        A student in this class will explain…

        Learners will demonstrate… 

Jeremy also discussed Bloom’s Taxonomy, which follows the learning pathway: Remembering → Understanding → Applying → Analyzing → Evaluating → Creating. This taxonomy is not a strict staircase, and learners can go out of order, for example, applying without understanding. Sometimes understanding may be all that is needed for a task. Jeremy also advised the use of surveys, polls, and knowledge checks to assess learning progress. 

Jared Oates gave a presentation on marketing Niche Academy, many points of which can be related to marketing library services to patrons. Jared explained that we should see each customer on their own hero’s journey, where the customer is the hero on a quest for a service and library staff are the guides that show them the way. To do this, we must assess a customer’s barriers to learning and find what resources best fit their individual needs.

Ken Bonney presented on prioritization and time management in training. He explained that learners typically fall into three categories: prisoners, vacationers, and true learners. The goal of any training is to turn everyone into a true learner and ensure no one feels like a prisoner. Ken defined 4 categories of importance and urgency that make up our work tasks:

        1- Important and Urgent

        2- Not Important and Urgent

        3- Important and Not Urgent

        4- Not Important and Not Urgent

Tasks can easily shift in their importance and urgency. Learning, though important, is not often seen as an urgent task, and learning will not be optimally experienced when too many important and urgent tasks need to be completed. We need to dedicate time to all four categories to maintain a healthy work balance.

It was great to be a part of this conference and hear from so many other library trainers in the chat. Niche Academy definitely puts a lot of effort into their learning resources and have many wonderful webinars available for our staff to watch asynchronously. 

If you do not already have access to a Niche Academy learning account, just email me at kolosnao@forsythpl.org, and I’ll help you set one up!