October, 2001
Volume 40 / Number 9
by
Edward Shaw
Despite
all the time and energy that’s been devoted over the last four decades to
improving white-collar productivity, business and industry’s track record has
been dismal. The main reason for this is that corporate leaders have failed to
understand the “three-task reality” of white-collar work. White-collar
workers actually engage in only three or four processes every day: writing,
reading, and conversing (mainly in meetings) and, sometimes, thinking and
planning. The only effective way to improve white-collar productivity is for
white-collar workers to become more efficient
at these tasks. They need to stop spending so much time in ill-planned, poorly
run, poorly prepared, and unnecessary meetings. (They must also learn to write
more readably, and to distribute their written communications only to those who
truly need to read them.) There’s an enormous obstacle, however, to improving
the efficiency of these white-collar processes in most large companies—the
fact that all these processes are collective
processes, which can only be reformed collectively. They can’t be fixed
piecemeal, department by department or area by area; instead, interventions must
be carried out on a companywide basis. And only the company’s CEO has the
power and authority to insist that these kinds of interventions take place.
by
David Jonassen
Problemsolving
is generally regarded as the most important intellectual activity in everyday
and professional contexts. Most people are required and rewarded in their
professional lives for solving problems. Unfortunately, most workers have never
learned how to solve problems either in school or in the workplace, because
educators and trainers focus on content delivery, believing that content
knowledge is prerequisite to problemsolving. Learners are never taught how to
use that content knowledge to solve problems.
This
article describes what problems are and how they vary and includes a typology of
different kinds of problems. An underlying assumption of instructional design is
that different learning outcomes presume different instructional conditions.
Identifying different kinds of problems is a first step toward developing design
models for solving each kind of problem.
Give
Customers What They Meant to Ask For‹Designing Training Systems at
by
Peter R. Hybert
Before
developing training, it needs to be designed. The design process is specifying
and gaining agreement to the solution before making the investment to develop
it. Designing a training and development system (curriculum, program, or event)
is similar to other design processes. Design can be viewed at three levels. At
the system level, the focus is on defining the structure
for the training content, as well as the delivery system(s). At the course or
program level, the focus is on the instructional process. And at the individual
activity level, the focus is on the user
interface. The article describes specific design goals for each level.
Designing
your way to a solution, whichever level you are working at, saves time and cost
in the long run. If you are a training designer or “client,” this is a way
to give customers what they meant to ask for.
by
Judith Stevens and Barbara Ibañez
Many
organizations are searching for effective ways to improve and maximize
performance. Creating partnerships with customers is one way to create excellent
performance that makes your organization’s mission a reality. Why? Customers
offer a wealth of resources to an organization ranging from content expertise to
demanding accountability to the people the organization serves. With nine years
and counting of experience, the Community Support Alliance at New Mexico’s
University Center for Excellence, the Center for Development and Disability, has
defined these three steps to successful partnerships with consumers: Identify
your ultimate customer, Recruit customer partners, and Support customers to
success. Specific strategies to avoid identified pitfalls range from tailoring
recruitment to the customers you want to attract to giving fair pay and
recognition for customer effort. Supported to success, customers can be your
most important partners in assuring excellent performance.
Learning
System Design Considerations in Creating an Online Learning Environment
by
Scott P. Schaffer and Shawn M. Overcast
Design
of learning environments that support synchronous and asynchronous self-paced
interactive learning activities and experiences helps build communities of
practice. Rather than showcase technology, web-based learning environments
should emphasize the design of learning and performance-support activities. A
major focus should be on the identification of key knowledge and work
environment factors that support excellent performance. Primary learning
objectives of such an environment for facilitators of leadership training could
include enhancing content knowledge and problemsolving ability in through a
variety of self-assessment/content mastery practice activities, providing
current learners with a platform to build usable knowledge for current and
future facilitators and leaders through participative interaction, and
supporting storage and retrieval of objective (known facts, theories,
procedures) knowledge and promoting constructed (new) knowledge.
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