Tag: newlearningarchitect

Throughout 2011 we will be publishing extracts from The New Learning Architect. We move on to the first part of chapter 5:
Top-down learning occurs because organisations want their employees to perform effectively and efficiently and because they appreciate that this depends, at least in part, on these employees possessing the appropriate knowledge and skills. Top-down learning is designed to fulfil the employer’s objectives for improved performance, not the employees’.
Top-down learning occurs in all four contexts:
Experiential: Employers can initiate all sorts of programmes to maximise the opportunities for employees to learn directly from their work experience. For example, through a process of job rotation, employees might be moved from one position to another, perhaps from one geographical location to another, in order to obtain a more rounded perspective on the organisation’s activities. Similarly, through job enrichment, employees may be assigned additional responsibilities which expand their opportunities to develop. Other initiatives may attempt to institutionalise the process of reflection upon which experiential learning depends – formal project reviews, benchmarking within and between organisations, action learning programmes and, of course, performance appraisal.
On-demand: Where the nature of the work that employees carry out requires that they have ready access to information at the point of need, there are again many opportunities for top-down interventions. These include the provision of performance support materials, in print form or online, at the desktop or through mobile devices; employers may offer online access to vast catalogues of books, using services such as Books 24×7; they may also make available person-to-person support using help desks and other ways to ‘ask-the-expert’.
Non-formal: Of course nearly all employees will require some training to help them adjust to the organisation and to their new positions, to cope with changes and to prepare for future responsibilities. Proactive, top-down interventions include on-job training, coaching programmes and ‘mini-courses’ in various forms including short workshops, rapid e-learning modules, podcasts or white papers.
Formal: Top-down learning is at its most structured and controlled when it is implemented within the wrapper of a ‘course’, traditionally in the classroom, but nowadays just as likely online or some blend of the two. Formal learning is not necessarily rigid, authoritarian or boring – it will often include games and simulations, drama, outdoor activities and other forms of discovery learning.
Top-down learning is the traditional domain of the l&d professional, acting on authority delegated from senior management, sometimes through the human resources department (most typically when the requirement spans the whole workforce) and sometimes through the line (when the requirement is of a more technical nature). Because it exists to serve the needs of management, top-down learning must by definition be managed in this traditional, hierarchical fashion and cannot be allowed to just happen of its own accord.
To many l&d professionals, top-down learning will be their only concern and the only form of learning that they recognise or even acknowledge. But, as we know, even in the most tightly-controlled organisations, a great deal of learning also occurs on a bottom-up basis, on the initiative of employees themselves, who have their own interests in performing well in their jobs and continuing to be rewarded by their employers accordingly. As we shall see in the following chapter, bottom-up learning is more flexible, more adaptive, requires less support and in the right circumstances is capable of being highly effective. So why should organisations continue to devote resources to top-down learning and take great care to ensure that these resources are applied effectively and efficiently? This question requires some careful consideration and that is where we will start.
Coming next, the second part of chapter 5: Why top-down learning is needed
Return to Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4
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Throughout 2011 we will be publishing extracts from The New Learning Architect. We move on to the eighth and final part of chapter 4:

A multitude of opportunities for increasing learning exists within every context, both from the top down and bottom up. The table above shows just a sample of what is available. Some of these opportunities are certainly not new, but may not have been fully exploited in the past. Others – such as blogging, electronic performance support, online books, mobile learning, using forums and wikis, online search, podcasts and webcasts, social networking and blended learning – have resulted from relatively recent technological developments, and have certainly not yet been used to their full potential.
The model can help l&d professionals to:

• consider all the contexts in which learning can take place at work and the opportunities that exist in each of these contexts;
• assess the relative priorities that should be placed on each of the four contexts for a given population;
• provide the right balance of top-down and bottom-up learning for that population;
• create the conditions in which this strategy can succeed.

This process needs to be informed by a thorough understanding of (1) the role that each context plays in an overall l&d strategy, (2) the conditions necessary for learning to thrive from both the top-down and the bottom up, and (3) the range of opportunities that exists to support learning in each case. Much of the rest of this book is devoted to ensuring that understanding.
In the meantime you may be overwhelmed by the abundance of options at your disposal. There’s no doubt that learning and development was a lot simpler when it consisted either of sitting next to Nellie or attending a class. I remember George Siemens once saying that the more choice we have, the more likely we are to choose the familiar option. If that’s the case we’re all doomed. We have waited a long time for the tools to arrive. Now they’re here, the least we can do is try our best to put them to work.
Coming next, the first part of chapter 5: The scope of top-down learning
Return to Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3
Obtain your copy of The New Learning Architect
 

Throughout 2011 we will be publishing extracts from The New Learning Architect. We move on to the seventh part of chapter 4:
Bottom-up learning is managed by employees themselves. Why? Because it is in their interests to gain whatever knowledge and skills they need to perform effectively. A bottom-up approach is needed to address the 80% of learning that is needed 20% of the time. It most needs to be encouraged in those organisations in which there is constant change and fluidity in tasks and goals.

Bottom-up learning is cheaper, more responsive, less controlling, less patronising and altogether more in tune with the times. But it is also less certain, less measurable and less suited to dependent learners who don’t know what they don’t know.
For bottom-up learning to thrive, employees need the motive, the means and the opportunity (just like the perps in the crime novels). They will only have the motive if they are rewarded for effective performance. They will only have the means if employers help them to develop the metacognitive skills they need to learn independently and provide, where appropriate, the right collaborative software tools. They will only have the opportunity if employers are able to foster a culture which encourages self-initiative and does not penalise mistakes.
L&d professionals could do worse in future than to regard bottom-up learning as the default solution, the one they choose routinely except where it is obviously unsuitable. For too long, employees have been spoon-fed their education and their training, and have failed to develop as independent learners to the extent that perhaps they should have done. Those entering the workforce in 2010 have overcome these barriers and have higher expectations. Provide them with the motive, the means and the opportunities and their capabilities are likely to astound you.
Coming next in chapter 4: The model in action
Return to Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3
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Throughout 2011 we will be publishing extracts from The New Learning Architect. We move on to the sixth part of chapter 4:
As stated previously, top-down learning happens at the employer’s initiative, and does so because organisations need their employees to have the right knowledge and skills if they are to perform effectively. Whatever the attractions of a more bottom-up approach (as we shall see), some learning cannot be left to chance. Why? Because employees need basic competencies and they don’t always know what they don’t know, where to look for answers or who to turn to; because requirements change (new policies, products, plans), and because employees must be developed to fill future gaps.

However, it is unrealistic for all learning to be managed on a top-down basis, particularly in those organisations where change is constant and knowledge requirements hard to predict. As most top-down learning requires the direct intervention of subject experts and l&d professionals, resources are clearly going to be limited, so priorities have to be made. Top-down learning is likely to be most valuable for the 20% of knowledge that is needed 80% of the time, and for learning that is most critical in terms of risk to safety, budget or reputation.
Coming next in chapter 4: The need for bottom-up learning
Return to Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3
Obtain your copy of The New Learning Architect
 

Throughout 2011 we will be publishing extracts from The New Learning Architect. We move on to the fifth part of chapter 4:

The goals of formal and non-formal learning are essentially the same – to equip employees with the fundamental knowledge and skills that they require to meet present and future job responsibilities. The difference is in the approach. The structure inherent in formal education, training and development – the objectives, the curricula, the assessment, the professional facilitation – provides advantages for employers and employees alike:

• Employers can have greater confidence that important content has been covered consistently.
• Employers can more easily track who has had what training and when.
• Employers can have greater confidence that learning objectives have actually been achieved.
• Employees can have greater confidence in the quality of the tuition they are likely to receive.
• Employees are more likely to have access to professionally-designed materials.
• Employees have the opportunity to gain a certification/qualification that will be valuable in their careers.

Coming next in chapter 4: The need for top-down learning
Return to Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3
Obtain your copy of The New Learning Architect

Throughout 2011 we will be publishing extracts from The New Learning Architect. We move on to the fourth part of chapter 4:
More proactive approaches are needed because, however good our performance support environment, there are certain fundamental things we need to know and skills we need to have before we can make any serious attempt to function in our present jobs, or take on new responsibilities. We are, of course, recruited as much as anything, for the skills and knowledge we already possess – for our years of experience with other employers and for our qualifications. But every employer is different in terms of their culture, their particular policies and procedures, and the people that they employ. Even the most qualified new recruit requires some induction.
And jobs don’t remain static – responsibilities change along with new strategies, processes and systems, creating new requirements for knowledge and skill. And looking ahead, organisations and employees themselves have an obvious interest in making preparations for employees to take on greater responsibilities.
In addressing these needs, organisations can, of course, deliver formal interventions, typically packaged up as ‘courses’. However, they can also call upon a wide range of more flexible, non-formal approaches, which allow for continuous learning and development.
Coming next in chapter 4: The need for formal learning
Return to Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3
Obtain your copy of The New Learning Architect
 

Throughout 2011 we will be publishing extracts from The New Learning Architect. We move on to the third part of chapter 4:
On-demand learning is necessary because, in many jobs, it is impossible to know everything there is to know. And even if, through prolonged study and training, you were lucky enough to get to know it all, you’d soon find that most of it had changed. In the knowledge economy, it is more important to know where to look – or who to talk to – than it is to have the knowledge yourself.
According to market intelligence firm IDC, employees are, on average, losing seven hours per week searching, resolving queries and interrupting colleagues for assistance with procedures. The obvious solution, to provide some form of training, is simply not practical when the volume of information required to do your job effectively is too great or the information changes too rapidly. Formal training is arduous, disruptive and expensive and so best reserved for getting across the most critical concepts and principles, and the skills that employees use every day.
Increasingly, a better answer is to encourage learning at the point of need, when it is critical to an immediate challenge and when the employee’s motivation to learn is therefore at its greatest. As Samuel Johnson once said, “Knowledge is of two kinds: we know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it.”
Coming next in chapter 4: The need for non-formal learning
Return to Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3
Obtain your copy of The New Learning Architect

Throughout 2011 we will be publishing extracts from The New Learning Architect. We move on to the second part of chapter 4:
Experiential learning occurs whether we want it to or not, but there are good reasons why we should be supporting and encouraging it:

• Because everyday work experience is rich with opportunities for learning.
• Because we don’t always take the best advantage of these opportunities.
• Because, if something goes well, we want to repeat it.
• Because, if something goes wrong, we want to avoid it happening again.

Without experiential learning, all we are left with is the ‘doing’. We repeat the same actions over and over again, never improving and constantly at risk to every new threat that appears in our environment. Experiential learning is ‘doing’ plus an essential additional ingredient – reflection. Without reflection, we can have many years of experience and learn less than someone who is a relative newcomer but who has learned how to learn.
Coming next in chapter 4: The need for on-demand learning
Return to Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3
Obtain your copy of The New Learning Architect
 

Throughout 2011 we will be publishing extracts from The New Learning Architect. We move on to the first part of chapter 4:
Every context is a learning context, whether we are at work or play. We are born as learning machines and continue to learn until the day we die. We may not always be consciously learning, but learning is taking place whether we are aware of it or not, as we strive to make sense of and adapt to the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

Four contexts

In our working lives there are various contexts in which we can learn:
Experientially: Experiential learning is ‘learning from’ rather than ‘learning to’. It occurs consciously or unconsciously as we reflect upon our successes and failures at work and those of our acquaintances.
On-demand: On-demand learning, as with the others that follow, is a form of ‘learning to’. It occurs because we don’t know how to perform a particular task and need immediate help to acquire the necessary knowledge. On-demand learning can be regarded as synonymous with ‘just-in-time learning’ or ‘learning at the point of need’.
Non-formal: Non-formal learning is ‘learning to’ with a more relaxed timeframe. It occurs whenever we – or our employers – take deliberate steps in preparation for the tasks we will be expected to carry out in the medium to long-term future. This may cynically be referred to as ‘just-in-case’ learning, in contrast to learning that is ‘just-in-time’. Non-formal learning takes many shapes, but stops short of those interventions which are packaged up as formal courses.
Formally: Formal learning occurs through learning events or packages with clearly set-out learning objectives, pre-defined curricula, means for assessment and the award of some qualification or certificate of completion. Unless the course is entirely self-study, there will also be a designated teacher or trainer.

Two perspectives

These categories are useful, but they don’t distinguish between the learning that is planned for and supported by our employer, through the efforts of the l&d department and others (top-down learning), and the learning that we carry out on our own initiative, in work or outside, using resources that we find for ourselves (bottom-up learning). So, experiential, on-demand, non-formal and formal learning can originate in two ways:
Top-down learning occurs because organisations want their employees to perform effectively and efficiently and appreciate that this depends, at least in part, on them possessing the appropriate knowledge and skills. Top-down learning is designed to fulfil the employer’s objectives, not the employees’.
Bottom-up learning occurs because employees also want to perform. The exact motivation may vary, from achieving job security to earning more money, gaining recognition or obtaining personal fulfilment, but the route to all these is performing well on the job, and employees know as well as their employers that this depends – again, at least in part – on them acquiring the appropriate knowledge and skills.
Coming next in chapter 4: The need for experiential learning
Return to Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3
Obtain your copy of The New Learning Architect