Learning Tech: Community Learning

This is the first session which is not AI focused, and thinks about using a community of dispersed learning communities and bringing them together.

What is community learning? A random group of people with a shared interest coming together to  discuss, chat and learn.

Tom Way from the AA Driving School really has that challenge of a dispersed group of 2000 individual self-employed driving instructors who have the shared interest of the AA driving school. They have structured the dispersed training with internal and external teams who can mentor and provide training.

The challenges that are facing the AA are:

-        Other employment so limited time to focus on this role

-        Transferrable skills but can be from a totally different career

-        Dispersed across the whole of UK

-        Minimal interaction with peers

-        Following their training journey solo

-        Limited feedback and development opportunities 

The business also has some challenges:

-        Small team supporting the trainees

-        Limited budget

So what did they do? There was a key feature of connecting and learning from others and learn as a cohort which provides a supportive network. They have had training mentors (2 mentors to 1 learner) and an online community along with regular points of connection and also added a Community Manager role but interestingly, the instructors wanted to own this and have continued to support each other which is amazing. All of this is complemented with online workshops and events.

Excitingly, the AA is the only driving school which uses virtual reality to support leaner drivers.

The results are showing that this approach has worked as LMS engagement has risen from 10K per month to 100K with test rate passes of new instructors rising from 66% to 88% which is fantastic.

So the lessons learnt

-        Avoided using user generated content as it took a lot time to review

-        They didn’t need a community manager role as the community wanted to own this.

Next up is building more video content to bring the internal team to life.

 All of this is highlighting that bringing a dispersed group of people, but who have a shared interest, whether its driving or football can learn and develop as they have that shared interest.

Next up is Nick Baker focusing on community learning at the FA.

We started by seeing a video of Michael, a PlayMaker for the FA, one of the community based football coaches and the scheme is supporting him and he is clearly getting a lot from the programme. The FA has over 170K grassroots many who are volunteers and 6K professional people who are passionate about football and want to support the community. This is everything from coaches, medics to referees.

Again the grassroots people are volunteers, with other commitments and life can get in the way. So the learning needs to be impactful and useful in order to gain traction and get interest.

So the FA focused on understanding their community of learners through data and insight. They made this a strategic priority around social learning and built a learning approach around this to ensure the learning directly impacted the workforce.

The community was demanding learning that could be accessed when it was needed not as previously when learning was on a DVD or from a manual.

The are running with:

- Just in case: The background learning which might include mandatory training or broader support.

- Just in time: Learning which can be assessed for specific challenges as they are experienced.

- Just for me: Learning from peers and connecting to understanding specific challenges that face an individual.

There is a risk though as you can have multiple channels of communication from twitter, YouTube, podcasts etc. The FA have focused the communications where relevant i.e. TikTok, Instagram for instant broader learning supported by the LMS along with podcasts on CoachCast etc. Complimentary is the key word.

So how has this worked?

-        2.8million views

-        270K+ users

-        33K pieces of content

-        108K interactions

All of this is clearly positively impacting the community of learners and all of this has spread via word of mouth, which is very impressive.

A reoccurring point is allowing the learners to own the learning whether that is bringing mentors and learners together and being a community. Don't forget the user in the community with all of this.

Consider how you bring dispersed group of people together. Share some thoughts in the comments.