Professional Development – Page 20 – Whose Education Is It Anyway?

Towards Maturity preview event: October 21st 2015

This week, ahead of the formal launch coming up in early November, I was at the “VIP Preview” of this year’s industry benchmark report.

Whilst a copy of the report was provided, much of the presentation was under a twitter embargo so I wont blog too much about the content.

Overall, as one would expect, a lot of the messages are a continuation from previous years. Indeed the idea that it is “the time to change” is not necessarily new, as I commented in 2013, it is getting increasingly difficult to continue along old paradigms.

The scale of the report continues to impress, this year c.600 L&D professionals from 55 countries fed into the data set that has led to a 20 page report.

During the event’s presentations there were a lot of points made that were good to hear, including:

findings that learners are self directed but need support
the self directed nature of learners is not generation specific, this is not a ‘millennials’ thing
need a vision of the future for learning, lots of people have one but not getting there fast enough
the vision needs to focus on improving performance, L&D need to ensure business see this – it is not about course formats
silos within HR need to end, or at least have better working across them (to foster workforce engagement)
the ‘top deck’ of higher performers are increasingly enhancing performance through access to communities, content, technology and clear communications – all where and when they are needed
fundamentally, there needs to be an end to the logic of ‘business’/’learner’/’L&D’ silos [indeed the point was made that we are all ‘colleagues’ – something I’ve argued for a while].

None of the above points will really come as a surprise to people who have followed the thinking of previous reports and the move toward ongoing “maturity”. One nice new feature, however, is a section written in a way that can be given to business leaders to challenge them to better understand what learning should be and what they should expect from their internal learning professionals.

Overall, a great evening and another interesting report.

#bethebest15

Why we should all be a little bit more like Faith No More

I’m not a huge music fan, certainly when compared to a number of my school and university friends who have been in various bands over the years, I have never really been a big follower. Sure, I tend to have LastFM (old format anyway) or YouTube on in the background when working but my gig attendance has always been fairly limited.

The gigs I have attended over the years have tended to be those bands that caught my attention in my youth. These are the bands who have kept a place in my ears, through my not particularly rebellious years, the dance floors of my student days and into our modern streaming world. One band that has made it through that whole journey is Faith No More.

An excellent Guardian article on Faith No More’s most recent comeback and album got me thinking that their style and refusal to be easily classified into one musical genre or another has, perhaps, had a more profound impact on me than I had ever realized.

So what did I take from that article? Well, messages such as:

make decisions based on your desires and convictions
be prepared to take the implications of your decisions
don’t fall into a box just because people think you should
we are all unique.

I still see a lot of comments in the workplace related literature that is keen to put people into some kind of ‘social style’ or other box – be it based on sex, age, characteristic or other factor. I have never been keen on this kind of profiling and perhaps the variety of my music tastes (from early 80s hip-hop to early 00s cheese; from Elvis Presley to Edith Pilaf) suggest some ‘out of the box’ thinking on my part. However, I suspect I am far from abnormal in not being easily ‘profiled’.

So let’s celebrate our differences, let’s recognize our individual capabilities, let’s share our experiences and let’s combine all of this into something even greater than the sum of our parts. This is at least part of what L&D should be doing, encouraging people to reflect and make the workplace better through their unique contributions, as one member of FnM puts it in the article:

“We came back and we made it better. If that’s the only lesson we learned, that’s a good lesson.”

Webinar live blogging: A 3D virtual business simulation for experiential learning in first year accounting

As mentioned many a time on this blog, I do not post all the notes I make from webinars, reading and the like on here. This is partly as they totally consumed my old blog and made more reflective posts difficult to find.

Anyway, I was up early today to attend a “Transforming Assessment” webinar from ascilite in Australia and thought I would post some thoughts here in real-time, [in brackets is me rather than session content].

[I have attended a few of this series and thought this one might be interesting in understanding what my organization’s grad hires might be expecting going forward].
[Business sims are, of course, tricky but they have the scope to really achieve practical learning].
[Quick screen shot at start – looks like using Second Life].
800-1000 students per semester.
Title: “Accounting for Decision-Making”. Not intended as a technical, debit/credit, course. Instead focus on supporting business decision-making.
Includes face-to-face lectures and seminars and some traditional assessments. However, reviewed course off back of some negative student survey feedback around engagement (business students not enjoying the accounting element and therefore not picking up the correct outcomes).
Therefore, try to get more active learning with students more actively participating.
Reviewed in 2015, including simulation and web based assessment – complete overhaul of lectures, seminars, etc. too, all with active learning focus.
Not off the shelf – worked with piersim.com/about : International Education Services who had used a 3D world for a number of years. Collaborated with them to develop the world for their use.
Developed the Virtual Business Enterprise (VBE). 20 student operated businesses with a supporting central bank. Students control a number of things, including product pricing.
App is available at all times, can plan work around the trading session.
http://pier-enterprise.com/
[ran through some of the functionality] VBE dashboard allows students to communicate, to view financial reports, manage their profile, select their ‘job’ in company.
To access the VBE requires download of the VBE Viewer.
What happens in a session: uses avatars, preplanned and agreed tasks as well as in-world decisions (buy inventory or not, pricing of products, advertising decisions).
Software based on OpenSim.
Once a week for six weeks: 50 min trading session within the world.
One student per group use avatar, others communicating and performing tasks on dashboard.
Use financial statement from each session to consider what to do for next.
VBE is a shopping mall [showed some screenshots].
Game elements – if do not trade then the character’s health drops. Had a staff member in session to rejuvenate any character that died[!].
Want them to take risks and make decisions (based on the accounting information) in a safe environment.
Can go to bank and take loans if they think appropriate: balance repayments/interest rates/etc.
In world law court for dealing with disputes [sounded like quite a lot of logic behind it] – if you cut quality of products you can be sued via court. The in-house staff member (‘controller’) decides as judge.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYDaYgt7i-M&feature=youtu.be – slower than real: is more frantic in the 50 minute trading sessions.
Assessment was linked to: business plan assignment combining lecture, tutorial and virtual world learning.
Business plan was to support a loan application on next 12 months worth of planning.
Induction session [https://www.facebook.com/uqbusiness/videos/988464357871851/] run for people on the VBE prior to first trade session.
Student feedback: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-y6WhIhrLc&feature=youtu.be : overall has gone well, with positive feedback, but not all students liked it – including due to technical problems.

Overall a good presentation and an interesting approach for trying to deliver the learning outcomes.

The (Work)Force Awakens

There has been a lot of interest recently in the importance of engagement in the workplace. My view would be that this is not as generation influenced as some commentators would believe and has to be looked at as part of the bigger picture.

Emergent trends such as the rise of holocracy, and apparent disappointment with it, can be seen as part of a growth in thinking, again, about the nature of work. Even if it is easy to see holocracy, itself, as the latest management fad.

The rise of the ‘manager class’, seen in many fields (including Chinese Higher Education), seems to be slowing through association with unnecessary bureaucracy. Therefore, we are left with valid questions about what the alternatives may be.

Some politicians would have you believe that workers are no longer exploited, the argument from many quarters would no doubt be that without some kind of partnership model for all staff there remains inequality and a lack of engagement.

If we consider organizational knowledge management, in the format it has emerged around SharePoint solutions at least, as reinforcing silos in organizations through endless permission setting. The ‘circles’ of holocracy and alternative structures offer an appealing alternative. Indeed If we consider the future to be that of ‘learner workers’, not ‘knowledge workers’, then we can perhaps go so far as to say the individual finally moves to the position of prominence beyond any kind of team structure.

There would be additional options here, data can now be gathered and presented in so many ways that an appeal by the workforce for more engaging workplaces and better representation will likely come at a cost of closer (and often automatic) scrutiny.

This is all in an environment where the ‘war for talent’ might be hotting up with demand outstripping labor supply in some markets. In the UK at least this will likely result in further brain drain from public sector austerity and then more finger pointing when public expenses come in over budget, projects delayed and seemingly using never ending streams of temporary staff (from high-end consultants to the large volume of agency nurses plugging NHS staffing gaps).

There are plenty of suggestions for ways to engage the workforce, such as opening the books, to make people better understand their influence on the bottom line. The challenge is that many options come back, again, to the ownership model and if that supposed end to exploitation sees a future of joint ownership rather than one of zero hour contracts, freelancing and uncertainty.

This all obviously has huge implications for any local learning and how fit for purpose models such as PLC will be going forward. L&D can play their part, but the post-recession awakening in high demand jobs is only likely to lead to your people following the dark side (of more money at your competitors) if you can not fundamentally consider them as equals.

Reflecting on some recent surveys

There have been a few surveys that I have been asked to complete of late which have highlighted some of the issues in multiple choice questions and how, when we use questions, we need to avoid our own bias from influencing proceedings.

CILIP’s

Now, most survey advice sites would recommend test groups to iron out bugs in the system. CILIP’s recent survey, part of the workforce mapping project, seems to fail pretty early on. As the included picture shows, the survey attempted to enforce something of a discipline taxonomy on those completing the survey. There was little space in this question for people making use of information skills but in a different discipline (like Learning and Development for example) even when the project website itself states “professionals are developing new roles in business, industry, government, and the third sector”. Indeed it ignores, for example, someone who has gone down a data scientist route and, I presume, the question will cause the usual consternation from the old Institute of Information Scientists members, although they perhaps would just opt for the option with a mention for “information”. Overall, it is presumably part of an attempt by CILIP to engage with groups they have lost touch with, so at the very least not conditioning the question to say, something like, “which discipline do you most affiliate yourself with?” seemed a misstep.

CILIP Workforce Mapping Question - what type of library do you work in? — As your skills will clearly fall into a traditional discipline, there is no other.

70:20:10

Pretty sure the 70:20:10 Forum were the source of the below question. Now I appreciate that people may be ‘adopting’ the framework, in terms of the support and recommendations in the model. However, surely half the battle (or 80/90%) is just making L&D realize that very few (if any) professions have ever been able to teach everything people need to know through formal learning. Again, I guess my gripe is in the wording but it seems to be suggesting something to adopt rather than saying the 80/20 split is about right (let’s go as far as to say accurate/truthful) so why are you only now doing something about it?

Training Journal

Credit to Training Journal for doing some work on the feeling, that most people probably have in L&D circles, that the gender balance seems to get skewed towards the masculine end of the spectrum as you look at who occupies more senior roles. Whilst I completed the survey my major problem was that, according to it, all organizations are 10,000 people or smaller. This seems a really odd one to get wrong unless it is deliberately aiming at SME type organizations (if it is then fair enough but I must have missed the note to that effect).