trends
L&D’s plate tectonics L
Steve Barden identifies eight key trends that are transforming learning
earning and development is changing as it is increasingly called on to address the challenges of today’s VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) environment. Through its work with clients, LINE has identified eight key trends in L&D that indicate
the nature of these changes.
1. The course paradigm is broken Courses are still the primary focus of most learning and development departments, but more and more they sit alongside or are delivered in combination with other elements of less formal and less structured learning. The course is no longer (if it ever was) the only game in town. As a result, L&D has a larger and more diverse toolkit at its disposal, and also addresses a broader agenda. According to the latest CIPD report on learning and talent development it is “gradually becoming less about instruction”. The report predicts a move towards more “interaction and autonomy in learning”.
2. Serving the self-directed learner In a traditional training setup, the training manager’s job would be, put simply, to gather and mobilise learning content centrally so that it could be distributed and transmitted to the learners. Within more mature organisations these days, it is less and less the case that all learning content is transmitted by L&D. That is not to say that learners nowadays are expected to make it all up for
themselves, instructionally speaking. Learning content, even if it is not internally generated, needs to be curated and contextualised. Learners still need support, signposting and structure from L&D, even if they are not being “instructed” quite so much or quite so often. The trend is for the length and depth of learning interventions to be driven more by what the learner needs at any given time and in any particular location. Technology is an enabler in supporting this shift, but it is also a driver. The
general availability of highly personal and portable forms of computing offered by smartphones and tablets creates an opportunity that cannot be ignored. At the same time it is changing learner behaviour and expectations.
3. Just-in-time learning and performance support Just-in-time learning tends to be delivered in nugget form, focused on a particular task or procedure – eg how to close a sale, how to tension a bolt. The learner might access it in the back of a cab on the way to a meeting, or at their desk before delivering an appraisal. Performance support tools, on the other hand, are generally designed to be used within workflow and without interrupting it, and have no instructional design input. There is a spectrum at one end of which lies immersive, reflective learning
that engages with underpinning concepts, knowledge and case studies (somewhat pejoratively called ‘just-in-case’ learning), and at the other end of which we find performance support. L&D might engage nowadays with both ends of the spectrum – and all points in between. Consequently, learning design that looks beyond instruction and the course as the default unit of organisational learning has become critical. To borrow e-learning consultant Clive Shepherd’s phrase, the new learning architect works with all parts of this spectrum.
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4. Competency-based learning In the defence sector in particular, LINE has seen a strong move away from the traditional model, where training needs analysis would generate a set of training objectives, to a more competency-based approach. The emphasis is no longer so much on time spent by the learner in training as on the level of capability achieved against a relevant competency standard – a move from fixed time to fixed mastery. In many sectors, competency frameworks are being used in a similar
way, providing a standard external to any instructional event, which a more ‘architectural’ style of learning design can use to link various different types and modalities of learning into a coherent learner journey. Competencies also provide a standard for assessment, and in some cases linkage to certification and NVQ/SVQ. Adopting a competency-based approach to learning often implies surfacing the competence model as part of L&D’s remit, as opposed to it being wholly owned by HR. Though this can create turf issues within the business, it also has potential advantages for L&D in helping to increase alignment with the business.
5. 70/20/10 and informal learning The six-digit 70/20/10 buzzword has had a huge effect in changing how many people conceptualise L&D, and it remains extremely useful as a way of thinking about what types of learner activity go into the mix alongside the 10% of formal, structured learning interventions. 70/20/10 suggests that L&D no longer has a single way of operating with learning content or one single type of relationship with learners. Rather, L&D will have different modes of operation depending on whether learning is formal or informal, structured or unstructured.
In developing the idea of learning architectures, LINE’s Andrew Joly has
suggested that the learning architect should: l strongly support the 70% l develop and exploit the power of the 20% l design the 10% within the clear context of the other 90%
One would be hard put to point to any organisation which is making significant use of informal learning yet. However, the opportunities for supporting it are hugely increased by enabling the mobile channel, and that is at an early stage. L&D support for informal learning will no doubt grow as more organisations progress in their m-learning journey.
6. Social learning
Another logical result of thinking 70/20/10 is that it becomes possible to envisage types of learning that do not hinge on content at all, or make use of user-generated content, a phenomenon strongly associated with social networking. Harold Jarche, an e-learning consultant, is a strong exponent of the idea that learning is more about connection than content. He says: “The co-creation of organisational knowledge develops from the sharing of our implicit knowledge.” L&D is still be working out how to incorporate these changes into the new
pattern of organisational learning, but there has been a renewed focus on the types of community-based learning that already exist within organisations – communities of practice, for instance. These may have sprung up independently of L&D in the first instance, but there is a growing awareness that they are a part of the learning and development remit and should be supported.
e.learning age october 2013
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