e-bites

Reigniting my reflective practice

It’s been a busy couple of years! Lots of hands on doing but not as much stepping back to reflect as i would have liked. So i am reigniting my reflective practice!

I recently took 2 months leave and it gave me such a sense of renewal – i reconnected with  what i enjoy most : learning!

What took me so long to return to my blog? I thought i had nothing of value to share. I wrestled with that for a while and then eventually re-framed it – putting what i am learning at uni into practice (growth mindset, self determination theory, goal setting…i’ll write about this more later!)

So in my quest to get back into it I’ve embarked on 2 learning experiments:

WOL Circle for L&D practitioners: I’ve joined Michelle Ockers’ WOL circle for L&D folks (https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6268550469698887680). My intention behind this is to learn more about WOL, experience it for myself and see where i can take it here at work. I’ll be posting reflections on this soon.

Coaching Ourselves and 702010 Peer Mentoring: I’ve joined an online peer mentoring group run by Phil LeNir from Coaching Ourselves (http://coachingourselves.com/online-peer-mentoring-70-20-10-framework). The aim here is explore how to further embed 702010 at work, experience peer coaching via Facebook Workplace and connect and learn from great L&D folk from around the world!

Here’s to getting right back into it!

ElNet Workplace Congress presentation: The task of developing an e-learning strategy

I am presenting at the ElNet Workplace Congress in Sydney tomorrow – if you can’t make it here’s a sneak peak at my presentation

Or watch the video here

Change is in the air..again!

Time sure does fly when you are getting old ! Lots of change in the air lately – I have jumped off the big financial services juggernaut over into the Higher Education sector and I am loving it!

I am working on a few projects that I will be blogging about shortly..this post is just to kick start my blogging juices again 😉

‘Is social learning informal?’ …what is social learning anyway?!

I just watched this very short video that stated that  ‘Social Learning Is Not By Definition Informal’ – it made me think!

Tammara says a few things in the video, mainly:

1. learning = social
2. social learning = learning between you and another person
3. social learning NOT informal

My question is: what is her interpretation of informal learning?

Because learning to walk is social and also informal..there is no structure or assessment or rules around it. So if learning to walk is social learning then social learning can be informal.

I think what we need to clarify here is what we define as ‘Social learning’ – because Bandura (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_learning_theory) developed his Social Learning theory a long time ago and it is based on learning via observation and role modeling – is this the same Social Learning people are referring to these days?

I have a feeling it is more about social media used for learning. Is this informal..well it can be – depends on how you use it! We all use social networks to some degree and learn informally via these tools..and we can also incorporate social media into formal learning programs.

And what about Connectivism..is this what we really mean when we talk about social learning?

I like what George Siemens has to say in this post http://www.connectivism.ca/?p=317: With connectivism, the emphasis has always been on distribution and connectedness of knowledge and learning. Social networks are one way of “being distributed”. Technological and informational networks are another. While people may have certain social limits to sense making, visualization tools, recommender systems, and similar technologically-mediated models scale beyond what we can do through social networks.

Is social learning informal..it depends on what your interpretation of social learning and informal learning is. It can be, why not?

Learning Cafe..come and join us !

There is change in the air and spring is on it’s way (for my Aussie and southern hemisphere friends!) and there’s a new place to frequent for great, stimulating L&D talk : The Learning Cafe ! http://www.learningcafe.com.au/

The Learning Cafe is an initiative started by a group of L&D professionals in Sydney, Australia to facilitate quality discussions around L&D.

I’m heading home in 2 weeks so i am looking forward to being part of these conversations..and I’ll be blogging too !

Come and join us !

From nothing to something…how we strategically built a regional LMS\e-learning community

One of the tasks i had coming into my role at ING Insurance was to manage the administration of the Learner Management System (LMS). We had a system but no central support or center of excellence to guide the regional L&D teams and ILC admins on how to best manage both the system and their use of e-learning. This was being done in an ad-hoc way.

It was a big task that required us to:

• Employ a regional administrator to act as central point of contact for support and advice
• Carry out an analysis of the region – who was administering the system in each country?, did they use e-learing or blended learning approaches?, what was their level of knowledge in these areas?, did they see the need to connect to others in the region and share best practices and learn from each other?
• Identify the top 3 areas that needed attention (establish a regional support desk for the system, ensure minimum skills and knowledge in the region, build a community of practice)
• Create a strategy to meet top 3 areas mentioned above.

How did we go? here is the strategy document ING CRE eL Strategy 2011

We hired a very good administrator, got the helpdesk up and running and the community of practice was slowly coming together. We now have to hand this over to corporate headquarters – like sending our little child off to school for the first time! There is still a lot of work to be done but we are confident that we have started on the right track!

Too many cooks in the learning kitchen?

So our 100 day action learning challenge is fast approaching crunch time – the teams have been working hard and we can feel the momentum, energy and stress rising steadily! It’s been a great learning experience for everyone involved so far but as with any type of project there have been glitches..namely we’ve had too many cooks in the kitchen these past few weeks.

What does this mean? Well..you know how it goes – you have a wonderful dish bubbling away, you add a bit of spices..not too much because it’s cooking and it needs to do it’s thing. But then wham! the other cooks in the kitchen come and give it a stir..and maybe throw in some extra spices. What does this do? Totally changes the culinary experience – the outcome won’t be the same!

This is similar to what happened recently with our programme. We have 3 teams, all handed the same task and tools. The way in which they reach their goal is totally up to them. We can expect a few things: first of all there is the natural development of the group (Tuckman’s theory of group stages is very evident http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forming-storming-norming-performing) this means that each group may (and prob will) function differently – their processes, speed of development, methods used to make decisions etc will be different – and as facilitators we need to respect this and give them the space to do that.

There is a lot of informal learning going on – which he participants may or may not be aware of (and this is the beauty of a learning project like this one). What happened the other week is that as facilitators we stired the pot – told one team that they were falling behind and not performing the same as the other two teams. Now what does this do? What happens if we expect the teams to all proceed at the same pace and in the same fashion? We are intruding in the natural learning process and ultimately influencing it.

This is not good. If we start telling the teams they have to do X or Y, or that other teams are at Z stage and they should be too then this puts undue pressure on the team and also starts to shape their learning. The environment becomes more regulated, the learners feel watched and the pressure starts to mount. This all has enormous impacts on the learning process. We are now creating a contrived learning environment.

The goal of this programme is two-fold: the achievement of the task (Action) and also the learning (Reflection) – the key is to give the learners enough space and freedom so that the learning happens in the way that it happens – the pot of gold is at the end when we look back and reflect on what actually happened, how and why and what we can take away from it, how we grew and what insights we now have.

So no stirring the pot while it is cooking! I’ll let you know in 2 weeks how it all panned out 🙂

We have to invite Learning to the party?!

Earlier this year i participated in a  ‘100 Day Challenge’ – a GE Workout style experience where management identifies  a key issue or business challenge  and hands the task of solving it to a group of employees closer to the business – the challenge is to come up with a viable solution in 100 days and see it through to implementation.

Now this was an excellent experience for everyone involved – my team came up with a great proposal, the leadership team loved it and it’s currently being implemented. Sounds like a win-win situation right?

Hmmmm..

Fast forward 6 months and i am now involved in another similar 100 Day Challenge – this time on the design side. And it dawned on me that my previous experience lacked something very very important : the actual learning ! It’s not like we didn’t learn anything..we did. It just wasn’t an integral part of the process – it wasn’t an intentional part of the experience.  So that was a huge opportunity missed and a mistake that won’t happen again (at least when i’m on the design side).

So how are we tackling it this time round? Enter the Action-Reflection Learning methodology. It is the perfect fit for a 100 day challenge program. What it does is bring to the forefront the two key processes that are occurring : the actual task/challenge and the learning. It makes both an integral part of the experience – an intentional aspect.

You can read a bit more about Action-Reflection Learning here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_Reflection_Learning

Our program is now underpinned by some solid learning theories. We know the participants are going to learn a lot and we want to make sure that they are aware of what they are learning and can (somewhat easily) transfer this back to the workplace – all the while solving the challenge!

What are the building blocks? A set of learning principles – these guide the learning within the program – when we design we need to make sure that these are included (tacit knowledge, reflection, reinforcement, new mental models, social learning, self awareness and relevance).

Then we have different levels at which learning occurs (personal, professional, team and organizational) – when we design we need to make sure that we look at how to facilitate and maximize the learning at these different levels. What activities do we include, what resources do we make available, what support do the learners need, how do we make reflection a purposeful part of the process at all these levels?

This all ties into a competency framework. We work with internal SMEs, external coaches, a shiny new social network/learning platform and lots of thought into how to embed the learning and ensure transfer.

We still have a few months till D day – it will be interesting to see how it goes – i have a feeling it will be awesome !