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Clark Quinn’s Learnings about Learning

Context is key

29 May 2018 by Clark 1 Comment

Workflow learning is one of the new buzzphrases. The notion is that you deliver learning to the point of need, instead of taking people away from the workflow. And I’m a fan. But it’s not as easy as it sounds!  Context is a critical issue in making this work, and that’s non-trivial.

When we create learning experiences, typically we do (or should) create an artificial context for learners to practice in. And this makes sense when the performance has high consequences.  However, if people are in the workflow, there is a context already. Could we leverage that context for learning instead of creating one?  When would this make sense?

I’d suggest that there are two times workflow learning makes sense. For one, if the performers aren’t novices, this becomes an opportunity to provide learning at the point of need to elaborate and extend learning. Say, refining knowledge on sales, marketing, or product when touching one of them.  For another, it would make sense if the consequences aren’t high and the ease of repair is easy. So, sending on a workpiece that will get checked anyways.

Of course, we  could just do performance support, and not worry about the learning, but we can do that  and support learning as well. So, having an additional bit of learning content at the right time, whether alone or in conjunction with performance support, is a ‘good thing’.  The difficulties come when we get down to specifics.

Specifically,  how do we match the right content with the task? There are several ways. For one, it can just be pull. Here the individual asks for some additional help and/or learning. This isn’t completely trivial either, because you have to have a search mechanism that makes it easy for the performer to get the right stuff. This means federated search, vocabulary control, and more. Nothing you shouldn’t already be worrying about for pull learning anyways, but for the record.

Second, you could do push. Here it gets more dicey.  One way is to have content tied to specific instances. This can be hand done as some tools have made possible. That is, you instrument content with help where you find, or think, it could be needed. The other way is to be smart  about  the context.

And this is where it gets complicated. For such workflow learning to work, you really want to leverage the context, so you need to be able to  identify  the context.  How do you know what they’re doing? Then you need to map that context to content. You could use some signal (c.f. xAPI) that tells you when someone touches something. Then you could write rules that map that touch to the associated content. It might even by description, not hardwired, so the system’s flexible. For instance, it might change the content depending on how many times and how recently this person has done this task.  This is all just good learning engineering, but the details matter.

Making workflow learning work is a move towards a more powerful performance ecosystem and workforce, but it requires some backend effort.  Not surprising, but worth being clear on.

Comments

  1. Juan Domingo Farnos Miro says

    29 May 2018 at 10:47 AM

    “El CONTEXTO, conforma ecosistemas de aprendizaje por si mismo.! (Juan Domingo Farnos)

    Las organizciones, bajo estructuras muy diferentes a las actuales,llevarán a cabo sus actividades a través de una estructura distribuida que a menudo separa la gestión de la implementación en todo el mundo ya que se enfrentan a un mundo global.

    Estos nuevos escenarios requieren la adopción de modelos de aprendizaje continuo y omnipresente, tanto de manera personal como social. Desde el punto de vista, el reto es gestionar en contra de la rápida obsolescencia de los conocimientos técnicos y dejar que los trabajadores-aprendices adquieren experiencia en nuevos temas “en el tiempo”.

    Es en todo este “arco” de visiones diversas, donde la disrupción y su planteamiento abierto, diverso y constante, puede valer, puede influenciar en los futuros acontecimientos en aspectos sociales, económicos, educativos….

    La combinación consciente del CONTEXTO, la computación ubicua y omnipresente proporciona para entornos que son capaces de adaptarse a las diferentes identidades y necesidades de usuarios y organizaciones, un aprendizaje permanente, personalizado y adaptable.

    Necesitaremos instalaciones que hagan posibles el u-aprendizaje consciente del contexto que se apoya por medio de dispositivos móviles, wereables , redes inalámbricas, sensores ….

    Estamos en presencia de una amplia gama de temas que deberían estar a disposición de una comunidad de aprendizaje grande (NODOS) con diferentes habilidades y objetivos de aprendizaje. La educación a distancia es una respuesta efectiva a esta demanda de flexibilidad en la formación, pero también debemos pensar en aprendizajes mixtos, en el life long learning, en el mobile learning…. El objetivo es construir una comunidad virtual de aprendizaje sobre la base de un modelo de conocimiento que responda adecuadamente a las diferentes necesidades de aprendizaje.

    Desde el punto de vista las personas que necesiten adquirir aprendizajes para mejorar en su trabajo deben adquirir la adopción de una innovación estratégica con el fin de aprovechar las nuevas tecnologías y garantizar el apoyo y la asistencia a un nivel de calidad cada vez mayor.

    Los trabajadores y los aprendices de hoy y de mañana se enfrentan a momentos de aprendizaje, pero necesitan más a menudo estar en un contexto de trabajo, muy por encima de lo que estan en el aula o en línea (elearning).
    Contextos laboraesl es donde las oportunidades de aprendizaje informal son la mejor de las soluciones de aprendizaje . Estas soluciones informales sirven mejor a las necesidades individualizadas, personalizadas y socializadoras , que se pueden ejecutar gracias a su inmediatez [urgencia para llevar a cabo] y poder asumir riesgos delcuando se requiere un rendimiento impecable.
    Con todo ello… ¿Cuán dependiente es nuestro ·ecosistema” en la aplicación de la formación tradicional? La pregunta más importante es: “¿Cuánto dependemos en nuestro paradigma de formacion actual?”…

    Recomendariamos que debería ser un entorno de aprendizaje continuo (. Si el 95% del tiempo de un trabajador se desarrolla continuamente en su contexto de trabajo. El trabajo es continuo. El cambio es continuo. La demanda de un rendimiento impecable en el contexto de trabajo continuo y en este porcentaje entra naturalmente su formación, que por tanto también sera continuada y para siempre (Life long learning)…

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