Why #11: Creates Accountability
Dec 23, 2008 Selling Social Learning, Verbs of Social Learning
photo credit: David Childers
WHY #11:Creates Accountability
Who, in your organization, is in charge of learning?
The answer should be: The learner. In fact, it already is whether we want to admit to it or not. We may say that the training department is in charge of learning, and that is what most people may think, but they are wrong. It is the individual. And that is a huge shift in thinking that will need to happen.
The last, and probably most important characteristic that encompasses all other characteristics is that of Accountability. So many training programs use LMSs to track training initiatives. There may be mandatory and recommended trainings for employees. From this angle the learning seems to be pushed to the learner – as if the learner must be bribed to learn. In reality, they are only being bribed to learn using the organizational learning method.
It is a Pull, not a Push method from the side of the learner. If employees want to learn they need to go find the learning. Parenthetically, if they use RSS, it is pushed to them, but they initiate it . They command the learning.
But within social learning, the learner takes command of learning. It is up to them to learn or to stay ignorant – to stay relevant or become obsolete. They can participate, or close themselves off from the learning. This, in the end, is something that we cannot take away from each person. But social learning does allow the learner to take more accountability and direction in their learning and how they give back to those that might learn from them.
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December 24th, 2008 at 6:30 am
Kia ora and seasons greetings!
I’ve been in teaching too many years to believe that teaching is a con game. The learning that takes place happens in the learner because the learner wants it to happen.
Teachers like to believe that learners can be conned into this state of mind. It is the next stage after teachers have convinced themselves that the art of teaching doesn’t work unless the learner wants it to.
The whole of teaching professionalism holds store in the belief that the teacher is in control of the learning. Society and its educational authorities charge teachers with that responsibility. But they are quite wrong to do this, and it is a miscarriage of justice to hold teachers responsible
You are right. It’s the learner who is really responsible – almost entirely – for the learning that takes place. After all, who gets the prizes for academic achievement? Not the teachers, and quite rightly so.
Best wishes
from Middle-earth