Peter,
My experience with creating a Total Learning environment is used for
faculty development in technology. The key is shifting from the trainer
scheduled learning to the trainer providing resources for "teachable
moments" as they occur. In contrast to collecting all learners together
and force feeding them information, when the learner needs to know, the
resource is made available and the learner immediately applies it to
her/his own environment.
Efficiency, corporate need and the material itself sometimes dictate more
traditional training sessions. In the best case, the learner is treated
as a highly valued customer. Then the organization and the individual
"learn on"!
Emily
--
Emily R. Myers
Mobius Project
Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania 19317 US
Voice (610) 388 1274 FX (610) 388 0555
emyers@ccantares.wcupa.edu
On 6 Jun 1995, Orbis wrote:
> Replying to LO1464 --
>
> L.H. Lemar asks:
> >If anyone has any thoughts or references on present and future internal
> >training and development strategies that have been used, I would love to
> >here about them. If there is a job description of a LO Training
> >Professional available, I would love to see it.
>
> Well, I do not have a job description but I have been researching this
> issue and working with clients on the changing role of the training
> department.
>
> Emerging themes are the shift from training to learning, the intermingling
> of learning with work, and the provision of learning at any place and any
> time. All this leading to the need for new learning processes and
> infrastructures. Rosabeth Moss Kanter feels that the new emphasis on
> learning represents a tremendous opportunity for the training profession
> -- but only if it reinvents itself. She sees the need for learning
> infrastructures within future organizations going far beyond what most
> traditional training departments do today. Peter Senge forecasts that
> organization-wide learning will require new infrastructures that support
> learning. (These comments from The Future of Workplace Learning and
> Performance, Training & Development, May 1994)
>
> I belive that it is key to recognize that training is just one enabling
> mechanism for learning. Also that the focus of many T&D strategies --
> role-based competencies -- are just one dimension of the required learning
> content within organizations. Several companies have adopted the notion
> of a "total learning system." A system that embraces a wider set of
> elements than current training (or development, or corporate education)
> systems. This, in turn, allows them to develop and support a total
> learning strategy.
>
> Total learning, as this system supports all the learning requirements of
> the organization. This is to learn from the quality movement, which
> evolved from a narrow, product-based focus to one that embraced the
> broader aspects of total quality management. System recognizes the inputs
> and outputs aspect of learning processes and the need to accommodate the
> larger systemic influences on learning within organizations. One
> particular aspect of that system is the need for an appropriate learning
> culture -- the necessary pattern of shared beliefs and values that will
> promote continuous learning within the organization.
>
> In my view, total learning include information, as well as knowledge and
> skills. The role and use of information, and even data, in learning is an
> important part of the development of a total learning strategy. Accepting
> that organizational learning involves the creation, acquisition, and
> transfer of information and knowledge and skills, contributes to the
> understanding that learning involves a lot more than training. Tom Peters'
> recent writings on organizational knowledge, supporting the knowledge
> worker, and learning cultures, emphasize the role of information and
> knowledge. (See the relevant chapters in Liberation Management and The Tom
> Peters Seminar.)
>
> A lot of recent writing in the information technology area also echoes
> this theme. There is emphasis on the central role that information and
> knowledge plays in the strategy of any organization that hopes to hold
> competitive advantage. Some writers hold the view that a strategy for
> learning cannot just be left to training departments.
>
> For learning to be truly available at any place and any time, including
> the intermingling of learning with work, the development and selection of
> the right enabling mechanisms is a key part of the total learning
> strategy. The developers of total learning systems need to be aware of a
> wide range of such mechanisms. They are interested in the optimization of
> all tools that facilitate learning, and avoid concentrating on a
> particular set of delivery vehicles. Just as many librarians are
> developing into cybrarians -- knowing how to optimize the Internet and
> other mechanisms to obtain information -- the new workplace learning world
> needs total learning practitioners.
>
> Total learning practitioners need to be able to use and access a broad
> range of expertise. Examples and experiences todate show that the required
> range of expertise comes from several functions, as we know them today.
> Whether this will eventually lead to a specific learning function, or a
> learning services department, it is too early to say.
>
> The development of a total learning system in organizations, that I am
> aware of, is not always coming from the training department. Such
> departments may be the catalysts for this development, but this also
> varies. In one company the catalyst is the corporate quality department.
> In another, the vice president of marketing is asked to become vice
> president of learning and lead the development of a new learning system.
>
> I belive that Rosabeth Moss Kanter is right -- the new emphasis on
> learning represents a tremendous opportunity for the training/learning
> profession -- but only if it reinvents itself.
>
> --
> Peter Smith
> Orbis Learning Corporation
> 74363,3637@compuserve.com
>
>