Learning only rarely looks like sitting in a real or virtual classroom. We learn every day as we observe others, ask for coaching, or dive in and try things for ourselves. We enjoy taking an active role in our learning. Adults are most motivated to learn in the “moment of need,” and most readily succeed when they can apply what we learn right away. Yet, a lot of workplace learning programs still feel like sitting in a desk and being lectured to for an hour or more, whether in person or virtual.
I highly recommend Jennifer Hoffmann’s Making Virtual and Blended Learning Work for Adult Learners. She modeled the session after Malcolm Knowles’ six principles of adult learning, which promotes collaborative learning over lecture. The principles encourage us to remember the following as we design learning experiences:
- Adults are internally motivated and self-directed
- Adults bring life experiences and knowledge to learning experiences
- Adults are goal oriented
- Adults are relevancy oriented
- Adults are practical
- Adult learners like to be respected
I heartily agree with all of these principles. As we design for and facilitate sessions in the live or virtual classroom, they should guide our treatment of adult learners. They don’t want to be treated like novices or children. We can leverage more experienced employees in our classroom and “deputize” them to help us teach their peers by sharing their wisdom.
Additionally, I always use Wlodkowski and Ginsberg’s Motivational Framework for Culturally Responsive Teaching as a rubric to make sure I have built in activities that address learner needs, increasing the likelihood that they will apply the learning. The framework suggests fulfilling these four criteria:
- Establish Inclusion– Create an environment of mutual respect and connection. This can be done by posting participant and instructor bios, allowing participants to choose their own work groups, and creating a quick orientation to help students learn how to learn in the VC. An excellent example of an orientation by Insync Training: Learn How to Learn Online I’ve personally made it my mission to include representation of diverse live facilitators, “characters” in scenarios, and voices in narration. This harkens back to my mantra: If I can see myself *in* the learning, I can see myself learning.
- Develop a Learning Attitude– Invite the participants to set ground rules and mutual expectations as a class. Facilitators can gauge the needs of the participants using annotation tools to involve everyone.
- Enhance Meaning– Meet learner needs by making the content relevant and personally meaningful. Use polling and annotation tools to help participants provide feedback. Find out why they chose this class. Are they trying to solve a problem? How do they plan to use what they learn? If you teach the class more than once, the dynamics change with each session. Find out what is important to the people in the room right now.
- Engender Competence– Create experiences where participants can perform–>receive feedback–>make adjustments–>perform. Provide simulations and simple performance assessments in the live or virtual classroom. Better yet, utilized augmented reality (AR) or virtual reality (VR) to provide the most realistic experience. If it is impractical to perform in the classroom, then give an assignment to perform back on the job with criteria that a peer or manager can use to give feedback or work with an agency to build an augmented reality simulation with live actors. The key is to provide a safe space to practice new skills with limited consequences for making mistakes. Remember that lessons learned by mistakes are better teachers than getting it right on the first try. They literally form new neural connections in our brains. (And yes, I’m using the term literally, literally.)
If you keep these principles in mind as you create new learning experiences, you increase the likelihood of learner application and success. So now, as we say at Intel Corporation:
“Go off and do something wonderful!”—Robert Noyce
See Yourself Learning 