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4 principles for Learning & Development:
1 Individualized (but collaborative)
2 Targeted and deliberate (but open)
3 Intertwined with practical experience (but based on first principles)
4 Emotionally relevant (but dry)
Individualized (but collaborative)
Each one of us is a talent. Each one of us has some competencies. Each one of us sees and feels the world in a different way. Each one of us reacts to different stimuli.
Learning & Development activities shall be highly personalized and individualized to ensure maximum benefit. At the same time the learner should not be left alone: to interact and exchange with others in dedicated communities of practice, to learn from each other and to support each other are key enhancing aspects of the development process.
Talent = Individual + Context
Targeted and deliberate (but open)
Each learning and development activity should be focused and targeted. It follows, you need to know where you are, from where you are starting your journey, and where you want to land. You need to measure your status, track your progress towards your goal and have a clear measure of success.
...technology opens up huge opportunities to use the science of learning in new ways. To take advantage of these opportunities, we need to have clear learning outcomes, we need to measure each student’s progress in achieving those outcomes very granularly, and we need to shift to a focus on active learning HBR - Integrating the Science of How We Learn into Education Technology
Do that while keeping the journey open, maintaining fresh eyes for any experience you may encounter, an experience that may enrich your development and make it more memorable.
Intertwined with practical experience (but driven by first principles)
Even the best training without proper follow up, without having the chance of putting into practice what you just learnt is a waste of time, energy and money.
Try to build up your own path starting with the theory and continuing with the practice, intertwining courses, trainings, readings, conferences, discussions and other predominantly theoretical activities with more hands on ones in which you effectively use your newly acquired knowledge thus fortifying it into your brain and mastering it further.
Be aware that in our fast changing world, today’s practical experiences may be old and inadequate by next month: they are not the goal, they are a wonderful mean to better understand the first principles you learnt theoretically, to challenge them, develop them further and to prepare you for future challenges.
In a world where change is the one constant; continuous learning is what keeps you relevant. Interview - The Learning Makeover at Novartis
As skill demands in the workplace continue to evolve quickly, we need greater industry and university interdependency. Where Online Learning Goes Next
Emotionally relevant (but dry)
Make the learning and development activity memorable, make it positively emotional. The learner should get an impression that sticks to their mind, that push them to keep on learning and developing further. The content and the provider of the experience should not be the focus: the focus should be on the learning experience itself, in what each learners get out of it and on how they contextualize and reinterpret it.
... students feel more comfortable in a lecture environment and believe that they are learning more because of the expectations they have for a college learning environment." But, in fact, he said, they're "actually learning more in the environments where they are actively engaged in building knowledge about key concepts. The Dangers of Fluent Lectures