‘Methods’ or process innovations in Learning Layers research – Part Two: Reflections on training innovations
In my latest blog I started yet another series of posts on our contributions to the final deliverable of our EU-funded Learning Layers (LL) project. I might be repeating myself but it is worth reflecting, what kind of learning experience we have made with our partners in the Learning Layers Construction pilot. At the end of the journey we are able to highlight what all has contributed to the innovation processes we have been working with. In my previous post I discussed this with focus on the role of accompanying research in a process of multi-channeled research & development (R&D) dialogue. In this post I focus on the role of training interventions in our project experience.
Here I have been working with a similar question (as in my previous blog), how to present our training interventions as a contribution to the innovation process (that we have gone through together with our application partners):
- Can we claim that our training interventions have been based on a pre-designed ‘training method’ that guided the shared learning into good results? Can we present this ‘training method’ as the legacy of our project?
- Or – shall we interpret our training and learning experiences as a more complex process innovation in which we played a part – an active part, but yet only a part of the common story? Shall we present the training interventions as a thread in the story of the R&D dialogue – and as part of the same legacy?
This time I present the answers that we can give by using extracts from our document “Training interventions as capacity-building for digital transformation – Construction pilot”. And here again, I hope that the extracts from the longer report text give a clear idea, what our answer is and why.
Starting point of our training interventions: Need for shared learning to bring co-design work forward
“This document provides insights into the role of training interventions as support for co-design processes and related research & development (R&D) dialogue in the construction pilot. The following developments are highlighted:
- The training interventions were introduced as a process innovation alongside and within the co-design (not as a finalised ‘method’ to be implemented).
- The early Multimedia training activities were introduced as a separate initiative, but gradually they became an important support for refocusing the co-design process.
- The Theme Room training campaign became a ‘whole organisation initiative’ and paved the way to use the Learning Toolbox (LTB) in the apprentice training projects of Bau-ABC in different trades.
- The Theme Room concept was proposed for a longer training campaign with more features. The documentation of the concept and use of materials (in Moodle) makes it possible to customise the approach (including the use of the LTB as a specific theme for training and tool for learning).
In the light of the above the training interventions were introduced firstly as ad hoc measures to support the co-design process. Firstly, they were planned as awareness-raising events with practical tasks to consolidate learning gains. Then, after a short interim period the Bau-ABC trainers prepared a new initiative that aimed to raise the user-competences of the entire training staff to a new level. Looking back, this process can be reconstructed as two phases of training interventions with an interim phase, during which the initiative shifted from the research and technology partners to the application partners.”
Reflections on training interventions: Process innovations alongside co-design and involving all parties
Looking back, it is apparent that the training interventions were not launched on the basis of ready-made method taken from a textbook. Instead, they were introduced as a process innovation that responded to certain challenges in the co-design work. The dynamics of the process innovation can be summarised in the following way:
Firstly, the Multimedia training activities were introduced as a separate initiative – rather loosely linked to the co-design process. Then, thanks to the learning progress of participants, the training results (the start of the blogs, the work with videos) became an important support for the refocused design work. With the Bau-ABC trainers’ own videos on opportunities and challenges for learning they could give impulses for the shaping of the Learning Toolbox.
Secondly, after the early Multimedia training the Bau-ABC trainers wanted to introduce a lightweight follow-up activity with their weekly sessions for informal exchanges. However, they came to the conclusion that such activities do not support their learning sufficiently. Therefore, they proposed the Theme Room training concept and its implementation as a ‘whole organisation initiative’ in Bau-ABC. In this way the trainers’ informal learning was to be strengthened in collaboration with the research partners. This provided a new opportunity to bring the ongoing phase of design activities closer to the trainers’ learning processes.
Thirdly, the Theme Room concept was proposed as flexible training model for open learning processes that were using given learning spaces (‘rooms’) for going through work-oriented learning processes that were shaped as themes. The pace was to be kept flexible and the ‘booking of rooms’ in force until the participants had completed their tasks. Then the rooms could be re-furnished. In this sense the model was designed for continuing and customised learning processes. In the first implementation it was neither possible to introduce the Learning Toolbox nor to make any use of it. However, after the successful pilot testing in Bau-ABC it is possible to make the use of Learning Toolbox a central element of such training and to make using its functionality in a wide range of learning tasks.
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I think this is enough of the training interventions and their role in the whole process. We may not have drawn all the conclusions from this rich experience. And we may not have thought through, how to build upon this experience in the follow-up activities. However, we have made enough experiences to see, how the training interventions nurtured the co-design work and how the Theme Room concept can be enriched with the use of Learning Toolbox. This is clearly ‘social shaping’ (Gestaltung) in practice – both elements are co-shaping each other in a dynamic process. And we need to to take this experience further.
More blogs to come …
