When I was teaching my first IT classes, we mailed out a quarterly brochure offering approximately 10 courses that covered the few software options available at the time. These offerings were all instructor-led. In the early days of IT training, everyone
by Bob Mosher
December 28, 2005
When I was teaching my first IT classes, we mailed out a quarterly brochure offering approximately 10 courses that covered the few software options available at the time. These offerings were all instructor-led. In the early days of IT training, everyone came to listen and be taught by an expert. The outcomes were clear. Most knew little about the technology, so everyone needed the same thing: information.
This perspective summarized training across the board. Someone needed information about something they didn’t know or understand. The training department did the research, knew the answer and was more then happy to step up and fill that need. Overall, the relationship and responsibilities across stakeholders were fairly clear. For many organizations, those days are gone—and some might argue that the approach may have been wrong in the first place.
The advent of alternative learning options such as e-learning, e-reference and others has opened up a fairly complex discussion over what modality meets the need at what time. Many organizations are learning that simply providing options is not enough. Learners need more guidance. For years, adult learning theory has taught that adults are complex beasts, demanding a wide variety of approaches. Now that we have more approaches than ever, we sit at a powerful crossroads and have an amazing opportunity to add guidance and direction.
There seems to be an over-emphasis on learning modalities today, and not enough consideration for the learning drivers. Learning modalities do not generate learning. They are a key element among many that help learners discover and apply the information they need. Slicing content into varying sizes and delivery mediums is necessary, but it’s not enough to generate effective learning. This is strictly a content play, and content without context is weak, at best.
Content always should be designed with the learners’ context in mind. Learning context can come in two forms: the business context in which the learners will apply their new knowledge and the learning context in which the learners need to approach the experience. The business context is getting stronger. We should consider identifying three areas of learning context for our learners: awareness, training and transfer. Each of these can be linked to a learning modality to help employees make better learning choices based on context.
The awareness stage is one of the earliest stages in learning. It occurs during the “what’s in it for me?” phase. Learning tools at this stage tend to be designed to give broad overviews and descriptions of what’s to be expected. Too much detail at this stage can often overwhelm or disengage. Learners are not ready to learn actual steps and procedures. They may not even be considering how to apply this new knowledge. They simply need an overview to help them begin to understand why it’s worth investing their time.
The training phase tends to be highly handson and skills-driven. Learners want to experience the environment and learn the how-tos as well as the conceptual underpinnings of the new environment. These learning tools tend to be highly directive and instructor-centric. A subject-matter expert, either live or electronic, is critical. Traditionally, this is where the classroom has reigned, but other online tutorials and similar tools also can work in this area.
Once a learner enters the transfer level, learning becomes personal and often shifts to a reference-based model. Learners don’t want to wade through pages of text and content that is not relevant to the specific application. Peers and mentors become more important at this stage than the traditional instructor or SME. Content needs to become compartmentalized and specific. It needs to be searchable and delivered in such a way that the learner can decide what level of detail and support they need.
As learning champions, we are good at providing a wide array of learning options to our stakeholders. The frustrating part for many has been that the uptake of these options has not always measured up to the organization’s expectations. Taking a look at learning context might help. Then, we should allow learners to choose their options wisely based not only on their learning outcomes, but also on the learning approach they need at the time.
Bob Mosher is director, learning evangelism and strategy for Microsoft Learning and has been an influential leader in the IT training space for more than 15 years. He can be reached at bmosher@clomedia.com.