Being a Full Spectrum Provider

Clark Quinn, writing for TogetherLearn, posted an interesting response to criticism about the informal learning. Quinn’s point was simply that training is changing and a true professional will include elements of informal learning into the spectrum of services provided for clients and organizations. I couldn’t agree more.

In my research people often think that I am advocating the overthrow of classroom learning. I am not. Like Quinn, and others, I don’t think classroom learning will go away but it does need to change both in purpose and in implementation. Quinn talks about the purpose of classroom learning under the guise of formal instruction (which is more comprehensive than simply classroom learning):

there [is] a role for formal instruction (when you’ve new folks, or are moving to a new suite of skills)

he continues…

Most classrooms (live or virtual) focus on knowledge dump, don’t present appropriate practice, don’t assess in meaningful ways, and aren’t leading to the necessary changes in behavior.  Classrooms persist more because they’re efficient, not because they’re effective!

What you should be paying attention to is that expertise is no guarantee of quality.  Learning designed by listening to SMEs often is fact-heavy, and irrelevant. Experts don’t even know how they do things, and rely on the knowledge they’ve learned.

I’ve lived this all my training life, knowledge dumps, and it only sets me to take the materials and learn it on my own using informal techniques. Personally, this suggests the the role of formal instruction is to convey knowledge. In fact, I tell people this all the time…training closes knowledge gaps not performance gaps. I get a chuckle out of people that feel training is the hammer to fix all problems. It is expensive, time consuming, and according to research not meeting expectations or objectives.

When you think about how and what you learn everyday (and I mean really reflect on it) it is done through other means than formal instruction. Today that looks like website, web communities, podcasts, blogs, talking to people, emailing people, IMing people. Oh yes, people still attend the occasional class but that is to learning something new.

Quinn sums up, in a way I feel is spot on:

Yes, formal is part of the full spectrum, the full ecosystem, the full learnscape of solutions.  But the ‘classroom’ shouldn’t be the standard bearer.  We aren’t calling for the death of formal instruction, we’re calling for a) acknowledging and incorporating informal learning, and b) death of the classroom as a ’showup and throwup’ or ’spray and pray’ proposition.

Being a full spectrum provider means that you have a multitude of tools available that match the situation and need (not necessarily want). Think about where you’d rather shop. Do you want to drive all over town to hit the specializations you need or look for the mall or location that has the most things to offer. As a learning professional, I want to be the provider of as many things as possible, not a generalist but  a specialist in many areas. I also want to know about many things and have the connections to bring them in when needed.

For my dissertation this means that I am providing some further evidence to support one area of informal learning and help organizations make a conscious choice about what to use, when, and how.

Image source: tanakawho

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