I recently read an article by The eLearning coach (The eLearning Coach, 2010), which posed the question “Should employee learning be controlled and tracked when much of workplace learning occurs through informal channels?”
Naturally this got me thinking of whether learning should be controlled and measured and how this affects e-learning.
The majority of workplace learning occurs whilst actually doing the job, but this is only true of job-specific tasks. So although experience is a great learning tool, official training is needed in order to:
- Meet compliance
- Show due diligence
- Ensure staff understand and recognise correct policies and procedures i.e., when it comes to Health & Safety
- Up skilling employees
Moving on now to whether this type of official learning should be controlled, I think undoubtedly yes, but only in terms of course content as certain information and regulations must be acknowledged in employee learning and need to be understood by employees themselves.
Controlled doesn’t necessarily mean a controlled environment i.e., a classroom. Self-controlled learning is a skill we often overlook in learners.
Self-controlled learning requires learners to rely upon them self. There is no trainer or other learners to interact with. Therefore, e-learning courses have been developed to ensure learners have the resources and tools needed to learn and succeed.
However, according to Michael F. Beaudoin (2002, p.148), former Professor of Education at New England University; studies over the last 30 years have demonstrated that an increase in student interaction improves achievement.
Although true that e-learning cannot offer group discussions, except through online forums, it does offer other forms of interaction that learners can use to fuel their achievements. These interactive tools include games, voice-overs and exercises.
Exercises lead on nicely to the issue of tracking. I say issue, but it’s not at all, as what is the point in spending hundreds, even thousands of pounds on training your workforce when you aren’t able to see the results?
Essentially tracking:
- Allows progress to be measured
- Creates the opportunity to recognise areas where learners are less confident, resulting in their need for extra support being met
E-learning provides accurate, automatic tracking; measuring performance- telling employers what they need to know i.e., when employees have passed their course.
Employee learning does not have to be rigidly structured to be valuable and other methods of learning are available to organisations, such as e-learning, requiring minimal downtime for training.
However, I do feel that all learning, whether conducted on an office laptop or in a classroom, should be both controlled and tracked in order to ensure learners are receiving high quality information and that courses can be measured to determine their success rate.
References
The eLearning Coach, 2010. Learning Technology Trends To Watch in 2011. [online] Available at < http://theelearningcoach.com/elearning2-0/2011-learning-technology-trends > [Accessed 31 May 2011].
Beaudoin, M.F., 2002. Learning or lurking? Tracking the ‘‘invisible’’ online student. The Internet and Higher Education 5 (2002), pp.147-155).
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