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MGNT322 WEEK 1 LECTURE Context and Relevance

1.5. The History of (adult) learning

Training and education go back to the start of humankind, our brains are evolutionary designed to learn.  Without continuous learning, sharing knowledge with the younger generation, we as a species would not have survived and thrived to the extent we have done in the last thousands of years. Philosophers 

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Early philosophical ideas in regards to education start within the Roman Empire. Where the Socratic method of questioning emerged and there was a strong push to search for reasons that might justify beliefs, judgments and actions. Philosophers like Plato believed we should “sort” students into groups and provided them differenttypes of education. Aristotle believed education played a central role in people’s lives and in order to be a fulfilled person, one ought to be an educated person.

1.6. School as an institution for learning Some of the earlier ideas in educational thinking were:

Teacher centred learning

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There was a strong focus on teacher centred learning, with a teacher providing information to students. With the assumption that students would be able to remember and use their teachers knowledge for their own purposes in future.

Behaviourism

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In the early 1900’s the view of behaviourism was prevalent, meaning if a clear change in behaviour had taken place that was proof that the person has learned something.

1.7. After World War II 

After the Second World War, we can find an amalgamation of several approaches one reason for this is that we find European scholars had escaped Europe during or after the War to settle in America (and mingle their ideas with American views of that era). We also find there is an increased level of translations of works from non-English speaking thinkers, making their idea accessible to the English-speaking world.

1.8. Continuing with our ideas on educational thinking we find....... Cognitivism and constructivism

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The idea that we can create our (own) learning through creating layers of knowledge. "According to Ertmer and Newby (1993), The three schools of thought can, in fact, be used as a taxonomy for learning. Behaviourists’ strategies can be used to teach the what (facts)

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Cognitive strategies can be used to teach the how (processes and principles) Constructionist strategies can be used to teach the why (higher-level thinking that promotes personal meaning, and situated and contextual learning). "

Student-centered approaches

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Over time the focus moves away from the teacher as the holder of knowledge and students are the central point to start their learning (inquiry), the teacher facilitates and guides. These ideas fall under; o Inquiry-based approaches and o humanistic psychology.

1.9. Big changes happened in the 1980’s In the 80’s institutionalised Education has been around for generations but some of the underlying thinking about the what, why, and how of education (and training) is shifting. The following ideas are taking hold: Social learning Under this idea, scholars argue that learning is not done individually and we need to create a social atmosphere in which people can discuss, argue, and test their ideas. Connectivism This includes many different theories and allows individuals to connect different aspects of one’s knowledge or live experience to the learning episodes presented to them. Cognitive overload Research is done on the amount of information that is able to be hold and easily remembered by students, this is termed cognitive overload. With an awareness of cognitive overload, educationalist are starting to push the provision of learning material down towards bite-sized pieces of information. Followed by a push to chunk information for the learner so that they have an ability to understand the material easier through structured smaller pieces of information linking together in a contextual whole.

Other ideas on learning that are taking hold:     

Learning is done to “be” a citizen in today’s world There will be lifelong learning in work and life. There are many different intelligences There are many different learners and needs Education is a human need/right.

1.10. Learning and technology Technology has always formed a part of society and therefor education however in the last few decades the speed at which technology has increased and its impact on education is felt on a day to day basis. Howard & Mozejko, (2015) for example argue that there are three waves of technology in education   

Pre-digital Personal computer Internet

All with their pro’s and con’s

What about the time we are currently living in?

Will there be educational reform? Especially if we are looking at training and education pre-Covid, during Covid and post Covid? How will this look like not only for schools and training organisations but also for businesses? 1.12. Workplace learning - Human resource development (HRD) HRM – Human Resource Management started in the 1950 or 1920’s when a concern for factory workers and their well being was expressed. Since the 1980’s HRM has been officially acknowledged in organisations, the underlying idea being that people need to be looked after for the long term benefit of an organisation and the society it operates in. When combining HRM with Human Resource Development - HRD we start to incorporate training in the workforce and we arrive at the topic for this subject.

In the next couple of weeks we will explore:

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How can we best train people in organisations? Is there a best way? What are some good practises? When do organisations need training? Why do they need training? Once we are in a position to train our staff members or members of our organisation how will we do this? Once we have established how we will do this, we’ll think through (and should be able to argue) why is this a good way?

Aim of this subject This subject is aimed to be a blend between theory and practise. You learn things and apply them shortly after. Your assessments are ways to test that you understand the theory behind training in organisations and can implement some of the good practises according to current literature

WEEK 2 MODULE – HOW DO ADULTS LEARN?

How Do Adults Learn?

It seems like a simple question how do adults learn but who and what are you comparing to? The way you like to learn?  

The way your grandparents learned in school or on the job or The way a little person in your life will see the world of education

Clearly, others' experiences of education are different from yours.

Learning and adult learning continues to be a fascinating world of trial and error, adaptation, and research there are many questions still unanswered. Changes are for example questions trainers needed to ask themselves in recent years that hadn’t occurred to them only a couple of years prior.

Who would have thought in 2018 that you needed to be very proficient in zoom (or any meeting software) to be able to run a training session?

But even though lots of things are unknown and evolving there are a lot of things we do know based on the many thinkers and practitioners that have come before us (as we discussed in last week’s module).

2.1. What are your assumptions about learning?

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When you hear the word learning or training what are some things that come to mind for you (both positive and negative?) o Development o Skills o Self-improvement o Reading o Education o Advancement o Developing o Increasing Skills How do you think these are different from say your parents or grandparents? o Technological Advancement

2.2. What theories of learning are relevant in the workplace?

In order to answer this question we need to take a step back.

What are some universal rules or principles in education (according to current research)? Is there a difference between how adults learn and how children learn?

3. 10 UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLES

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Clearly, there are many opinions and experiences in regards to learning and workplace training. Even though there are many theories on learning as we touched on in the last module, over the years there has become a consensus on several universal principles of learning we have highlighted 10 here. You could argue there are more or less but overall these 10 principles can be used in a lot of cases and compared and contrasted by many more narrow theories. o Start with the known o Readiness to learn o Part learning o Spaced learning o Active learning o Overlearning o Multiple-sense learning o Feedback o Meaningful material o Transfer of learning Let’s have a look at all of these in detail.....

1. Start with The Known 

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It is easier to learn something new when you can link it to something the person already knows. We tend to do this quite naturally, if you were to explain jacaranda trees to people who have lived overseas you can describe a tree and then make it a tree with purple flowers, aka a purple tree. For the workplace this is a really handy tool. One of the start things that seem to historically lend itself to resistance is new software. If however you are in a position as for example a HR manager to roll out new software link it to software that is already known and widely used. This will reduce the level of resistance without participants being to explicitly aware. In line with this we can also clearly demonstrate Why, this is beneficial and how it makes their lives easier, we’ll come back to these points later.

2. Readiness to Learn 

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Is the environment, the time of day, an individual’s comfort levels conducive to learn? Some of the benefits of having dedicated training days are that that is the main focus of the day staff aren’t rushing from one meeting to the next and have dedicated their time to being there. In line with a readiness to learn you could add the concept of mindfulness (and the accompanying research by Ellen Lange about this topic). “If you can get your participants to be in the present moment with you on this journey of learning or this learning episode everyone can get much more out of the experience.”

3. Part Learning 

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It is tempting especially if you have a long standing expert in the field to throw copious amounts of learning at individuals the research however is out that learning small bits of information is easier to retain and it allows someone new to the filed to actually get a larger base on known information (start with the known) that can then be used to “hang” new material on. An example: o at University is that none expects you to be able to do a final exam in week 2 of semester through sequential parts of learning, normally in weekly or regular modules you gain a

bigger base of information which after several weeks amounts to a vast amount of knowledge. 4. Spaced Learning This is a big one especially since the advent of Covid. Humans aren’t design to learn for 3 or 6 hours straight, especially not behind a computer.  Spaced learning means that on average attention spans last around 20 minutes and then the need for a novel stimulus is required. A level of cognitive fatigue sets in and learning needs to be broken up.  Examples of how organisations and trainers are putting this into action is: o In a physical class a trainer covers some content knowledge and then asks people to discuss amongst themselves (social learning and allowing individuals to use their prior experience). o In the online space there is a strong push to not make video lectures longer than 20 minutes so there are smaller bite sized pieces of information spaced overtime rather than a long hour or two hour recording.  Spaced learning and to a certain extend part learning are also known as chunking content.  Below is an image of what we suggested as a replacement for a 1 or 2 lecture recording during the Covid-19 pandemic when all material needed to go online. 

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We suggested a mixture of: o Content information to trainees o An activity o Some resources And potentially repeating this cycle (in a different order if need be) a couple of times to cover what was traditionally covered in a 2 hour face-to-face lecture.

5. Active Learning 

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More and more research has come out that is in support of student-centered learning and active learning, meaning that trainees learn more when they can actively engage with the material again linking it to things they know or starting to create new knowledge through these active learning experiments. “Examples of active learning can often be found in small activities done in class or online (it also breaks up the content for spaced and part learning).” Creating a work or study project is also a form of active learning as you will try and solve or come to grips with a problem. You will consult the literature, your peers, experts etc. all of which will help you actively come to a potential solution. In the spirit of active learning use Padlet below to fill in a time in which you have experienced active learning. What did you think about the experience?

6. Overlearning

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Overlearning is useful if the content needs to be remembered and become second nature of how the person operates (strongly aligned to tacit knowledge which we’ll talk about a little later). One way is repetition anyone that has ever done any rote learning tries to get past a point in which they don’t have to try and remember, they just do it is part of long-term memory. Another way to do this is to repeat the material in your training sessions but in slightly different ways. In these modules you will see the same terms come back over and over but every time in a slightly different context or presented in a different way. This allows for a blend between; repetition, spaced learning, part learning (especially if a concept is explained in different levels of complexity through your training) even mindfulness. For example: o adult learning the term is familiar to you, but because we are talking and working with this material you are becoming more mindful of the different layers within adult education and training as you work your way through the content.

7. Multiple-Sense Learning 

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A lot of research has been done on different learning styles, you mind know that you are more of a visual, auditory, kinaesthetic learner than say your best friend or relative. When you are designing training episodes be aware of the modes you use. Is your information all text? All audio or video? Or you have given your learners a great activity to do but might have left a lot of the theory and knowledge out. In future sessions we will break the planning of your training down this is sometimes called Show, Show and Tell, Check for understanding and Practise. It allows people to learn in different ways. You can also deliberate show but also talk through it and then allow people to try a skill. What you have done in that instance is you have helped the visual learner (show), the audio learner (talked through), and the kinaesthetic learner (they have a try themselves). Later in the semester, we will also talk about accessibility issues creating content that is accessible through multiple senses allows you as a trainer to navigate complex areas like human rights on education and training even if they have a disability which impacts the way they learn

8. Meaningful Material 

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Training because more useful to trainees if the material is useful. For adult learners this is very important as they don’t have a lot of time or patience for learning new things, they need to attend to other pressing matters. If you can clearly identify why this material is important, what is in it for them? You will dissolve a lot of resistance that might be present and get buy-in from participants to come along on the learning journey with you. Example o note in my welcome video how I sell that this is both a theoretical and practical subject you will most likely get years of benefit from. I am selling this subject as something that has meaningful, useful material for you as a management student

9. Transfer of Learning

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Learning reaches a new level when you transfer what you learned to someone else. As the saying which amongst others has been expressed in the words of Benjamin Franklin: o “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember, involve me and I learn.” We could even extend this to o “Let me teach and I truly understand”  Benjamin Franklin As we will discuss in other sections of this course there has been a move (based on evidential research), away from rote learning and the teacher-centered focus to a more doing, active, social way of learning.

10. Some more principles of learning 

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Ironically the more information we are able to obtain, the more education moves online, the more research found (even before Covid) that there is a strong social element to learning. Some learners in particular find group work, group discussions, encouraging peers and a teacher that is present and engage useful. (We could call them social learners). Social presence o Another issue that has emerged as a result of online learning via a “set and forget method” that students, trainees find it hard to feel connected to their learning or a particular course when there is a lack of “social presence” meaning there is little to no teacher or peer presence online. It is therefore important to create an environment where people feel welcomed, appreciated and part of a learning community.

11. Remember this information   

You have learned a lot of different pieces of information in this module how can you remember them? One is questioning if you need to and if we argue that knowing both the Universal principles and the characteristics of learning are useful to remember let’s look at how. In the video below I’ll walk you through my office, using the loci method (location method) to tell a story about the universal principles. Chances are that using both a location and a story combined you will find it easier to remember. ADULT LEARNING, ADRAGOGY AND PEDAGOGY

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Learning is often referred to as pedagogy from the Latin word Peda (a child). However, as ideas on training and education have changed historically to include live long learners and as you can start to see in the 10 universal principles of learning adults learn differently from children. Some individuals have argued as long back as 1926 (Edward C. Lindeman) that we should make a difference between child learning and adult learning.

Andragogy and Pedagogy

Learning Characteristics

1. Need to know a. Pedagogy: What? b. Characteristics: Need to know c. Andragogy: Why? 2. Self-concept a. Pedagogy: Dependent b. Characteristics: Self-concept c. Andragogy: Independent 3. Experience a. Pedagogy: Experience b. Characteristics: Experience c. Andragogy: Past experience is “reality” 4. Readiness to learn a. Pedagogy: “Whatever” b. Characteristics: Readiness to learn c. Andragogy: Solve a problem 5. Orientation a. Pedagogy: Content b. Characteristics: Orientation c. Andragogy: Coping with life 6. Motivation a. Pedagogy: External b. Characteristics: Motivation c. Andragogy: Internal

Knowles

One of the big champions of t...