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Problem of Training Transfer

A new inventory system was installed in a typical manufacturing company. Employees in the Purchasing Department were sent off to learn how to use the new software. One month later, the Purchasing Manager finds that only two out of the twelve Purchasing Officers are using the new system. The expected cost savings have not materialized and the Purchasing Manager resolves to take issue with the Training Manager at the next weekly meeting.

Does this sound familiar? Experts estimate that somewhat less that twenty percent of training investments lead to some organizational benefit. This anomaly is commonly referred to as the “problem of training transfer”. Why is it that such a small proportion of training ends up being used back in the workplace? With increasing marketplace competition, leaner resources and a greater focus on tangible outcomes, more and more managers are asking this question.

How can you increase the transfer of training in your organization? For any given training program, you will need to look into three areas:

What can you do to enhance the positive impact of each of these factors? Looking at the first factor, training participant attributes may be influenced when introducing new employees to your organization through an effective recruitment, selection and induction process. Attributes can also be influenced before training begins through pre-qualifying nominees during the registration process.

The second factor, training design and delivery, can be made more effective through ensuring that the training program objectives are clearly focused on your organization’s priorities and goals. Tied in with this, participants’ learning outcomes must be stated in terms of behavior required in the workplace and measurable performance standards.

Along with effective design, in order to maximize training transfer to the workplace ensure that the training is delivered in accordance with what we know about how adults learn best. However, it is the third area mentioned above, the employee’s workplace environment, that is the most significant, yet most neglected, factor influencing the extent of training transfer. What happens before employees attend the training event and what happens after they return to work are the most important variables determining workplace performance following training.

The PRACTICE Approach

The various attitudes and activities required by supervisors, managers and trainers for maximum transfer can be consolidated into an easy to remember and use model. I call this method the PRACTICE Approach ©. By focusing on each of the eight key elements, organizations can be confident of maximizing their training investments. These eight key elements of the PRACTICE Approach © to improving the transfer of training are summarized here. I have included examples of specific activities that can be undertaken to satisfy each element.

Procedures say how to perform and why

Roles & Responsibilities say what level of performance is required

Aids on the job extend the training room into the workplace

Coaching overcomes individual barriers to skill application

Targets and measurement proves people are performing

Incentives give a personal reason to perform

Communication informs and involves all stakeholders

Engagement motivates participants to apply skills

After you complete the training program, you will want to determine the extent of training transfer. Observe participants in the workplace or survey participants and their managers to find out how much they are using their newly learned skills on the job. Feedback the results to managers and use the learnings to improve your program further. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Vicki_Heath

Classroom Instruction: It is the cornerstone of all business training and development – it is very effective and conducive to almost any topic. By allowing learners, or “human capital” (the newest buzz word for people) to interact with the instructor, students are enabled to ask questions and receive immediate answers from the instructor. Likewise, the instructor can facilitate group activities or discussions to get creative juices flowing. Learners have the advantage of being in an environment that allows peer-to-peer counsel, providing the opportunity for people to draw on each other’s experience. Overall, classroom instruction is clearly an effective way to train and educate your management, staff, investors and even your customers.

However, there are drawbacks. Classroom training is typically expensive, thereby impacting your operating expense dramatically. Even more difficult is trying to quantify the costs of the classroom training in relation to the benefits gained. In fact, it is so difficult to track, that many companies do not even attempt to monitor the expense or control the costs. It is important to remember that there is a lot more associated with in- person training than just the salary of your training staff. There are costs involved in procuring/producing training materials, costs of developing and maintaining a training facility, as well as travel and hotel expenses of employees who come from out of town for training. But perhaps the biggest and hardest to measure cost is that of reduction in productivity while your employees are seated in the classroom.

Internet or On-line Training: Internet training is gaining momentum. It is running a close second behind classroom training. As the business world continues to evolve and integrate more technology and fast pace business applications, the value of the online training solution becomes more and more apparent. On-line products can deliver training without the traditional associated expenses of classroom instruction. It can allow associates to complete training on their own time and you lose less in productivity. On-line training is a more effective distribution method for certain types of training and it opens up a global marketplace and outlet for training materials, which your company has already produced. On-line training is certainly the future and will continue to become more interactive and allow for more self-paced learning applications. It is a great option, allowing you to reach a larger audience for less!

Manuals & Reference Guides: This is good old self-study, a tried and true method that will likely be around forever. We will never lose the need to document all the various processes and methods utilized in our businesses and we will always need a clearing- house for these materials. Examples of this genre of training range from “New Hire” pamphlets to “Employee Handbooks” and desk reference manuals. These guides are an important part of initial and continuing training and should be maintained in a readily accessible, well organized form such as a physical library or an online catalog/database.

Some company libraries will include training aids contained in nontraditional media such as video and web-casts. While these are very effective ways to train on certain systems or processes, they are also typically the more expensive ways of distributing information to learners. Most companies do not have a media engineer or video production expert on staff, but don’t worry and don’t rush out such persons, as there are alternatives. Today, authoring tools are making it easy for company management or trainers to produce high quality multimedia training aids. Anyone who is competent with powerpoint can produce a visually impressive presentation without having to be a media professional and without having to learn to write complicated programming code. These authoring tools also allow your business unit leaders to manage and produce their own internal training without having to get IT involved in the entire training project.

Training management: This can be a large and daunting task depending upon the size of your organization. How do you track the progress of learners? How many different ways is ongoing education being managed in your organization within different business units? Is one type of training being produced, provided, tracked and maintained one way, and other training in a completely different manner?

My advice to you is: Invest in a Learning Management System (LMS)! These systems allow you to track and manage all of the blended training mentioned above with the click of a mouse. It is a must have for any company using numerous delivery methods to facilitate training.

A LMS can be installed on your own servers or hosted remotely. Installed systems on your servers allow your IT department to manage problems, but hosted systems allow you to basically rent space on the vendor’s server without the IT hassles. Both installed and hosted systems allow you to manage the content, users, and information. The major difference between the two systems is who is responsible for performing the maintenance. The costs vary between the two methods and you must decide which solution works best for your business.

I bet you’re thinking an LMS sounds wonderful, but very expensive? Well quite the opposite is true depending on how you look at your ROI for training management. Remember, to compare the LMS to traditional methods. Remember we have already established that classroom training is expensive and it is difficult to place figures on the costs. To really determine how much your training program is costing and benefiting you, an extensive audit would be needed (and this involves even more expense). For the sake of blending it all together, we will review and analyze two expense scenarios – one demonstrating a non-effective training program and the other exhibiting an effective blended training program:

Training Program with Opportunity Areas:

Company ABC: Insurance Company

Training needs: Sales training, Claims training, Leadership training, Customer Service training.

Current training program deliver methods:

Classroom training / Training Emails.

Current training management system:

Paper / Claims has a database

Current training staff:

Sales has 1 trainer per 60 remote offices (avg 2 agents) / Claims has 1 trainer per 189 adjusters

Customer Service has 1 trainer per 550 reps / Leadership training is facilitated by 2 trainers for 300 employees.

Manuals and libraries:

Each department has their own method / Some departments have 4 or 5 different places to access manuals / Each sales location has 1 manual / HR department has an online information site to access some employee benefits information as well as some sales agent information

-VS-

Effective Blended Training Program:

Company DEF: Security Company:

Training needs: Safety training, Policies training, Leadership training, Investigations training.

Current training program deliver methods:

Classroom training (initial 4 week program) / On the job training (shadowing 1 week) / Online internal training to facilitate enhanced company procedures / Step by step guides and manuals (centrally posted and accessible from anywhere on secure network) / Online training program through vendors for investigation techniques, continuing education and enhanced corporate training (including HR) / Testing path and progression program (online interactive testing) / Online and classroom leadership training along with succession plan evaluations / Classroom Leadership training (quarterly – by vendor service) / Training Emails.

Current training management system:

Hosted through a secure network. Each district training manager monitors, updates and manages the employees in their region. Track pass/fail rates and quality of the training they develop through an interactive easy to use authoring tool. Back up everything on paper quarterly to submit to HR department on compliance.

Current training staff:

Corporate Security has 1 trainer per 50 employees / Community Security has 1 trainer per 50 employees / Industrial Security has 1 trainer per site / Home office has 2 instructional designers for course development / One trainer travels and does worksite / job duty analysis / One trainer develops courses through an authoring tool and posts to a hosted LMS. Both of these trainers manage access to all online training and assist the training manager with other duties.

Manuals and libraries:

Each department has their own access to all digital manuals posted online and all manuals are posted on this one site. Home office has a physical library room with all training, reference and legal information organized in a catalog system. Each location has an emergency manual as well as company contacts and procedures

As you can see, a well-developed, blended training program makes a great deal of sense and can have a very large impact on your company’s productivity and success in today’s business environment. A key factor in a successful training program is an LMS, which gives you greater flexibility and real-time management of your training needs.Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Richard_M_Hull

There’s a common phrase used by Organizational Development and Human Resource professionals, when identifying kinks in the growth of an organization or company – “It’s a training issue.” The same phrase can be applied to almost any group of human beings that are working together to achieve a common goal. When progress stagnates and obstacles appear, you can retrace the path of movement and discover that things started to go wrong when someone wasn’t trained properly.

Have you ever experienced any of the following situations?

Fast Food Nightmare:

You pull up to a fast food drive through window and a voice, with a foreign accent quickly spews out some inaudible words that you assume are probably akin to “May I take your order?”

The waitress from hell:

After being seated for thirty minutes at a local restaurant, a waitress finally approaches your table and asks if you’d like to order. When you politely explain that you’re frustrated because you’ve been waiting thirty minutes, she condescendingly responds with a sigh, “The kitchen is backed up and I just had a party of fifteen in the other room.”

Know-nothing Receptionist:

You miss a much anticipated call from service person you’ve been trying to reach about a product you purchased that doesn’t work correctly. When you call the person back, a receptionist says the person is not in and you should try back later. The receptionist is not sure when would be the best time and – no – the person you seek doesn’t have voice mail.

Travel Trauma:

After being on the road for twelve hours, you arrive at the hotel where you have a reservation for the night. The check in time is posted as 3:30 pm. You arrive at 4:30 pm but the room is not ready. You are politely encouraged to check back in about an hour to see if the room is available. The front desk clerk has no idea what you should do with the hour of “kill time” and can’t guarantee that the room will even be ready in an hour.

Office Chaos:

You work in an office and have a large amount of administrative tasks that bog you down. There is an administrative assistant working ten feet from your desk who is supposed to offer support to your team. His understanding of “support” and yours differ. It appears that some members of your team get more support from this guy than others. You express the inequity of support to your boss who sees the conflict as “personality differences.” You just want your darn copies made in a timely fashion.

All of the instances above show poor service and mismanagement – in some cases “abuse,” but it all could undoubtedly be corrected through proper training. Thus, the root of these corporate and retail nightmares are addressed as “training issues.”

“Training” is such a bland word. The mere mention of the word conjures up visions of boring classroom environments, unenthusiastic training instructors and wasted time having concepts that common sense has already taught you rammed down your throat. Few people are ever excited about training.

My husband, who is an iron worker, recently went through training mandated by OSCA that instructed all the workers on his team in the safety procedures for operating a forklift truck. One of the most crucial training points was that “one should never leave the driver’s seat of the forklift while the motor was running and the forklift was in gear.” Duh!

Despite the negative karma training has gained in the corporate world, and the hype it was granted during the dot.com boom, the simple truth is that training is not merely dispensing information about technique and skill. It is also communicates expectations and requirements of the job. People need to be told what is expected of them in clear terms, and relaying that expectation is a part of the training process. Training lays the foundation for affirming performance as well as correcting mistakes.

In all of the examples above, the “untrained” employee has emotionally disconnected themselves from the person they are employed to serve. Each has personal issues foremost in their minds which override their willingness to adequately serve others. If you were to get their side of the story, you’d hear some of the following responses:

“Everything moves so fast around here. It’s all I can do to keep up. No one really tells me what to do; they just tell me if I’m doing something wrong.”

“I could do my job if those I depended on could do theirs.”

“I’m tired of taking the hits for the poor performance of my superiors.”

“No one ever told me exactly what my job is. I guess they think I’ll figure it out. What I know of my job expectation has been mostly communicated by others telling me what I’m doing wrong. It’s every man for himself around here”

Poor service is not due to poor employees, but poor employers.

The bottom line is that lack of service = lack of growth, lack of productivity, lack of profits. Your company’s lack of service will pay a high price in the world of your competitors. You will have to continually compensate with special promotions, additional advertising, increased hiring and give-aways to disgruntled customers. Good service is linked to happy, valued employees that provide the service. Training is a crucial tool in helping employees feel valued in the work environment.

How do you use training to solve the problems mentioned above? It’s all about having a training program that is set in place and held as a priority. Don’t fall into the “training out of desperation” category and only offer training when you have to put out a fire. Remember that training can be a form of giving your employees attention and recognition. If done well, they will appreciate it and feel affirmed.

Always have some type of training scheduled. It can be as infrequent as once a quarter or as frequent as once a week. You can do it in house or outsource it. Having scheduled training opportunities will prevent the development of service problems that cost you big time in the long run.

New Hire Orientation

The most important training you’ll ever do with an employee will be when he or she first comes on board. Here’s an example of training to put in place for new hires.

1. As a company policy, be sure to have specific, written job descriptions for each employee, and a system established for continually updates. Job descriptions should focus on competencies rather than functions.

2. Develop an Orientation Training Program for each new employee that is hired. The program can last anywhere from one half a day to a week, but it should include the following:

• Introduction to the rest of the staff.
• Thorough review of the job description and company policies with the direct report, clearly laying out expectations and processes for recognition and correction. Allow time for questions and answers.
• Site tour – where are the bathrooms, kitchen, parking spaces, emergency exit, etc.Employee paperwork – W4, benefit forms, waivers, copy of Personnel Regulations and job description, etc.
• New hire should be given a thorough briefing on what the organization does, its goals, its vision, who it serves and the role of the new hire’s position in the grand scheme of things.
• If possible, assign another staff person to be on call for questions that arise by the new hire.
• Be nice and have that staff person or yourself take the new hire to lunch their first day.
• Have a 30 day review set up (mark it on your calendar) where you will evaluate the new hire’s performance and inquire about their feelings and frustrations related to the job. NOTE: If you reschedule or cancel this 30 day review, you’ll send that employee a clear message about the priority you place on their training and development. This meeting is crucial to the new hire and they anticipate it with great expectation.

A training program, aside from being a way to continually dispense needed information to your employees is also one of the most effective methods for gaining information about how to improve company infrastructure. It is a safe environment for workers to share thoughts, feelings and ideas on how to improve the company. In addition, training – when done properly – affirms employees, helps them to develop a sense of loyalty to the company, reduces turnover and creates a prime opportunity for building consensus.Training and development is an investment, not a cost.

Fortune 500’s lists on top companies, Best Small Businesses, Best Companies to Work For and Best Bosses have repeatedly displayed interest in employee satisfaction as well as training and development. Edward Jones, a stockbrokerage out of St. Louis, MO was rated #1 for the second consecutive year on Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For.”

According to Fortune it spends 3.8% of its payroll on training, with an average of 146 hours for every employee, and new brokers get four times that much. When asked why it spends so much on training managing partner John Bachmann replied, “In order to grow, you have to be trained or you get trapped in the present.” One administrative assistant at Edward Jones was quoted by a Fortune journalist saying, “I’ve never experienced working for a company that has so many satisfied employees.”(#)

A training program is an ideal starting point to take action to decrease turnover, improve employee performance and initiate loyalty. It is also a strong foundation for developing affective communication within the company or organization. If you have no training program currently established, start with an orientation training program or look to your local university or community college for training opportunities. Start a training library by ordering books, videos and periodicals that address competencies you want to develop in your staff. Beginning or improving a training program shows employees that you care.

#. Fortune Magazine, January 20, 2003 Issue: Summary on Edward Jones – Ann HarringtonArticle Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mindie_Burgoyne

It was a sound I hadn’t heard before, a ‘ping’ followed by a long silence. This sequence was repeated until the executive answered his phone. This distinctive ring tone was like the sound a NASA deep space probe might make as it searches the outer reaches of our solar system.   While this executive was one of more than a dozen seated in a non-descript conference room, this distraction was enough to break our concentration and further prohibit a few key messages from developing out of his organization’s presentation for a multi-million dollar opportunity. I started thinking about NASA’s Galileo probe crashing into Jupiter’s moon, Europa, while the executive answered his phone. Now there was one long ping followed by continuing silence. As he hung up his phone, I wondered why voice mail was even invented.

How does a speaker compete with cell phones going off in the same room as the presentation? What about other executives walking in on a training class to yank a key employee out of the room? It might be even more challenging to implement a training program when the team being trained is expected to be performing their regular jobs too. According to the American Society of Training and Development (ASTD), US Corporations spend $109.25 Billion on employee learning and development annually with one quarter of this amount going to outside training sources. This translates into $1,616 per employee in 2005 over an approximate 43-hour period.

How can an organization make sure their investment in training is being properly realized?   And how can training be used to gain a competitive edge? For starters, organizations need to change their definition of training. They also need to realize training will improve their performance and the best place to gain a competitive edge in training is through the use of technology.

Change the Learning Mindset
The key to an effective training program is more than requesting cell phones to be placed in the off position and holding a training class off-site to minimize distractions. The key to creating a learning organization is changing the training mindset. In Learning Organizations: Developing Cultures for Tomorrow’s Workplace , by Fred Kofman and Peter Senge, the authors state, “Why do we derive our self-esteem from knowing as opposed to learning? Why do we persist in fragmentation and piecemeal analysis as the world becomes more and more interconnected? We are discovering that moving forward is an exercise in personal commitment and community building.” True organizational transformation first takes place with personal transformation and the commitment to a lifetime learning process. In other words, the role of the motivated individual who wants to learn more and grow will always be pivotal to the training process.

At Hickok Cole Architects (HCA), an award-winning regional architectural firm, their main motivation for providing training to 21 of their key designers (architects) was to improve their presentation ability in front of potential clients. The reasoning went as follows. If their designers were able to spend more time honing their presentation in the Quality Quadrant, they would be able to increase the ability to connect with their client audience. This connection would happen over a few simple, yet powerful messages. These powerful messages could make the difference in getting a project approved or obtaining the sale. However, as the program progressed and they began to see improvements in terms of employee excitement and presentation results, the topic of conversation shifted from one of mere training to creating an environment of ‘presentation excellence.’ They felt the time invested in presentation content and delivery would ‘raise the bar’ for the entire firm a little bit at a time.

HCA also integrated their current client workload with their desire to make an investment in their employees. This meant they started their training program a few hours before the start of a normal business day. I have often heard this thinking referred to as ‘taking one step backwards in order to get two (or more) steps ahead.’ Real self-improvement of any kind is really an investment in oneself and something that taken collectively within an organization will definitely provide ‘an order of magnitude’ benefit. Even though the major training program has been completed at HCA, they have shifted their mindset to spend as much time as possible in the Quality Quadrant. It is no secret that this commitment to training came from the top.

Training as Strategic Value
C-Level Perceptions of the Strategic Value of Learning , a joint research paper by ASTD and IBM, written in January 2006, echoes this change in mindset. The paper highlights research conducted with 53 C-Level (CEO, CFO, CTO, COO, etc.) Executives and stated, “Learning provides strategic value to the enterprise, business unit and individual capability level of an organization.” The paper went on to further state, “Perceptions of stakeholders are a key indicator of learning’s value.” Clearly HCA successfully shifted the perceptions of their designers through creating a culture of presentation excellence and one thing that was done successfully was to properly set expectations and then monitor the training as it progressed along the way.

Larger organizations have taken this mindset to an entirely new level by creating Corporate Universities. However, only changing the name of the training function within an organization is not enough. In The Corporate University Workbook: Launching the 21 st Century Learning Organization by Kevin Wheller and Eileen Clegg, “A true corporate university has moved beyond training and education and into the daily challenge of getting results. It provides leadership in supporting people and processes to achieve bottom-line success for the organization.” A Corporate University is part training, part marketing and part business development. It is training with specific intention.

Many organizations have created a Chief Learning Officer (CLO) position to run the Corporate University and other training initiatives. This person is responsible for interacting with the executive-level management team to provide significant value to the organization. One of the ways this C-level executive’s performance is measured is through value to the bottom line. Herein lies the danger, getting too caught up with demonstrating ROI in financial or accounting terms. Many organizations even try to implement proprietary measuring systems and fail to provide a direct cause and effect when it comes to training. This is where the mindset of the learning organization needs to be further influenced. Furthermore, a key finding of the ASTD/IBM research paper was that CLO’s should not work so hard to convince the C-suite of the value of investing in learning. Instead the C-suite’s value the trusted relationship with the CLO’s more than the ROI data!

Instead of trying to find a direct bottom line benefit to training, organizations must realize training has an overall value that does not need to be quantified in specific terms. Knowledge Asset Management, a firm based in Bethesda, MD, traced the S&P (Standards & Poors) performance of public companies for three years. They tracked companies who spent twice as much as other firms on employee development. Their findings showed organizations with the largest investments in people performed 17 to 35 percent better than the S&P index over the period measured. Training does have an impact on the bottom line and it is also a further way to retain employees.

A Human Capital Strategy
The knowledge that training provides associated value to an organization is proof enough to justify continued investments in training and education. According to the article “Training Revs Up,” in the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) HRMagazine, Hewlett Packard’s training budget for 2005 was $300 million, a 10% increase over the year before. The article went onto state, “Companies like HP recognize that it is more cost-efficient and competitive to develop talent from within rather than compete for talent on the outside. HR experts and trainers have been arguing for this strategy ever since ‘the war for talent’ dominated the labor market in the late 1990s.” Organizations are finally realizing the importance of training and are making a long-term sustainable strategic investment in training. Organizations are increasing their training, but the emphasis has shifted.

However, training isn’t something that should be done at the last minute. When training is introduced gradually with active involvement of the participants, the results are more long lasting and there will be greater retention of the knowledge. This idea comes from a Chinese proverb that says, “If I hear it I’ll forget, if I write it down I’ll remember, but only if I do it will I understand.” To create a true learning environment an organizations needs to have consistency by ‘raising the training bar’ over the long-term. The way to do this effectively is to build a Confidence Baseline among all employees so the consistent training over the long-term will continue to produce higher quality results.

The term many organizations have been adopting for this sustainable investment in training is known as having a human capital learning strategy. This strategy is frequently divided into knowledge transfer, customer education to sell more products and services, government compliance and managerial skills training such as training executives to increase their communication power.   Moreover, as the world becomes more interconnected, there will be a continued requirement for many training functions to be centralized so as to deliver consistent training to many locations around the globe. The delivery of effective training programs by a Corporate University or spearheaded by a CLO will increasingly involve the use of technology.

The Technology Advantage
As the CLO or training function within an organization starts to augment delivery through the use of technology, there will be more collaboration between the CLO and the CTO (chief technology officer). The CLO and CTO will be charged with delivering the training to employees in remote locations through the use of downloadable Podcasts, streaming video and audio programs. In addition, there will be continued momentum for content to be created by employees in order to preserve corporate knowledge.

While some training will be augmented by technology, technology will not replace instructor-led training. This is primarily due to the value of being in the same room with colleagues as well as being able to benefit from the body language of the instructor. In a groundbreaking study in 1971 on the importance of body language in communication, Dr. Albert Mehrabian of ULCA found that visual communication makes up 55% of the total communication picture. This means that technology will only be able to deliver the 7% of verbal and the 38% vocal component making up 45% of communication. Remember the best way to learn will always be face-to-face with an instructor or speaker augmented by technology.

The effective use of technology is perhaps an organization’s hidden advantage. Peter Senge’s groundbreaking book, The Fifth Discipline, was recently updated after 14 years. He said, “In the long run the only sustainable competitive advantage is your organization’s ability to learn faster than the competition.” The best way to do this is to compliment an organization’s investment in training with technology. I know this all too well as a member of the National Speakers Association (NSA). In addition to one annual and regional conference, a learning University, monthly meetings and a magazine, I receive an audio CD. I frequently play the audio CD in my car and transfer key tracks to my iPod for repeat listening. I also have the opportunity to download Podcasts from the NSA website for further learning and reinforcement.   However, I am highly motivated to learn too.

Podcasts Reinforce Learning
According to eMarketer, an Internet research group based in New York, the number of Podcast users grew to 11.4 million in 2005 and is expected to reach over 55 Million by 2010. Perhaps Apple Computer stock is still a good buy as the demand for iPods will continue to increase. With the upcoming release of Apple’s iPhone in June 2007, organizations will have the potential to deliver high-quality streaming audio and video (in the form of Vcasts) to employees all over the world from a single platform. This delivery method is in contrast to just 10 years ago when I worked at one of the technology-leading companies of the time, Silicon Graphics. They invested heavily in employee training and it was entirely done through instructor-led learning. While this might seem somewhat contradictory to Dr. Mehrabian’s study, it shows the continuing evolution of training; a base of instructor-led programs augmented by Podcasts and Vcasts to reinforce the lessons learned.

Capital One, a Fortune 500 financial services company based in Richmond, VA, has purchased over 3,000 iPods for their E-Learning program. The iPods are used to download courses from the Capital One University and provide an effective way to augment traditional learning methods. In a Capital One employee survey on Podcasting, 92% said it is a worthwhile investment and 93% said it’s an effective use of their time, especially if the learning is conducted while in the car or during the commute to the office.

IBM takes Podcasting a step further and offers employees the ability to generate content. It has become an internal tool allowing anyone from software to services to post a Podcast. In another IBM/ASTD research paper, Closing the Generational Divide, shifting workforce demographics and the learning function , a key issue is “Passing the torch of experience.” This involves transferring knowledge from parts of the workforce that are retiring or leaving so as to retain this key knowledge. Technology makes this very feasible and affordable and allows younger employees to ramp up their learning curve by being exposed to the bigger picture right away.

The big picture view of helping to set expectations is very important. I often mention the Latin word for education, educare , which literally means to bring forth or draw out. I let audience members know their unique experiences and memories are very valuable and these can be a contribution to the process of learning. By changing the rules of how the training is delivered, I am able to engage my audience in a unique way and get them to participate in the learning process. This helps executives realize the work they are doing to improve their presentation to a client is much more important than their cell phones or PDAs.

When organizations move from viewing training as an expense to training being part of a long-term investment in their employees, a true learning environment will be created. A true learning environment means employees are recognized as unique contributors, are rewarded for their value and given consistent training over a long period of time. By investing in employees, an organization will be more productive and be better able to retain top talent. In order to further develop talented employees, an organization needs to augment their training with the appropriate use of technology. In this way organizations will be able to gain a true competitive edge.

As a C-Level Leader, here’s how to integrate the lessons of this article:
(1) Change your mindset from training as an expense to creating a long-term investment in your employees (a learning environment).

(2) Recognize the strategic value of training as an effective way to retain top talent and to increase productivity.

(3) Leverage technology to enable your employees to learn faster than the competition, as this is your true competitive edge. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mark_Sincevich

In the effort to meet No Child Left Behind mandates as well as to increase performance through corporate training and development, how to make students or participants learn continues to vex highly trained educators and professional facilitators. From my 25 plus years of experience in business and education, I have come to accept and believe in these 10 Universal Laws of Learning.

Universal Learning Law #1 -

Learning is an innate desire within ALL human beings. To ignore this first law of learning is what makes any student disengage themselves from the learning environment.

Universal Learning Law #2 -

Learning is multi-dimensional for ALL human beings. We have numerous senses from which to learn.

Universal Learning Law #3 -

Learning is an ongoing process for ALL human beings. Learning should never be an event, but a continuum.

Universal Learning Law #4-

Learning is a separate behavior from performance. Learning is the acquisition of knowledge. Performance is the application of knowledge.

Universal Learning Law #5 -

Learning needs to be relevant to each individual based upon his or her existing experiences or schema. Bordeom is a symptom of this law.

Universal Learning Law #6 -

Learning is a bridge between new information and the students’ or participants’ existing schema. The goal is to build the strongest and most flexible bridge possible.

Universal Learning Law #7 -

Each learning objective requires a one to one correspondence to each testing statement to evaluate the effectiveness of instruction. Do not play “gotcha” with your students.

Universal Learning Law #8 -

Learning is delivered in short sessions to allow time for interaction between students or participants.

Universal Learning Law #9 -

Learning must avoid the “Osmosis Factor” where a presumption exists that the students or participants will acquire certain knowledge and skills without direct instruction.

Universal Learning Law #10 -

The brain will only absorb what the butt will endure.

Possibly, these 10 Universal Laws of Learning will help you improve your own professional development, your school or your organization.Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Leanne_Hoagland-Smith

Have you ever stopped to consider how you know what you know? In reality, you think, say, and do what you do because of what you have learned. Obviously, there have been some good lessons, some not-so-good ones, and even some lessons you seem to keep re-learning.

So what is going on when you learn? There are many words and metaphors for the idea of learning. We can talk about knowledge, ideas, information, wisdom, intelligence, IQ, street smarts, on-the-job training,
real-life experience, formal/informal learning, high school and college, and let’s not forget about the school of hard knocks. To me, knowledge is like a seed that you plant. If you value the learning process, you will plant your ideas and ask your questions with positive attention and conscious intention. You will enjoy watching your tiny seed grow into a big tree that continues to grow and branch out for an entire lifetime. You will get excited when you see new sprouts and connections burst forth.

I love learning, always have, always will. So much so, that my company name and logo is “Get Smart!” with a man and a woman reading a book under the tree of knowledge & wisdom. I am always surprised to learn that others don’t have the same desire to “get smart” as I do!
I believe that it is easier for people to stay in the comfort zone of “I already know everything I need to get by” rather than to develop the beginner’s mind of “I don’t know much about this but I am willing to learn.” You can easily look at someone’s lifestyle and see the person who has adopted the “lifelong learning” mind-set—they are more fulfilled, successful, and alive.

The truth is all human beings have an innate desire to learn and grow and stretch their minds, bodies, and souls, it’s just some people choose to make it more of a priority than others. Marie Evans said that,
“Learning is the jewel casting brilliance into the future.” Something newly learned is a beautiful and bright (albeit invisible) thing to behold and truly does change the course of our lives. What follows are the six stages of learning. Think of something you are now learning and find out which stage you are in.

Stage 1

Awareness

In the first stage, you take notice of the concept/idea because it raises your interest. You probably received the information from reading or hearing about it.
For example, when you first heard about the internet, you probably had a vague notion of what it might be, but had no direct experience with it.

Stage 2

Comparison

In the second stage, you often seek to compare it with something else you know something about. This helps you to categorize and place it logically. When you learned of the internet, you probably compared it with other forms of technology or communications as a means of filtration and organization.

Stage 3

Exploration

In the third stage, you begin to play around with the concept/idea. You try it on for size in your mind to
see if and where it fits. When you first went online to explore this thing called the internet, you began by “playing” with it, not taking it too seriously, in an effort to make the learning more enjoyable.

Stage 4

Application

In the fourth stage, you want to see how it applies to your own life. You start to do things with the information, such as write, talk, take a class, or somehow experience it. Now when you go on the internet, you are navigating to find useful information for your life.

Stage 5

Integration or Rejection

In the fifth stage, you either integrate or reject the original concept/idea. If you find the new knowledge useful, you will integrate it into your every day life. Again, if you found the internet valuable, you will be motivated to use it and integrate it. If not, you will decide to stop the learning process.

Stage 6

Creation

In the last stage, you have now developed additional insights about the original idea, and have a need to add, delete, or create something new based on your own storehouse of knowledge. For instance, you are now an internet afficienado, and decide to develop a software that allows people to make commissions from other people’s products or enables them to share their daily “blog.”

The term “”knowledge-based economy” is popular right now, and in today’s constantly changing world, a key to success is no doubt the ability to learn. Because those who keep learning, keep earning and keep living happy and interesting lives. Mark Twain once said,”There is no security in life, only opportunity.”
That being true now more than ever, the only real security we can give ourselves is a reserve of knowledge, experience, abilities, and a willingness to be a student of life, a person open to the awe of the world and who desires to learn something new every day.

Note the distinction about learning and learned. The learned person feels he has completed the course. The learning person knows that she is still in process. There is also a distinction between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is about thinking, studying, and regurgitating someone else’s thoughts. Wisdom is about observing, reflecting, and absorbing your own thoughts and ideas. True wisdom is applying what you have learned and learning through every life experience.
A Chinese proverb makes this very clear about learning, “To obtain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, remove things every day.” The smart student knows when to let old ideas and information go, to consciously delete them in order to make room for the current ideas.
Just think about how internet dial-up is fast becoming a thing of the past and is being replaced with DSL. That is because someone thought of a better, faster way of doing the same thing. New ideas come and go as quickly as night and day. It will be the people who can take their creative ideas and go for it, who will succeed in our over-informed world. Know this. Knowledge will make you smart, but experience will make you wise. Remember—it is only through learning and growing that you can become wise—and it is a journey that you must take for yourself—it is not something that can be taught by someone else.

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Introduction

One of the techniques available whereby the variety of abilities in a group can be enhanced and constantly been widened is through the process of paired learning. However, not only does this method gives recognition to the fact that one learner has the right to be better than the other, the poorer learner also benefits and develops quicker as the method requires the active involvement of each learner. Further, as more information becomes accessible to learners within institutions of higher learning and without the aid of these institutions, it is required of professional educators in higher education to work more indirectly as a manager of effective learning rather than focusing on the traditional roles of teaching and instruction. This is done in the realization that the overall quality of learning can be improved if learners have the opportunity to clarify, question, apply, and consolidate new knowledge.

The ability to discriminate between students, involve them in and let them contribute to the learning process, and allow them to source from both internal and external learning information, though necessary preconditions for learning success, does not necessarily guarantees success. A more important matter to consider in paired learning is how to make the stated concepts matter to all students and educators involved in the process and to utilize the process in an innovative manner in order to enrich the learning experience.

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to provide a general functional definition of pared-learning and to propose an implementation process that could be followed by institutions of higher learning.

Definition

In general paired-learning refers to the design of a coherent, equal status inter-disciplinary learning setting in which a one-to-one learning setting is created to foster collaborative learning under the guidance of a facilitator, without necessarily employing extra resources, and whereby the facilitator as well as the learners can intellectually, socially and emotionally learn from experiences shared through a process of academic engagement in order to enhance learners understanding of a subject or discipline. A form of tutoring is created whereby interaction and engagement is promoted.

In essence, therefore, paired learning is embedded in a social constructed interdisciplinary, inter-learning unit learning environment whereby a learner engage someone else in knowledge production, creation, improvement and innovation to accomplish more that what he or she was able to accomplish on his or her own. Following this learning approach, the learning structure approach of individual A is blend with the learning structure approach of individual B.

The process

In this section the process of establishing a paired learning environment will be briefly discussed.

1. Create a one-to-one learning setting

In its most ideal form two students should form a study team and should enroll for two or more similar courses at the university. This ensures that the learners are studying the same material. Through the creation of a one-to-one learning setting each student gets an opportunity to actively engage in the construction of knowledge in ways that require of them to learn together as a group. In this regard it is important to get learners to move away from “habit-learning” in which they are seeking the right answers to an approach in which they are urged to seek and develop generalized concepts and models that apply to concrete experiences and to master the ability of intelligent adaptability.

This however cannot be accomplished unless each member of the team does his or her part in the learning process. What is required is that each learner shares his or her experiences as it relates to the discussion or assignment against expectations, communicate with and learn from his learning companion, compare and interpret ideas, draw inferences and propose possible solutions to each other.

2. Paired students have to meet at set intervals under the guidance of a helper

The paired learners should remain together as an established learning community for at least a minimum period of time during the academic year and before re-allocation occurs. The paired learners should meet at regular set intervals; say two or three times a week for around two hours at a time.

These gatherings should happen under the guidance of a helper (teacher or senior student) that may lead the discussions occurring during the learning gatherings. The helper serves as a facilitator and counselor in order to ensure that the learning team remains focus in terms of the study material or assignment. The helper is amongst others responsible for moderating the discussions of the team learners and ensuring that each member of the team assumes their share in the learning process.

3. Discussions at gathering center around a central theme

Discussions and assignments need to be organized and co-coordinated around a central theme which will link the courses or different learning units and which will allow the learners opportunity to understand a specific theme in more depth and within a coherent interdisciplinary and/or inter-learning unit experience. Normally, the pair-groups are given a good deal of freedom in choice of activity, but the general theme of activity should be well defined. Giving the learners freedom in terms of how they would prefer to conduct the proposed activity creates a learning environment that builds on the strengths of individual learners as well as their innovativeness.

The theme “Transportation and destination development” may for example require that learners, source on information from logistics and tourism to pursue knowledge and arrive at a proper synthesis. Better results can be achieved if the theme for discussion is rather well defined, especially at the beginning of the programme, in order to ensure that learners are not overwhelmed by the complexity of the assignment or the information available on the subject matter. One may consider providing the paired-teams with baseline information materials to overcome initial concerns that sufficient material won’t be available.

4. Learning collaboration and coordination with a focus on learning development

Collaboration between educators involved in linked courses is essential to ensure that assignments and activities complement one another. Further, as the focus is on learning development, more that on specific learning outcomes, additional time demands will be placed on those involved, and therefore the introduction of “release-time” or recognition for lecturing-load should be given to those involved. It is further important to have at least one or two advisory committee meetings before the academic year commences in order to construct the assignments and to reach consensus on critical learning issues like ensuring that learners that learners discovers a body of knowledge that in itself is connected and that they are able to share this connectedness with one another.

5. Aim of the paired learning discussions and assignments

The principle aim of paired-learning is normally to discover novelties and secondary to verify what is already known. This gives recognition to the fact that learning is partially innate and partially learned from the social environment. Important to realize is that through pared-learning the learner is able to discover his or her own opinion and voice and will become more and more involved in their own learning. The output created is a diversity institution of higher learning within a traditional disciplined designed structure.

6. Monitor occurrence of learning development

Governance of the learning process, from the perspective of the institution of higher learning is essential to be sure that learning development did indeed occur in an efficient manner. Monitoring and evaluation of the learning process therefore depend on collecting information that could provide answers on:

• The initial intention with a particular assignment or discussion;

• Process dynamics during the execution of the assignment or discussion;

• Outcomes achieved;

• Learning that took place amongst learners, helpers and the educators;

• Comments made by all stakeholders involved in the process; and

• Performance results of learners.

Conclusion

Changing one’s own learning behaviour is difficult and often one tends to follow old habit-related approaches. . Through well-designed pared-learning an individual may gain new and enriched knowledge covering interdisciplinary domains that would not have been possible through individual learning methodologies. It creates an opportunity to discover novelty whilst validating current knowledge. Above all it gives an individual learner a voice to express him or her self and to learn according to his or her individual needs and aspirations. However, the success of the approach depends largely on the proper planning and execution by educators.

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