This Tip describes the five ways the Peer Learning Institute is holding learners accountable for putting their new learning into practice.
“At the end of the day we are accountable to ourselves. Our success is a result of what we do.” Catherine Pulsifer
Holding Learners Accountable
There is a lot of information these days about how to measure the impact of a training program, including:
- Kirkpatrick’s model,
- return on investment and
- return on expectations.
All of this is well and good. But they all depend on the learners’ commitment to using their new learning. They also depend on the learners changing their behavior for better performance. We want to get the learners’ supervisors to reinforce and monitor the application of new learning. However, there is little advice regarding how to instill in the learners themselves a commitment to change.
I’ve written about the Peer Learning Group model. It involves two 90-minute sessions a month apart. During the intersession, we expect the managers to practice their new learning from the first session. We don’t leave this practice time up to the vagaries of fate. Instead, we have developed a method to encourage and ensure application of new learning.
There are five sources of learning reinforcement:
(1) the manager’s own desire to build competence in the specific management area;
(2) peer pressure from the members of the group;
(3) the peer witness who meets weekly with the manager to discuss progress;
(4) microlearning tips sent every week to keep the manager on focus; and
(5) the manager’s supervisor, who can meet with the manager to discuss progress at different points during the practice session and can monitor the manager’s subsequent performance.
My Learning Journey
This is a personal learning log that each manager completes. Before the first session, we ask the manager: “On a scale of 1-10, how do you feel about your competence in the selected management area?” and ”Where would you like your level of competence to be in the next few weeks or months?”
At the end of the first session, we ask the manager to identify a personal learning goal and to explain the actions s/he will take to accomplish the goal. The manager also selects a peer (from the group or someone else) who will be the manager’s witness for his or her learning efforts. The manager will meet with that individual once a week to discuss his or her activities or learning.
During the period of experimentation between Sessions 1 and 2, on a weekly basis the manager identifies what s/he has done in relation to the goal/practice. The manager also affirms that the peer check-in has taken place at the end of each week.
Before the second session, we ask the manager to reflect on happenings during the experimentation phase and what s/he learned from it.
At the end of the second session, the manager makes a 3-sentence declaration on what s/he got out of the program and how it changed his or her behavior as it relates to the topic of discussion. The manager then conducts a final self-assessment: “How do you rate your competence now in the selected management area on a scale of 1-10?” and identifies how s/he will continue to develop skill in the management area.
I firmly believe that we can adapt learning journals that follow this approach to any type of training, whether it be traditional, accelerated learning, elearning or peer learning. It helps to have their supervisors involved. Ultimately, it rests on the learners themselves as to whether or not they will apply their new learning.
How do you reinforce learners’ commitment to change?
May your learning be sweet.
Deborah
