Acknowledging Self-Education in the Workplace
What I read: The powerful practice of documenting learning. Published by The University of Vermont Tarrant Institute for Innovative Education on October 19 2019.
One of the things I’ve always advocated for workers to do is document the learning and skills development they’ve achieved on their own outside of formal classes or training. I believe most meaningful learning takes place outside of the traditional mechanisms by which we’ve historically delivered knowledge and skills to workplace learners. My decades of experience in the corporate sector supports that belief.
Documenting worker self-education efforts is important for two reasons.
It does a disservice to workers to only acknowledge learning they achieve by formal classroom or course offerings.
Management and companies need to have a broad and robust view into the learning taking place among their workers, and classes ticked off a training checklist doesn’t suffice.
When I read the article from The University of Vermont, I was able to translate some of it directly to my experience in corporate life. The focus of the article is to answer the quandary of how teachers and students both know that a concept or skill is learned or mastered.
We’re all familiar with the quantitative learning assessments in education settings, test scores being the most obvious example. Yes, some test scores result from a qualitative assessment of certain types of test answers, such as essay-style answers. But even then, there’s an inordinate focus on ultimately quantifying the learning with a score (grade). I contend that’s ultimately not useful in determining whether actual learning or skills development took place, especially in a business setting.
Within companies, entire internal organizations are dedicated to developing and managing employee learning. Sometimes learning is delivered and completion recorded with some type of learning management system (LMS) software application. That’s fine, but I think it falls far short of adequately acknowledging all the learning workers achieve outside of the narrow set of usual course and training options.
The article describes three advantages to documenting learning in an educational setting suggested by educator and professional development provider Angela Stockman.
- Students and teachers have the opportunity to study why and how learning happens rather than merely evaluating the product of it.
- It’s easier to weave feedback loops through the experience, increasing the likelihood that learners will reap the greatest rewards from the assessment process.
- Capturing a wider view of learning invites teachers and students to discover the unexpected and form hunches and theories that testing cannot inspire.
Now, let me rephrase these to apply to workplace settings.
- Workers and management have the opportunity to study why and how learning happens within their organization rather than merely evaluating the product of it.
- It’s easier to weave feedback loops through the experience, increasing the likelihood that workers will reap the greatest rewards from the assessment process.
- Capturing a wider view of learning invites management and students to discover the unexpected and form hunches and theories that testing cannot inspire.
What this documentation of learning approach does is charge workers with a more active role in their own learning. Passivity doesn’t engage learning. Much of required corporate training is undertaken with a sense of passive acceptance by workers that the training has to be consumed and checked off the requirements list. If workers are more deeply engaged in the path and assessment of their learning, outcomes are better for both worker and the company. And the documentation process itself can serve as a means to deeper learning taking place.
Janet Hale argues the act of documenting learning is indeed a mechanism for learning. Documentation as learning focuses on the process of learning using metacognitive thinking. ‘Documenting learning is a shift from the traditional documentation of learning, which focuses on the end product, to documentation for learning and documentation as learning.’
The article talks about the concept of achievement badges as a type of micro-credential to document accomplishment of a topic or skill learned and many companies have adopted this approach. It’s not a bad one. Still, I wonder if it again attempts to reward learning with what is essentially another form of scoring. Maybe that’s a stretch in my logic, but there’s still something about scores, badges, and certificates that rubs me the wrong way if workers are going to learn deeply and adequately apply that learning to their jobs and careers.
Speaking of careers, if a company only delivers education and training applicable to a current job, a worker may be less motivated because they might see the education taking place as not adding to the entirety of their career path. Happy workers are dedicated and more productive workers. If a company helps workers with knowledge and skills useful throughout their entire career lifespan, the buy-in and appreciation from workers increases.
Assuming you accept my contention that documenting learning outside of the usual learning progress mechanisms used within companies is a good idea, how does one document such learning? Here are some ideas.
If a worker wants to learn something that could benefit one or more of their teammates, have them prepare a document, presentation, or lunchtime discussion about the topic. The initial learner learns the material well because you have to know material solidly before you can teach it to others. Teammates benefit by learning new information or skills that helps them and the company.
When those teammates learn from the initial learner, have them document what they learned too. That might be a simple paragraph summarizing at a high level what was learned, or it might be a teammate applying that learning to a project and that project serves as the documentation of the learning.
Alternatively, a manager can simply ask a worker to explain to them in detail what they learned and what they did or might do with that new information or skill.
Create projects that will challenge a worker to learn something new to complete the project successfully. Maybe partner up a more experienced worker with someone entirely new to the material. They can both use the resulting project or deliverable as a form of documentation of their learning. Maybe the new learner can additionally summarize what they learned while the more experienced person can summarize what they learned while helping with the project.
Foster an atmosphere on teams that respects learning in all its forms. Whether it’s taking a class, reading a book, working through step-by-step guides, interviewing coworkers or customers, or participating in discussion groups, every form of learning should be respected with none of it identified as superior to any other. As long as true learning takes place, a company should not care how that learning occurred.
Include reviewing all learning that takes place during manager/worker one-on-one and quarterly/annual review meetings. And don’t just talk about it. Record the learning in the worker’s official record somehow. This can be as simple as the worker keeping an ongoing text-based record of what they’ve learned with pointers to deliverables and other “proof” of such learning. Workers can insert this record into their annual performance review documentation. This shows workers that management respects self-directed and nontraditional learning and it encourages workers to undertake more self-directed learning which further improves their knowledge, skill sets, and contributions to the company.
Finally, if management doesn’t give workers time during their workday to undertake learning, they might not do it. Management should build in carved out time during the regular work schedule solely focused on worker learning. It’s easy to give lip service to this and state workers can use work time to learn, but it becomes a slippery slope that quickly crashes learning efforts under the weight of deadlines and expectations if the time isn’t truly cordoned off just for worker learning.
If you work in a business or corporate environment that relies on ongoing worker education and skills development to bolster productivity and profits, I hope you’ll consider the value of documenting all learning that takes place by whatever means works best for the worker.
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