I see a lot of people in L&D talk about pathways and journeys. It’s a useful analogy since it suggests a starting point, end point, and milestones.

Regretfully, it is often represented as a literal path or road. This simplifies the progress into a two dimensional experience. A learning pathway isn’t linear in plan, but in action. It is only on reflection can we see where we come off the path and create our own.

Events, time, environment and culture all shape the path we take which will – in many cases – not be the designed path. I’m not talking about desire paths here by the way; this is about looking up and out, around and over, between and ahead.

Content is two dimensional. Learning is multi dimensional.