How Do You Define the Quality of the Learning Experience For Your Apprentices?
What is a Quality Learning Experience?
It’s a really tough question; one that has been perplexing me for some months now, so I did some digging…starting with my own learning experiences. As someone who has been in the funded-learning sector for years, with a background in corporate training, I have devised and delivered hundreds of training interventions, as well as attended multiple training courses myself. If I had to define the phrase?‘learning experience’ then it would go something like?“a single or series of planned (or unplanned) events that contribute towards the acceleration of knowledge acquisition and understanding which result in improved capability and behavioural change, as well as further intrigue and curiosity to know more.”?A lengthy definition I know, which doesn’t even scrape the surface, so allow me to explain somewhat further.
A learning experience is a complex concept – a five minute video could change your world much more powerfully than a five month course – and there is no limit to the size, shape and scale of learning experiences.?However, some will change you forever and others barely move the needle.?It has become increasingly important to align opportunities for learning within the ‘real-time’ environment, i.e. within life. Experiences that enable us to learn, grow and adapt towards an improving version of ourselves is the desired outcome.?If the ‘developed-self’ is much more productive, innovative, initiated and independent than the former self then the learning experience surely has worked?
That works for me personally, but I am not sure it works for our (Apprenticeships Training) sector. Apprenticeship training is delivered against a complex background of regulation and compliance which can take all the creativity out of the design of any training programme.?Providers end up grappling with the number of hours of training delivered, the number of assessments undertaken, the grades achieved and onward travel to other courses or jobs post completion, as examples. Where is the fun in that? Where is the growth, where is the challenge and where are the benefits from these learning experiences?
Successful learning experiences
According to the website?eLearningIndustry.com,?“successful learning experiences should increase skills and competencies in employees and teams, as well as contribute to an organisational learning culture, all while increasing revenue and decreasing costs.”?I would love for this to be the case for every apprentice and apprenticeship training programme; for them to be authentic learning experiences that augment and enrich who we are, fuel our passions and our self-development/discovery journey, whilst adding value to UK plc; however in reality very few programmes deliver such an exhilarating experience.
The key question is how do you define a quality learning experience within the confines of the rules and regulations??Given that the performance metrics must be collated and reported upon, what are your quality-defining metrics??Do you measure if learner attitudes have changed; how their thinking patterns have developed and horizons have expanded? Do you ask learners what difference the learning has made to them and what they can do (or show) now that they couldn’t do before??How do you track change in personality and characteristics or attitudes towards work, learning and sharing, alongside delivery of the learning programme?
It’s a tall order and here we are still measuring quality of learning through V.A.S.R.C.?Through what?
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V.A.R.S.C:
Within the context of qualification delivery, I can understand the need for standardisation of practice through the adoption and application of this quality assurance methodology.?However, I am convinced that businesses will always want to develop more entrepreneurial and agile employees via apprenticeship programmes that are transformative learning experiences and so forward-thinking apprenticeship training providers should focus on achieving this in order to set themselves apart from competitors.
A personal experience
Speaking as a learner; one of the best learning experiences I’ve ever had academically, professionally and personally was a?part-time Masters Degree – very similar in its delivery to a Degree Apprenticeship course – back in 2007. I grew more from that learning experience, retained more knowledge and applied more of myself than anytime before then; the?various accolades awarded to me at the end of the course weren’t as valuable as the learning experience and my takeaways from those two years.?So what made the difference?
There is no doubt that, for me, the combination of the learning programme, the learning institution and workplace environment enabled and facilitated the transfer of learning, whilst delivering an outstanding learning experience.?That’s multiple stars which need to be aligned in order to achieve that ‘sweet spot’ – however with apprenticeship training providers already having these key ingredients in place, perhaps they should be devoting much more time to defining or redefining what a quality learning experience means for their apprenticeship training programmes…
Bally xx
[A copy of this article is available at https://lxgroup.ltd/quality-learning-experience/ - and check our website for information on how we improve the quality of management and delivery of Apprentcieship training programmes].