Defining Your Learning Philosophy
What is your organization’s learning philosophy? Are you able to clearly explain your approach to your leaders, your business partners, and your learners? These six questions can get you started in defining the key aspects of your learning philosophy. We do this exercise with our clients and invite you to try it for yourself.
To answer some of these questions, you may need to list the examples that come to mind and then see if any patterns emerge. Working through these questions with a team can also be illuminating. You will likely discover that you see things differently, so this is a chance to discuss questions that come up and develop a common viewpoint.
We also find this to be a useful checkpoint for thinking through how COVID-19 has changed learning at your organization. How has your philosophy evolved over the last several months?
The Questions
How would you describe your design approach? What analysis and design techniques are commonly used to develop your programs? What are some clear successes and results you can attribute to these techniques?
Considering the learning opportunities you offer, what are your preferred instructional strategies? Which strategies are the most successful based on your metrics?
How do you use technology to enable learning? Which capabilities within your platforms and other systems are you currently leveraging?
How do you incorporate social learning? What are some examples of social learning in your programs?
How would you describe the learning culture you’re trying to cultivate? What do you believe about performance? How does this align with your organization’s approach to performance?
What is your measurement strategy? What metrics are most important? What does success look like?
The Statement
As a final step, we invite you to sum up your a-ha moments into a learning philosophy statement. Keep it short. Choose the salient points that you feel are defining and unique — leave out the fluff. Your philosophy can also be aspirational. It’s perfectly fine to have aspects that you’re striving to improve or apply more consistently.