Personal Development Plan

For my development I would recommend a combination of job rotation, formal education, coaching, and mentoring to assist in my continued growth as an adult educator.  Experiential learning is an important component to adult learning and I would benefit from working with a variety of customers on a global scale in a variety of markets outside of the United States in a training capacity. I think this opportunity will allow me to stretch my skills while learning new skills, applying the new skills and knowledge in a new way to master the new experiences (Noe, 2013, p 386). According to Noe (2013), learning occurs when there is a “mismatch between the employee’s skills and past experiences and skills required for the job,” (p 386).  In the job rotation, I would encounter unfamiliar responsibilities and I would have to prove myself to the new manager and team.  Another way to incorporate experiential learning would be through job enlargement such as a special project assignment.  I could work on a global assignment to gain exposure to the broader organization including other markets. 

I would pursue further formal education in the way of instructional design for e-learning.  This would enable me to design and build e-learning for a variety of topics and I would go hand in hand with my training responsibilities. In addition, I would be saving the organization hundreds of thousands of dollars we normally outsource to different vendors currently. The instructional design certificate would allow me to apply my adult learning degree as well.  I would also consider a degree in organizational design to augment what I learned during my education at Walden and allow me to enhance my use of change management principles and organizational theory.

Coaching and mentoring are the last two areas I would include. I believe these two areas could make the biggest difference for me and provide me with the necessary advice and direction to advance my position and solidify my knowledge. Both mentoring and coaching are well used tools within my organization supported by highly developed teams of coaches and mentors. There is training for these teams and specific processes for selection.  Through this partnership with more experienced leaders in the organization I could learn from their experiences and develop strategies for the challenges and obstacles I face in the workplace.  A coach listens for underlying issues and provides coachee with additional information and resources to consider.  Another role of the coach is to help the coachee learn for themselves. A mentor is slightly different I that they are developing less experienced employees as a protégé (Noe, 2013). I would seek mentor in a current adult learning role to fully exploit the partnership.  

This development plan addresses several areas of learning including on the job, formal education and coaching and mentoring. Each will aid in my development in different ways providing a variety of perspectives.  My question for those reading the blog is what would you do for your development?

References

Noe, R. A. (2013). Employee training and development (6th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.

High Tech Training

There are many collaborative tools in the digital space available today for the workplace that allow for asynchronous and synchronous communication (Noe, 2013). Technology has enabled training departments to reduce costs associated with delivering training to employees while improving the effectiveness of the training (Noe, 2013).  I will review Yammer (social network), virtual worlds, mobile technology and intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) (Noe, 2013)

Social networks allow for users to create and generate content in an interactive community (Noe, 2013).  Yammer is an example of an online networking site specifically designed for secure communication within organizations. To learn more about Yammer visit, https://about.yammer.com/.   Social networking technology has taken off and expanded over the last ten years.  Networking sites such as Facebook, to MySpace, Flicker, Linked in, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and Pinterest to name just a few. People have jumped on board to share their life, insights and interests with their virtual community.  Social networking, such as Yammer, can be used to create communities of practice within the workplace that allow for peer learning through collaboration and best practice sharing (NETP, 2010).  For instance, a team of associates from various business units identify a current problem, design a solution, and present an implementation plan through the Yammer platform.  This aids in critical thinking and collaboration.  The remaining cohorts then post comments and questions that can help generate a better solution.   This method also improves writing and communication skills.  In my organization a common practice is to share interesting webinars, videos and articles relevant to our work.  For instance, recently a colleague shared a link to an interesting presentation by Nick Shakelton-Jones (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbemnGBAPL4) regarding the state of learning.  Yammer has also been used to sustain learning and connect the learners before and after the training event. We haven’t yet mastered using this tool during training unfortunately (Noe, 2013). When we connect learners prior to the event we also provide resources to review or consider during for the upcoming training.  With the many different generations in my workplace, Yammer is a useful tool to engage younger employees of Generation X and millennial age (Noe, 2013). Overall, I have found participation in Yammer very beneficial because I seek out information as I need it therefore it is just in time learning. 

Virtual worlds have not yet been introduced into my organization however I have consulted over the last two years with various vendors to learn more about the capability of this new technology.   I explored Quest Atlantis (http://atlantisremixed.org/#31).  This virtual world requires a person to complete a profile before gaining access to the site.  A person cannot proceed until they are approved and are sent their username and password.  “The core elements are 1) a 3D multi-user virtual environment, 2) learning Quests and unit plans, 3) a storyline, presented through an introductory video, novel and comic book, that involves mythical characters and a set of social commitments, 4) a globally-distributed community of participants, and (5) a narrative programming toolkit for remixing user-created stories. The narrative helps to establish continuity among the elements and helps to bridge the fictional world of Atlantis with the real world of Earth, an act of interpretation by each individual child” (atlantisremixed.org/#31). I like that each player has the opportunity to explore different value systems and learn from the community of members while exploring the storyline.  An instructor guides the learning process by assigning different tasks to complete.  A more simplified version would be effective in my workplace for illustrating a cause and effect of decisions on certain processes. The con for this technology is the development cost which could easily be several thousands of dollars.  Learning is intrinsically motivated by this structure and design.  In corporate America there seems to be a bit of resistance to developing games for learning however this is a mistake.  With the increased demands on an employee’s time, learning needs to become second nature and an enjoyable event as opposed to a task.  Incorporating games and virtual environments allow employees to take a momentarily break from their job to learn what they need to complete their task in an enjoyable manner. According to Noe (2013 p 343), “research indicates that learners are more satisfied with virtual world experiences and learn more and faster than in traditional courses”.

            Mobile technology offers many possibilities for providing learning anytime and anywhere. Mobile technology shifts the focus from learner as consumers of content to learners who generate, create, produce and share knowledge (Koszalka & Ntloedibe-Kuswani, 2010, Laureate Education, 2010).  Mobile technologies allow learners to be connected to each other and various forms of information and resources while formal instruction draws out a learner’s experience, previous knowledge and enables practice and application.    Smartphones and tablets are the most popular forms of mobile technology used within my organization although we do not capitalize on this technology consistently to deliver training. Our employees are unable to access valuable information that resides behind the firewall via these devices that could aid in performing their role and learning new information. We don’t use RSS feeds to push out podcasts featuring our subject matter experts to communicate best practices or new processes (Noe, 2013).  This tool can engage learners on their own time and put them in control of their learning. Noe points out for mobile learning to be effective it needs to be between 10-15 minutes long, intuitive and meaningful.  The design should fit the appropriate mobile technology.  If this is not the case, the learning will be rendered useless and it will not be well received (2013).  My organization provides access to our Learning management system (LMS) via mobile technology and employees can access e-learning modules or formal learning (Noe, 2013). We have also incorporated Apps (applications) for use by the sales teams.  These apps are for sales aids and communicate key selling messages and data that Health Care Practitioners would find valuable.  By combining formal and informal instruction and mobile technology, it seems to be the best of both worlds.

            Lastly Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) utilizes artificial intelligence to tutor, coach and empower employees.  Tutoring helps the employee understand the content while coaching provides the employees a safe environment to practice the newly acquired skills.  Empower is about the employees exploring the training content freely on their own based on their internal motivation to learn. There are five components to the ITS and they include, domain expert, trainee model, training session manager, user interface, and trainee scenario generator. This technology is unique in that it can tailor the experience to the individual.  ITS can communicate and respond to the trainee and model the trainee’s learning process. Based on the trainee’s performance it can determine what other information the trainee requires. It can also adjust the teaching process based on feedback and assessment (Noe, 2013).  Further research by Kurt VanLEHN (2011), indicates that ITS can accomplish everything a human tutor.  It can complete a “diagnostic” assessment to understand the student’s needs assign tasks based on difficulty; provide motivation, and the appropriate level of granularity for effective learning (VanLEHN, 2011).  Human tutors may have a deeper level of knowledge, examples of how the knowledge can be applied and a greater ability to engage in dialogue however this capability is not always utilized by the teacher or student (VanLEHN, 2011). Human tutoring allows for instant feedback to correct misperceptions and address gaps in learning and support in the way of scaffolding (Van LEHN, 2011). With greater advancement in the field of educational technology, ITS may be closer to human tutoring providing a comparable learning outcome. NASA uses ITS for training although I could not find any other examples to review.  These four examples provide a broad overview of technology that people use on a daily basis with the exception of ITS.  By incorporating these elements appropriately we can make the learning experience more effective and engaging.

References

Koszalka, T. A., & Ntloedibe-Kuswani, G. S. (2010). Literature on the safe and disruptive learning potential of mobile technologies. Distance Education, 31(2), 139–157.

National Institute for Literacy, Emerging technologies in adult literacy and language education, Washington, DC 2006

Noe, R. A. (2013). Employee training and development (6th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.

Quest Atlantis: Retrieved from (http://atlantisremixed.org/#31).

U.S. Department of Education (2010).  Transforming American education: Learning powered by technology.  Retrieved from:  http://www.ed.gov/sites/default/files/netp2010.pdf

VanLEHN, K. (2011). The Relative Effectiveness of Human Tutoring, Intelligent Tutoring Systems, and Other Tutoring Systems. Educational Psychologist, 46(4), 197-221. doi:10.1080/00461520.2011.611369