Empowered Learning
Learning and Development is an ever-evolving field of studies, driven and guided by its audience and their demographic. I am sharing with you the concept of “Empowered Learning” wherein the trainer creates an environment of self-learning and development, a tool to drive engagement which as an end result aids learning and gives its participants immediate gratification. This mechanism of “Empowered Learning” is ideal when you are facing a demographic with varying aptitudes and learning styles.
To create “Empowered Learning” we must first create an enabling environment wherein information, guidance and subject knowledge are readily available and easily accessible to all participants. The subject knowledge can be in the form of online knowledge portals, print content, EDM communications, etc. but must be accompanied by knowledgeable mentors, guides and trainers.
Once you have created such an environment with an adequate support structure, now comes time for the engagement. There are a plethora of engagement activities that can be devised (also readily available), however one must keep in mind that the activity must not only be engaging but also empowering. The goal is to have the participants create something tangible which can be used by you or the organization. What this does is that it creates a sense of ownership and pride in the task, and upon its completion creates a sense of gratification; a reward stimuli that enforces the behaviour. Through self-learning, the participant learns at his own pace with help from the collective and contributes to his own strengths while learning from the strengths of others. Information intake and efficacy increases as the information is absorbed intrinsically rather than forced externally.
Demonstrating this model of learning, is a program we ran called “Roleplay Contest”, the contest was run across more than 280 stores all across India, covering a workforce in access of 500+ employees. Regionally, mentors were identified from the store level all the way up to the head office L&D Team. The participants were given 5 topics to choose from to create roleplay training videos; for which the content was made readily available through the mentors and trainers. The reason for giving choices was so that the participants felt engaged and a sense of ownership for the topic that they choose to enact. Next, we laid out the expectations and outcomes that were desired from their end. We believe that 'clear and simple' is the way to go. Creating a cumbersome and complicated process or being ambiguous about expectations hampers the learning process. Finally, the top winner's videos were shared as training content for all employees.
Through this activity, we received a large number of videos which underwent a selection process. The videos that didn’t make the cut were analyzed and constructive feedback was given to the participants and their efforts were recognized. Out of all the videos, the best video form each region was selected and the content is currently being utilized for training. The winners of this exercise were rewarded with cash prize and certificates of achievement.
Such activities facilitate learning that transcends a classroom and brings it to the shop floor where it no longer is mundane, but rather new and exciting. This is only one example of an “Empowered Learning” mechanism. As long as one keeps in mind the fundamentals of Environment, Engagement, Empowerment and Gratification, you can create your own “Empowered Learning” program.
