Learn

Overview

Before people can effectively apply organisational knowledge they need to first learn the knowledge. The best way to learn knowledge is to apply it. Many organisations spend thousands of dollars on telling people what they need to know and expecting them to retain this knowledge based on one information session. Instead they should be asking how will people learn this knowledge.

 

We should be providing knowledge in a searchable knowledge base that anybody can read at the point in time when they need the knowledge.

 

Then our changes and communications can be focussed on helping people to apply that knowledge to their organisational setting rather than just remembering the knowledge to apply later without any support.

 

This helps people to understand how to use this knowledge and speeds up the time it takes to make changes in an organisation. This saves people in an organisation time and the organisation itself saves money.

 

Below we will discuss the elements needed in a well designed learning experience to support people to learn the right knowledge and support them to apply it in the right way.

Learning Contexts

Context is the most important thing when learning. I read about a study where weightlifters were told the same story as were film students. This story lacked context, so the weightlifter’s felt that the story was about weightlifting and the film students thought the story was about film.

 

I found this fascinating that without context we make up the context ourselves to suit how we are focussed at the time.

 

This can lead to confusion if you are wanting people to learn something in a specific context though and highlights the importance of context in learning design.

Appling learning

A learning experience should allow people to apply knowledge in a context in which they will be doing this in the future.

 

This helps them to see the outcomes of the decisions that they would make in this context, in an environment where they are able to make a mistake without an consequences.

 

This best enables them build their tacit knowledge of what to do and what not to do in the right context. Which is why application of knowledge in the right context is extremely important when it comes to learning.

Varying learning

I think there is a lot of confusion between how people actually learn something.

 

I often hear people say the only way to learn something is to repeat it over and over again. They say that repetition is the key to learning something.

 

I can see why people think this but I would challenge that. Often when we are repeating things over and over, we are varying what we are doing each time and learning more with each repetition. So it is variation of learning not repitition that is the key to learning.

Making mistakes

When we are designing learning experiences and providing scenarios for people to apply their knowledge to common problems in the correct organisational context, we need to have outcomes for them to see as well.

 

Give them a choice to make and show them the outcome of that choice. Instead of telling them they are right or wrong. We should structure the outcome in a way that it is clear whether they are right or wrong.

 

This gives them the opportunity to make a mistake or to at least explore the different outcomes and determine which choices would be a mistake.

Reflecting on learning

Mistakes and reflection go hand in hand. It is reflecting on the outcome of a mistake that helps us to determine what went wrong and how to fix that going forward.

 

If you are designing a learning experience you should build in the ability and time for people to reflect on the learning to strengthen their tacit knowledge.