Ideas from the front line of learning, explained by the experts
1 Collaborative learning
“Social learning is about supporting communities to come together, work together and collaborate”
Jane Hart, Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies
Thanks to advances in technology, many everyday work tasks are off our plates for good, rendered obsolete by automation. The work that remains is generally more complex, often requiring expertise built up over years of experience. Co-operation, says Canadian learning guru Harold Jarche, is the way we unlock such knowledge: conversations and social relationships become ever more important, with the role of management increasingly being to nurture and sustain social learning networks.
“The old way was ‘This is my problem. I’ll book myself on a course.’ Through social learning, there’s a network you can call on and get that knowledge very quickly,” says Joe Ellis, principal consultant at learning and development company OnTrack International.
Unfortunately, in the rush to move learning online and save money on training, the social aspect of learning has taken a back seat, says Jarche’s collaborator Jane Hart, founder of the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies. “Social learning is about getting that back. It’s not just about social media but sharing stuff, supporting communities to come together.”
In practice, this is a shift in mindset for learning professionals, ushering in a less formal role as a curator, rather than “course co-ordinator”. Successful social learning can be as simple as hosting an online discussion forum for a group that has been on the same classroom course, or allowing subject matter experts to post videos and suggest relevant research papers for peers to consider. Hart calls this “working out loud”. “Talk about what you’re doing, whether via a blog or an enterprise social network,” she advises.
Ray Pendleton, CEO of Thirsty Horses, an OD specialist, says using the “power of the crowd” to learn can increase impact. He gives the example of nurses who attend a course in an NHS trust.
“The course leader could set up an online community of practice for everyone who has been on the course. One of the nurses may try out the learning on the ward, and share her experiences with that group. They could replicate what she’s done in their own role, or ask her to be a ‘buddy’ or shadow them while they try something out. It’s applying a social networking philosophy to work.”
Ruth Stuart, learning and development adviser at the CIPD, says even ‘old tech’ such as a webinar or PowerPoint presentation can be made more social. “It’s simply a case of approaching it in a different way, making it more interactive.”
2 Course-free learning
“My role is about helping people to help each other. We’re not the oracle at the centre any more”
Andrew Jacobs, London Borough of Lambeth
Faced with a 50 per cent budget cut, the learning and development team at Lambeth Borough Council simply wasn’t able to support learners in the same way it had done in the past. “We had to start doing things differently,” says Andrew Jacobs, the council’s learning and development manager.
Its solution? Where possible, Lambeth would do away with formal, scheduled courses unless there was no other way of acquiring that knowledge. “It wasn’t a case of stopping all L&D courses, or taking away courses so staff had to find their own ways of learning. It was more a question of looking at other ways they could learn without having to go on a course,” says Jacobs.
Today, the L&D department acts as a facilitator of learning activities, pointing staff to relevant resources (for example, in the council’s vast network of libraries), making use of low-cost or free approaches. These include collaborative learning, such as hosting web chats so common interest groups can share knowledge, or using comic strips (rather than role plays) to tell stories about how staff might behave in certain situations.
Subject matter experts supply their own content and curate lists of resources, and employees can self-nominate as experts so their peers can search for their expertise in the council’s virtual learning environment.
Faced with such budgetary pressure, moving away from expensive, formal courses to a more unstructured approach is certainly a tactic to consider, but might not suit every organisation, says Andy Lancaster, head of learning and development at the CIPD.
And the prospect of doing away with a course handbook will be downright scary for many practitioners, as Jacobs acknowledges. “When I talk to other L&D professionals about what I’ve done here, a few of them say ‘I love that; what can I take from that?’ But they tend to be in the minority.”
He adds: “My day-to-day role has changed quite substantially. It’s now much more about helping people to help each other. We’re not the oracle at the centre any more.”
3 ‘Just in time’ knowledge
“If you wanted to know how to do something outside work, you wouldn’t go on a five-day course and then do the job in six months’ time”
Ruth Stuart, CIPD
“If you wanted to know how to do something outside work, say a DIY job, you wouldn’t go on a five-day course then do the job in six months’ time,” says the CIPD’s Ruth Stuart. “You’d Google it and watch a video on YouTube, and do it right there and then.”
Many of the ways we access knowledge and information outside our jobs now permeate the way we learn at work, and learning professionals increasingly realise that offering staff knowledge “just in time” (at the point of need) can be a valuable support.
With smartphones and tablets becoming almost ubiquitous, the environment is ideally suited for pieces of e-learning (which could be small “bites” of audio, video or even a game) that staff tap into whenever it suits them. “Sometimes organisations need to get something out there quickly at low cost, and e-learning makes this possible,” says Lancaster.
At motor dealership CarShop, for example, HR manager Natalie Hersey has introduced 24 online video courses to help staff develop and broaden their skills. Because of the sales-driven nature of the company, managers don’t always have the time to attend formal courses, so the approach allows them to access training videos at their own pace, or when they need something specific.
“Around month-end it gets really busy, so staff can spend 10 minutes on their phone or iPad, perhaps over lunch, to get a quick refresher on something without having to book themselves on a scheduled classroom programme,” she says. The courses are tied into individual job roles and cover topics from customer service to health and safety.
One of the ways this approach can be successful is in performance support – a car mechanic requiring information while out on call, for example. Marks & Spencer has used e-learning in this way in its cafes, where staff can access short modules on issues such as managing queue lengths. At Dixons Retail, the company has a YouTube-style learning channel so staff can look up specific product knowledge in a few clicks.
But online learning is always different. “Don’t just expect someone to access learning in a certain way,” says Martin Addison, CEO of Video Arts, which produces e-learning content. “Your role is to facilitate and make sure the resources are there when needed.”
4 Open-source learning
“Open source used to be the poor cousin… now it’s more viable than ever“
Ben Betts, learning technology entrepreneur
Once associated with geeks messing around with code, the open source movement is gaining in reputation; the White House website runs on an open-source content management system called Drupal, for example.
Broadly speaking, open source refers to software that's free to download, and can be adapted and shared by its users without requiring a licence. It often offers a “community” feel, as well as significantly lowering costs. In L&D, says Ben Betts, a learning technology entrepreneur, “open source is now more viable than ever – it used to be the poor cousin, but the shift has been helped by adoption of Moodle [an open-source e-learning platform].”
Learning management systems – which document and facilitate multi-platform learning – are increasingly likely to be open source. In theory, it is possible to download the source code for free and tailor the system to your requirements. However, most L&D departments do not have that level of technical expertise or time, so they partner with developers who can customise or host their system (or both).
Barry Sampson, an organisational learning consultant, says: “Having no licensing cost makes a huge difference to the ongoing cost of the systems, but you still have to maintain, host and customise them.” While the set-up costs for an open-source LMS might end up higher than a commercial system in the first year, this tends to be a one-off cost.
One area where open source could gain further traction in L&D is in recording learners’ achievements. This spring sees the launch of Learning Locker, a data repository to store learning activity statements, based on an application interface known as Tin Can, or xAPI.
While most commercial software will record courses attended or e-learning accessed from a particular system, Learning Locker separates the recording from the delivery mechanism, so learners could add an e-book from Amazon or even take their data to another employer.
In future, open source may also make it easier for L&D professionals to share their own content. In January, Kineo (run by City & Guilds), announced the launch of its Adapt open-source e-learning framework, which enables L&D teams to design content that will work across multiple devices without having to create different versions.
5 Immersive learning
“Google Glass frees up your hands, which enables you to offer better performance support”
David Kelly, training and development consultant
Imagine being able to run a course where the leader could interact with learners from 20 countries at the same time, or offer a one-to-one mentoring session without having to fly in a professional coach and cover their hotel and travel costs. According to Phil Bailey, chairman of OnTrack International, the technology behind holographic virtual learning – where learners interact with a lifelike image refracted onto a screen – could become mainstream in just a few years.
Businesses such as drinks giant Diageo already use the technology, developed by a company called Musion, to deliver corporate presentations. It has even brought performers such as Frank Sinatra “back to life” in concert venues.
“People learn and remember things better when there’s a bigger impact,” says Bailey. “You could access a live session with a trainer, or a holograph of the trainer asynchronously by downloading it, and you’ve got personalised support.”
If it seems too far-fetched, advances in video technology can enhance engagement with learning. It’s possible to use green screen technology, where an employee can stand in front of the screen and “interact” with a virtual actor – perfect for rehearsing sales situations.
“One of the barriers to doing this before was bandwidth, but it’s getting cheaper,” says Charles Gould, CEO of e-learning company Brightwave. “You could give someone a sales problem, see how they respond to the ‘customer’ and give them immediate feedback,” he adds.
And don’t forget Google Glass, the “wearable” technology that’s currently undergoing trials by hundreds of Glass Explorers and is likely to be launched to the public by the end of this year.
Training and development consultant David Kelly is one of those explorers and believes Glass will offer the greatest value in learning situations such as medical training. “The most important thing is that it frees up your hands,” he says.
A surgeon could wear Glass as students watch (live or via a webcam), narrating the work as it happened. The audience sees exactly what the surgeon sees. “Before, there might be a camera above the operating table, but that doesn’t show nuances such as when the surgeon looks at the monitors or a nurse,” Kelly says.
With the price per unit likely to be less than that of an iPad when it is released widely, seeing the world through new eyes could be closer than we think.
It’s all about the dopamine
What neuroscience can teach us about workplace reward
If you’ve ever downloaded one of the many fitness apps available which record steps taken, calories eaten, and in some cases even how well you sleep, you’ll be familiar with the relationship between behaviour and reward. Every alert that tells us we’ve run further, or done more steps, lights up an emotional response in our brains, acting as a reward to spur us on to greater things.
Neuroscientists believe that what we know about the link between the brain and reward can be applied in the sphere of learning at work. According to a study by the University of Bristol, a preference for “uncertain reward” can increase our emotional response to learning and help us to remember things better. But simply offering a financial reward for good recall or having completed a piece of learning won’t provide the same effect.
According to Beau Lotto, a reader in neuroscience at University College London, organisations where learning is most effective “create the most uncertainty”, and one of the best ways to do that is through making learning more like a game. “Play is the only human endeavour where uncertainty is a good thing,” he says. If you decide to hold a team quiz during a learning session, for example, it’s not the extrinsic reward of a free round of drinks at the bar afterwards, but the intrinsic reward of the game itself, that helps to embed knowledge.
The CIPD’s latest report on neuroscience and learning, by John McGurk and professor Paul Howard-Jones, reader in neuroscience and education at the University of Bristol, echoes this point. From Steady State to Ready State cites further research from Bristol that found an estimate of dopamine levels (rather than the number of points at stake in a game) predicted whether newly learned information was likely to be recalled.
And while there is a growing buzz around “gamification” and learning – it’s not always about games per se. Taking elements of games (challenges, leaderboards, badges, teams) into a learning environment can make a difference. “Emotional engagement increases depth and breadth of learning,” says Nigel Paine, a learning consultant and author. “If you ‘gamify’ learning it’s not one boring, endless process. It’s up and down, it’s more exciting and challenging.”
Ben Betts, a learning technology entrepreneur and researcher for the University of Warwick, says small, intermittent rewards can fuel motivation among learners. “Often the learning journey is long-term; working towards a masters or a professional qualification, say. But that can be so intangible as to be meaningless. Organisations need to think about little rewards along the way that are more tangible and give instant reward.”
Reward can come in the form of recognition, league tables, or a progress bar on the intranet to show how far someone has come in terms of their learning goals.