Adult Learning Archives - The Training Doctor

Who “Gets” Leadership Development?

Posted at h in Adult Learning, Employee / Workforce Development, Leadership, The Business of Training, Thinking + Brain Rules

Why Not Everyone? A question we are frequently asked - and frequently wrestle with in conjunction with new clients is - who "gets" to attend thinking skills / leadership development? It's a tough question to answer because on the one hand, the logical answer is "everyone." Why wouldn't...

Got 5 minutes for professional development? Here are 3 resources.

Posted at h in Adult Learning, Online Learning

Would you like to be in charge of your own professional development rather than waiting for a formal training process to be offered (and without even having to sign up for one!). Here are 3 easy, free, and GREAT ideas: Your local library (radical, right?) If you...

Ways to Ensure Reading Comprehension

Posted at h in Adult Learning, Thinking + Brain Rules

Reading is probably the #1 thinking skill, yet it has become a lost art. The ability to read and comprehend is so important to getting ahead in the business world, yet we never receive any formal training in it. If you can read – and comprehend...

Twelve Weeks to Becoming the Manager of the Most Kick-ass Department in Your Company

Posted at h in Adult Learning, Employee / Workforce Development, Facilitation, Leadership

As organization development consultants we are often tasked with creating activities or events that "move an organization forward." Clients ask us to solve problems related to communication, teamwork, poor workmanship, lack of commitment or accountability, and many other issues which stymie output and frustrate individuals. Every...

Are You A Slow Thinker? Good for you!

Posted at h in Adult Learning, Employee / Workforce Development, Thinking + Brain Rules

First, a quick tutorial on Fast and Slow thinking – or System 1 and System 2 Thinking as popularized by Nobel Prize winner Danny Kahneman - in case you are not familiar. Fast / System 1 Thinking System 1 thinking can be thought of as our...

It Ain’t Learning if it’s Microlearning

Posted at h in Adult Learning, Employee / Workforce Development, Online Learning

Microlearning is the short-term, focused delivery of content or involvement in an activity. Lately I’ve seen a lot of chatter about best practices for “microlearning.” By most standards microlearning should be less than six minutes and often the suggestion is that it is no more than...

Silo’d Learning is Limiting Workplace Learning Potential

Posted at h in Adult Learning, Employee / Workforce Development

For years, possibly decades, we have helped people develop expertise around specific jobs, or how to do their current job better. We've kept them learning "up" a topical trajectory, much like a silo. What was often neglected was the need to expand knowledge, skills, and...

Better Learning Through Interleaving

Posted at h in Adult Learning, Employee / Workforce Development, Facilitation, Instructional Design, Thinking + Brain Rules

Interleaving is a largely unheard of technique – outside of neuroscience - which will catapult your learning and training outcomes. The technique has been studied since the late 1990’s but not outside of academia. Still, learning and incorporating the technique will make your training offerings...

Why Knowledge Management is NOT the Answer

Posted at h in Adult Learning, Employee / Workforce Development, The Business of Training

According to Wikipedia, Knowledge management (KM) is the process of creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organization. At first-read this sounds like a great idea, and many organizations have spent many millions of dollars in the last 20 years to collect and catalog the knowledge their employees possess, in order to "preserve" it and share it. There is one glaring problem with this approach - knowing what you know and knowing how you arrived at the answer are worlds apart. As the illustration at left shows us, knowledge is at the lowest level of learning. Indeed it is the foundation upon which all learning, skill and ability is built, but having knowledge alone is not enough.

Invest in Critical Thinking = HUGE ROI

Posted at h in Adult Learning, Employee / Workforce Development, The Business of Training, Thinking + Brain Rules

Some organizations still believe training is a cost-center rather than a money maker. But the right training, applied at the right time, can have exponential returns! According to this short report on Critical Thinking, published by Pearson in 2013, The return on investment for critical thinking tends...