Work philosophy
As a Learning and Development Professional I work with adults to facilitate learning and on the job learning in a real world environment. The goal of this learning and development is to provide new employees with the skills they need to successfully complete their job and existing employees with the opportunity to sharpen and improve their career competency. Throughout my career I have established a philosophy of learning design and delivery around maximized knowledge retention and sustained motivation for behavioral change. This philosophy can be epitomized in the four categories listed below.
Creative Adaptability: We’re meaning makers. As Ormrod (2011) describes, “…we construct rather than absorb knowledge about our environment, and constructing knowledge requires active mental work (p. 76)” When it comes to learning design and training delivery I strive to ensure I maintain a base element of creative adaptability. I cannot expect my learners to acquire or form new knowledge by a simple knowledge osmosis, I must look for creative ways to help my learners actively work to construct and connect new knowledge with prior experience maintaining an adaptability dependent on that experience. With adult learners an inherent amount of prior experience or knowledge exists that can seek to inhibit or encourage new knowledge acquisition (Stolovitch and Keeps, 2011). Utilizing a learner’s prior experience to build from can help to increase connections with new knowledge in a more meaningful way. Furthermore, when learners can better connect to new knowledge they stand an increased chance of retaining it in their long term memory (Mayer, 2008). And in my on the job training and development, knowledge retention is the ultimate goal. Hence, considering this information I maintain the need for creativity and adaptability in training delivery and learning design because I understand that a learner’s ability to authentically create meaning from new knowledge is tantamount for long term knowledge retention.
Collaboration: People support what they themselves create. As previously mentioned, adult learners must be able to actively create meaning out of new learning. As a part of this meaning making learners generally participate in collaborative efforts to participate in their learning. In fact, adult learners appreciate the ability to make participatory decisions about their learning “…the more the learner does and contributes, the more the learner learns (Stolovitch and Keeps, p. 58, 2011).” Additionally, the ability to make decisions for oneself is a central characteristic for adulthood and can be used to help strengthen the learner’s trust and credibility in new knowledge (Santrock, 2013). Lastly, the mental processing needed when one collaborates in order to arrive at the best possible solution or proper process creates much stronger connections and ultimately increases the likelihood for knowledge retention. Furthermore, this sustained mental effort and conscious choice to participate in learning meet 2 of the 3 major tenants for behavioral motivation (Pintrich and Schunk, 2002). Hence, with my adult learners I strive to create opportunities for them to collaborate and actively participate in their learning to help to create lasting acquisition of new knowledge and sustained motivation for the newly learned behaviors.
Constructive Criticism: Though the heavens may fall, ask for feedback. There are three basic questions that effective instructional design and delivery answer, “where are we going; how will we get there; and how will we know when we have arrived (Smith & Ragan, p.8, 2005)?” The last question is actually one of the most important in the learning design process and is considered firstly when analyzing how learner success, achievement or performance will be measured. This assessment portion of instructional events denotes feedback as a means to understand “what you did right and wrong, [and] how close you got to good (Smith & Ragan, p. 130, 2005).” It is important to understand that while the instructional strategies for a training may vary feedback is imperative in any one of these strategies. I believe it is paramount that various organizational stakeholders have the opportunity to provide feedback throughout the learning design and delivery process so that the best and worst aspects of a training can be shared as new knowledge to better all future instruction.
Consistency: Just keep doing it. I strongly believe that continued practice of these design principles will allow for effective knowledge retention by my learners as well as increased ability to meet the central tenements for a sustained motivation for new learning behaviors: choice, persistence, and mental effort (Pintrich and Schunk, 2002). Though, the ultimate goal of learning design and delivery is for successful performance or increased metrics I believe that knowledge acquisition cannot exist outside a motivation for new behaviors. The old saying that old dogs cannot learn new tricks could prove true if and when we forget that we must allow our learners an opportunity to participate in their learning and in that way begin to make the choice to learn those new tricks for themselves.