New Approaches to Workplace Learning
Even before the current pandemic, the role of trainers and instructional designers has been changing for quite a while. While there are many factors pushing L&D professionals towards re-thinking their approach, the most pressing is the need to do more with less while also doing it more quickly.
When you combine smaller staffs and decreasing budgets with the explosion of rapidly changing information and navigating a global pandemic, it is clear to see how even the most rapid training development processes can be too slow and insufficient. Many of the ‘old ways’ simply will no longer get the job done.
One approach everyone should consider adopting is curation. There are many benefits and few if any downsides. Think about it. Much of what L&D teams already do is really just a form of curation.
For example, the process of creating a course is virtually the same as the curation process. You start by identifying your goals and doing some analysis of your audience. You identify topics which then leads you to a collection of resources from which you cull the best information to present in the proper context.
“Curation is using your expertise in a field to gather great content around a specific theme and present that content in a way that will educate others,” explains Stephanie Hatch Leishman, former MIT social media strategist, in the MIT Connect blog post “Curated Content About Curated Content.”
Why Curate?
Two key reasons you should consider adding curation to your skillset are:
The shrinking shelf life of knowledge
Scaling organizational learning
Shrinking Shelf Life of Knowledge
First, the pace of change today is faster than ever and the lifespan of skills and information is getting shorter and shorter. The average shelf life of a business competency has dropped from 30 years in 1984 to five years in 2014. To be successful we must learn more things and do it faster.
The figure below offers a brief comparison between courses and curation.
Scaling Organizational Learning
I’m a big proponent of the idea that curation can help organizations increase the amount and speed of learning that takes place. In turn, this makes the organization smarter and more agile. We should be teaching people how to be curators as part of their Personal Knowledge Mastery process.
“Organizations can’t scale learning when only a few people create content for the many to consume,” says Mark Britz, senior manager of programming for the eLearning Guild. “The expectation has to change to where many people create and consume, learning together continuously.”
How to Get Started With Curation
If you can answer these three questions from the perspective of the people you are curating for, you will be heading in the right direction:
What are their goals and pain points?
What information do they want?
What awareness do they need?
I’ve created a curation worksheet to help guide anyone looking to get started with developing their own personal curation process.
Bottom line: Most people are familiar with the feeling of drinking from the fire hose when consuming content online. Great curators are ruthlessly efficient in the way they take in information. The key to their success is setting up a process that maximizes the signal and reduces the noise. For me, Feedly is the foundational piece of the puzzle.
Finally, here are a few additional resources that can help you get started with each step of the process:
Let me know if you have any questions. I’ve been doing this for a long time and have a lot of valuable insights I can share to help you get a head start with your own curation efforts.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: MIKE TAYLOR
With over two decades of real-life, in-the-trenches experience designing and delivering learning experiences, Mike Taylor understands that effective learning isn’t about the latest fad or trendy new tools. Known for his practical, street-savvy style, Mike is a regular and highly-rated speaker at industry events and consults on organizational learning design and technology at Change 4 Growth in Columbus, Ohio. He is also a professor in Franklin University’s Instructional Design and Learning Technology graduate program. Mike holds an MBA degree from Ohio University and a master’s degree in educational technology from San Diego State University.