Beyond Manitoba
Academic credentials are often automatically included in job requirements because they are seen as minimum standards for skills and knowledge.
But current practice in Europe is placing increasing emphasis on recognizing learning in the workplace because that is where the rubber hits the road in terms of effectiveness.
John Konrad has been tracking these issues for several years as a vocational instructor and an internationally recognized researcher.
Three elements needed for Work-based Learning
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It’s important to analyze your company’s skills and knowledge needs prior to beginning a work-based learning initiative. A detailed analysis of how your employees actually deliver value and what they need to do so will drive solutions that provide the greatest impact for the fewest dollars
Derrin Kent has been training staff, at all levels from Director to groundsman, in the corporate sector since 1992. His company, The Development Manager, specializes in building work-based learning systems and corporate communities of practice using open-source technologies.
Number one, you need to capture your existing content, knowledge, [and] documentation processes in a quick and easily accessible way for people to get at it. Sometimes people don’t need to learn something, they just need to get the bloomin’ information. If you are working in a shop, you don’t need to learn the price of all the products and the particular details of all the products, you just need to be able to quickly access that information when it’s requested from you. So first of all is a decent knowledge infrastructure which is accessible by people in a quick and easy way.
The second thing is that sometimes you will want people to learn a sequence of objectives. So you will need to take on well-structured, well-designed, learning delivery programs. Let’s think of an induction for new members of staff:: let’s think of a new skill set that you might very very quickly need to get people to be able to do in order to move into a new product line, or in order to do something quickly. So sometimes you will need to be able to deliver learning at speed to people, and you will need to be able to evaluate their progress.
But thirdly, there’s something more informal about learning too, and I think you will need a platform where people can informally form what we call the community of practice. Where they can go in, celebrate their knowledge, celebrate their work, showcase their knowledge, enjoy themselves and show what they can do, and access other people doing the same thing.
Find out more by searching the Internet for Work Based Learning, Moodle, Mahara and Mahoodle.