TALENT DEVELOPMENT (TD) DIMENSIONS: December 2019
Good afternoon Learning Leaders,
Welcome to the final 2019 edition of TD Dimensions. Your Mercy Care Workforce Development Team presents this “care and share” opportunity to help you connect with the global and local TD professional community to help you develop your own talents and strategies.
Now Trending:
Spotlight on a TD industry trend to incorporate into your TD practice
- • What – Adaptive learning. Essentially, this is a learning experience that can be/is customized to the needs of a learning audience. This is often seen with technology-driven modalities, but can also extend to the instructor-led modality.
- • Why – Adaptive learning considers the learning process from an individual perspective, as opposed to a whole group perspective. It may lead to better individual performance throughout the learning experience. That performance is then transferred to improved knowledge transfer and functioning on the job. As humans, our earliest learning experiences are individualized. Grabbing, holding, walking, running, speaking, and so forth are all individual experiences. We learn as an individual for the first five or six years of life, and then we are suddenly placed in a large group situation for Kindergarten and expected to keep up with everyone else. Adaptive learning honors what may be our most intuitive learning style.
- • How – Typically, adaptive learning opportunities exist at various points in the learning process. At the start of training, or even before the training experience starts, individuals can be tested on the subject matter. Based upon results, content presented is based upon what they need to know to be successful. This process honors the experience of the learner, which is a principle of Adult Learning Theory. Knowledge checks along the way allow for the experience to be further tailored to the progress the individual learner has made, as well as the information they need going forward. While this is primarily thought of as an tool for online learning experiences, adaptive opportunities can be incorporated into instructor-led experiences as well. Doing so, requires flexibility on the part of the classroom facilitators, as well as scheduling. For instance, topic X is going to be facilitated. In advance of the session, the facilitator conducts a knowledge inventory of the group of learners. Those who score low arrive to class early for an overview and remain throughout the session. Those who scored mid-range may join the class after the overview is completed and following a break. Those who scored highest may then join toward the end of the session for the summary and review. This is but one example of employing adaptive learning in a classroom setting. Organizations and facilitators are encouraged to consider what might work best for them.
Spotlight on a TD industry trend to incorporate into your TD practice.
TD Leader Spotlight:
Inspiring leaders bringing change to TD processes
• Who – Brené Brown, PhD
• About – Brown has made a career of researching and studying human connections, specifically, concepts related to vulnerability and empathy. She’s a successful author having written five bestselling books, and is a motivational speaker.
• Why – Although she is not directly writing about adult learning, training and development or workforce development, the concepts she writes about have practical application in those same areas. As an adult, the learning process requires us to be vulnerable. We must admit that we don’t know something and have a need to learn it. As facilitators, we need to recognize the need to approach sessions with a spirit of empathy and understanding that the learning process may, for some, be filled with personal and private challenges. Understanding vulnerability and empathy makes for a great leader. Facilitators, by the essence of their role, should seek to be great leaders.
