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Balancing education- 360 training


What does it mean to create effective, useful, and timely skills?


Skills that can be applied, but also done so within a context that combines traditional education, product specific skills, and skills applicable to a workplace.


How we teach and train today

If we look at education and training today, it seems as if we have silos of methods that do not interact as much as they should. Each "style" of training has its advantages and disadvantages, but we often see them ingrained and isolated from other methods - which I believe is a wasted opportunity.


Traditional schooling

Academic institutions have been slow to change. As much as there is talk of 21st Century Skills and building curriculum that help address the changes in society and the world - this promise may not be as forthcoming as we would like.


We are almost a quarter of the way into the 21st Century and we still see too much of the curriculum at traditional schools delivered as separate courses comprised of highly structured outcomes and objectives. With little cross-pollination between courses - or even elements of the same course.


This structure creates consistency - but in a world that is anything but consistent. We are in an ever more dynamic environment and the slow cycle times around curriculum creation and delivery (often due to slow government approval systems) is detrimental to rapid adaptation.


Benefits
Challenges

Structured

Out of Date

Predictable

Stagnant - Slow to change

Familiar

Disconnected from workplace

Easier to Administer

Unengaging - routine

Traditional

Slow to adapt


vendor provided training

This varies by industry, but for many technical products such as software, hardware, or equipment - the vendors of these tools creates more than just manuals. Many companies now have entire divisions dedicated to creating learning content that helps their customers in leaning and using their solutions.


In the case of many of these companies, they may also provide Certification Programs that allow individuals to prove their skills on the product - allowing them to prove their knowledge and achieve certification on new technologies almost as soon as they are released.


Nobody know a product better than the people that create it - so this type of training often has insight into the content that is unique and advanced. The courses built on this knowledge can be very expensive to develop - especially those with hands-on and labs. However, this cost is used to help the product gain traction into the marketplace and often results in economies of scale for those taking the course. A learning product may cost tens or hundred of thousands to create, but can then be updated and shared across many customers.


Benefits
Challenges

Fast time to skill

Inconsistent Quality

Focused

Narrow (to Vendor products)

Relevant to Industry

Licensing/Cost can be high

Economies of Scale

Lack of Academic Rigor

Industry Demand

Lack of Authentic Assessment/Practice

Self-Paced (any place, any time on-demand)

Lack of guidance

online courses - a special case

Non-traditional skill building has caught-on and we see the similar vendor style curriculum and delivery structure for online courses. Many common online course platforms seek to offer a vendor type of training that provides recency, compressed timeframes, and certification or "badges" demonstrating knowledge. Removing some of the traditional academic structure and focusing on self-driven skill building.


On-The-job training

The number of skills taught while working is something most of us have experienced. The training that "nothing could have prepared you for".


Except, this training does prepare you - for the specific and exact environment in which it takes place. Which is a key strength of it. Learning to work in a job will always require adjustment of prior knowledge to fit the situation at hand.


This just-in-time (JIT) training can take several forms - adjusting prior knowledge, acquiring new knowledge, learning culture and trade practices for a specific workplace. This is also where skills related to personality, work ethic, critical thinking and more come into play.


I've often thought that when industry asks academia to train students in "soft" skills (professional skills), they are really asking for the students to be prepared for integration into a workplace.


The challenge with on-the-job training is that it can be ad hoc and not very formalized. If you have a poor trainer then the results can be a degradation in over-all performance for the organization as a whole. There are absolutely ways to counter this, but they must be acknowledged and managed.


Benefits
Challenges

Immediate Skills

Unstructured (mostly)

Relevant to Environment

Less transferable to new environments

Precise for situation


Immediate Practice Opportunities


How can we design education and training to gain maximum benefit?


In my opinion, there have been many examples of cooperation between TWO aspects of the training I wrote about above:

School

Vendor

Schools can use vendor supplied labs and curriculum. The school can then provide expert educators to guide students. Schools offer students the ability to gain external certifications making them more employable. Vendors benefit by having traditional graduates with skills on their products.

School

Industry

Schools have industry feedback meetings to ensure they are teaching in-demand skills. Workplace Integrated Learning (WIL) provides graduates with more practicum opportunities.

Vendor

Industry

Vendors ensure that their "Channel" is well trained on their most recent products. Industry can use their vendor training and certification to create trust and improve marketing and customer confidence.

360 Training - the power of three


What if we were to combine all three elements of training? Providing an experience that takes the best of all of these aspects and seeks to pull the most benefit and relevancy for our students?


Over the past 25 years, I've had the good fortune to teach in just such an environment! Referred to in my own experience as "Fast-Track" - the programs I've taught have been built around Vendor Curriculum (I am a Microsoft Certified Trainer MCT and a Cisco Academy Instructor CCAI as well as having a Master's of Arts Degree in Learning and Technology).


The key to these programs has been that I've met with Industry to solicit their needs, then researched and found vendor curriculum to meet "most" of those needs, and then added traditional academics to create the 360 training. The programs have stepped outside of each silo just enough to avoid the pitfalls of each, but enough to acquire the benefits.


This has proven to be entirely successful. So long as we ensured balance between these elements - that we don't stray out of balance by focusing too much on one aspect only and keeping our eyes on ensuring we are getting benefits of each style/method of learning.


the new expectations of learners


Over this time, I have seen more places that offer this blended 360 training. Sometimes easily and sometimes with great resistance from those that may be more comfortable with just one or two aspects. The classic example being traditional academic environments that are hesitant to offer vendor curriculum as they fear issues of ownership or changes that are difficult to keep pace with.


Learners are always interested in the 360 learning though. Even if some must be reconditioned. Once learners see the connections between industry, school, and vendor skills - they begin to gain confidence in their ability to know, grow, and show their knowledge and skills.


What are your thoughts?


Are you comfortable learning (and teaching) in an environment that is in constant flux? Are you able to connect your learning and teaching to both industry and the vendors that serve that industry?

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