Emerging Learning Approaches

Back in a classroom at HSBC-HDPI, Banjara Hills I first encountered what remained a passion for the rest of my career - Learning or Training as it used to be called in those days. We had Christina Vijaykumar, Swati Ghosh, and Kavita Rao, who trained us on a high voice process so effectively that even today I follow some of the insights that they shared during training.

Post-training and say after 2.5years, I moved to the training department as a process trainer, and thus a beautiful journey kick-started. The effectiveness of any training is the impact it creates on the participants, and Customer Telephone Services - CTS-Training was such a well laid out structured curriculum that was designed using ID principals/models.

One of the most enjoyable & insightful moments was spending time with one of the best innovative & strategic learning professionals that I ever worked with - Prasad Chavali. He now heads Parexel as Director Learning and Development, APAC. His team activity strategic game - Jumanji was one of the popular & innovative team bonding activity for which he received a lot of compliments from senior management. Prasad and I continued our learning journeys in different companies but I admire his insights, innovation, strategic thinking & leadership in the field of Learning and Development.

While ADDIE was the primary model and Kirkpatrick level 1 was the evaluation that we used then, my learning led to the discovery of a lot of other ID models as I continued my journey as a transition trainer, I along with Vineet, Indrani & Meclina were selected to transition a high voice process Mortgage Helpdesk from Sheffield, UK. This is where I experienced ground zero, until in the previous process I was considered an SME having worked in the process over 3 years, this transition kick-started my learning right from zero, four of us along with Jaff Bhai ensured the process went BAU in record time.

I then moved on to my next role as Learning Manager for South Asia, HSBC, it was at the central L&D team that I had my exposure to learning project management. I worked with Appu (Aparajit Varkey, now VP, HSBC) initially and then with Aarti Kaushal (now, Global Learning & People Development Technology Lead, Syngenta) under the leadership of Gurpreet Singh. We worked on a Learning Transformation Program in GR SD aimed at rebranding Learning with the launch of Business School, New LMS, Learning Content Management System, DDD(Design, Delivery & Deployment), Content Migration, LAO(Learning, Admin & Operations) workstreams.

I moved to Global Technology at HSBC, known as GLTi. I worked as a senior trainer and worked with Radhika, Hoofi, Sekhar Tatavarti, Bharat Joshi & Naresh Peshwani. My exposure here was into conducting soft-skills workshops such as Working together, Business etiquette, Time Management, Cross-cultural sensitization, Negotiation skills, Telephone etiquette, Engaging customers effectively etc to the software professionals at GLTi.

I then moved on to Wells Fargo as a Learning consultant and then as a Talent and Learning Manager, learnt a lot under the able guidance of Pramod Chandrasekhar, Praveen Pantula, Suresh Vasiraju, Santosh Cherian & Girish Kumar. I still remember Santosh's way of creating a 3-year learning strategy and the way he moderated the session was a lesson and an art in facilitation - Just Fab!

With this background when I ventured into my own Learning consultancy, Sai Acuity, the real learning began:) Real since I was and I am on my own and had to advise/consult clients on their learning needs/strategy requirements. This led to a study in terms of what exactly is learning, how people learn, what motivates them to learn, what are the best ID models that work & what are the latest developments in the field of learning.

As I see it - the movement of Learning is toward Learning Sciences - A scientific study of learning looking at how learning works and also what facilitates and hinders learning & provides a basis for designing instruction. Our brains are the core organs of learning. We perceive the world, act, observe the outcomes, and reflect. Studying learning comes from studying the mind. Even in the field of psychology, there are movements that include Behaviorist, Cognitive & Constructivist.

The question, therefore, arises "Why should we understand the underlying cognitive mechanisms, the artifacts, and limitations of our mental architecture and the associated elements?" Clark Quinn in his book "Learning Science for Instructional Designers: from Cognition to Application" beautifully answers "It's a professional imperative, ID is applied learning science. Just as you expect your doctor and financial adviser to be applying the latest outcomes, so too should you feel such an obligation when designing learning experiences."

New understandings in learning science drive the need to revise our approaches, I Highly recommend the learning community to upskill themselves before you start to work on your next learning req!

The other movement in Learning that I recently garnered was "Evidence Informed Learning Experience Design". Mirjam Neelan & Paul Kirschner literally urge us to use the evidence available to make sure we move beyond opinions and intuition in their fantastic book. Here I learned how to design learning experiences based on research from learning sciences and how to effectively spend time, money & effort based on informed decisions and evidence-informed practice. They look at the state of the learning profession, debunk learning myths, share nuanced design tools, techniques & ingredients, and put the learner in the driver's seat using self-directed and self-regulated learning.

For the Learning community, my final recommendation is to follow the below valuable proponents of the learning sciences in order to keep ourselves updated and revise our approaches accordingly. These senior learning professionals write blog posts, and articles, present via webinars, conferences, and keynotes.

Will Thalheimer?

Patti Shank

Ruth Clark

Julie Dirksen

Michael Allen

Jane Bozarth

Donald Clark

Guy Wallace

Mirjam Neelen & Paul Kirschner

Connie Malamed

Karl Kapp

Clark Quinn