In recent months, the feeling that Corona is finally over has intensified. Many continuing education offers are returning to in-person formats, while some remain digital. But what are we actually learning from the past few years, and can we perhaps even benefit from this experience? A fitting question regarding the future of continuing education comes from the current mmb Trendmonitor – and we would like to discuss it with you in this article:
Does Corona force learners to take more personal responsibility?
In the current edition of the trend study mmb Learning-Delphi 2021/2022, precisely this question arose as a conclusion of this year's study results. After all, the results show that informal learning formats, in particular, are gaining in importance. But can this question even be answered so easily? I would at least like to try.
Disclaimer: We are aware that this question is very general and there is no SINGLE answer. Therefore, as the author of this article, I exchanged views with other Blinkies beforehand. We would also be happy to hear your perspective – feel free to share it in the comments! 😊
Recap of the past Corona years: How has continuing education changed?
To get to the bottom of the question above, let's take a quick little trip back in time: In spring 2020, in the course of the first lockdown, many people had to radically rethink and work and learn digitally from one moment to the next. The elimination of in-person attendance and the shift to digital learning worked faster in some areas and worse in others. Many educators developed creative solutions in a very short time.
Since the beginning of 2022, the feeling that “Corona is finally over” has been spreading more and more. Many managers are bringing employees back to the office, and more time is being allocated for continuing education again – in some cases also in person. Is everything “back to normal”? In other areas, digital learning remains and can be understood as an additional benefit to continuing education opportunities.
What do we learn from this? Digital learning works! And yet, there is no SINGLE secret recipe for successful continuing education measures.
Back to the starting question: Does Corona force us to take more personal responsibility when learning?
In a discussion with my colleague Corinna, we quickly came to the conclusion: The question of learners' personal responsibility cannot be answered so easily and brings at least 3 other questions with it:
1. What can learning look like?
What does learning actually mean? For many, learning in a work context is closely linked to traditional training in a seminar room. This contradicts the thesis of increasing personal responsibility. After all, learning in this traditional form is relatively one-sided: Learners listen to a trainer or an instructor and, at best, take away something for themselves.
But learning does not always have to be a large-scale training course, such as those that could not take place during the strict Corona lockdown. Learning can also happen in small bites or on demand – at the exact moment when knowledge is needed. And here is an important catch: This type of learning is often not perceived as learning at all.
2. What does personal responsibility mean?
The question of personal responsibility also remains complex. On the one hand, many employees working from home were forced to take care of the learning process themselves – if time and budgets were available at all. Especially in the early stages of the pandemic, continuing education took place predominantly digitally, in many cases asynchronously.
This results in new opportunities and tasks for the participants, which were less prominent before: Learners must make time for themselves to work on their professional development. They need a suitable place to study and have to take care of the technology themselves. In addition, they must bring a certain level of discipline to meet these framework conditions.
3. How much coercion is actually involved?
However, the aspect of personal responsibility only works if learners are granted certain freedoms. After all, self-directed learning does not get any better if employees are externally managed by superiors in terms of time. What is meant by that? Whether in the office or working from home: If managers still determine when which measure seems relevant enough, learners have no responsibility for their own learning process.
The pandemic as a continuing education push?
Corona doesn't necessarily force learners to take more personal responsibility. Corona makes the necessity of personal responsibility visible.
With this thought from my colleague Corinna, I would like to introduce another aspect of this complex question: Many participants only realized through digital learning how much work actually goes into the training they attended. Before the pandemic, it was much easier to attend an in-person event, spend a day in a seminar room, and simply continue with everyday life as usual after the measure ended.
In digital learning, it's different: Often you have to engage more consciously with content and cannot escape it as easily. This makes the learning goal easier to recognize than in person. Digitally, the learning process also usually stretches over a longer period of time.
Particularly with asynchronous training measures, the learners are challenged. When trainers and those responsible for training do not just deliver content, but link it with concrete tasks (e.g., in the form of quizzes), learners are forced to not only consume content but also process it.
Our credo: Throw black-and-white thinking overboard!
What is often forgotten: Digital learning is just as diverse as an in-person seminar. The Corona pandemic can be understood as a booster here as well; after all, there are also blended learning formats within digital learning. Not every online course has to take place asynchronously; here too, webinars are suitable for some topics to transfer the live character from in-person attendance into a digital learning format. From our point of view, it is advisable to pick up on the newly learned personal responsibility of many participants and perhaps even bring a completely new form of learning to life.
The mmb Trendmonitor also has a fitting suggestion for the future of learning here:
⅔ digital learning in the form of informal learning and other virtual formats, and ⅓ in-person learning for application-oriented content.
These ratios can of course be customized. In principle, however, the consciously chosen mix of different formats maintains the independence and awareness of the learners.
Are you currently planning your next blended learning or e-learning? Then this tabular overview will help you choose the media for your online course: Find the media mix for YOUR e-learning [Table]
How trainers and HR professionals can support the learning process
When people learn digitally and independently, success often depends on their own motivation. To ensure you engage all participants equally, concrete deadlines are a good tool. After all, they would have had to be present at a specific time in person or in a webinar as well. In digital learning, it is all the more important to schedule fixed study times so that learners can plan enough time. Only when a training course is mandatory and this relevance is also tangible will all learners participate conscientiously.
Another motivator can be an visually appealing presentation: When you can look forward not only to the content but also to the overall design, learning happens almost by itself.
How you can spice up your courses visually has already been shared with you in this article using the example of our blink.it platform: In 4 steps from a boring online course to a successful highlight
As is so often the case, technology can throw a wrench in the works, and many participants are annoyed and deterred even before the training begins. It doesn't have to be that way! Relieve learners of all possible fears from the start: Communicate transparently about the process, record screencasts and explanatory videos for the technical setup, and rely on a simple and intuitive tool. Furthermore, both the learners and you as the training manager need a basic learning culture to firmly integrate learning into everyday work.
And what is our conclusion now?
First of all: Great that you made it this far and took note of my and our thoughts on the initial question. But what about the increasing personal responsibility due to Corona? As mentioned at the beginning: There are different views. We think that the learned personal responsibility of learners can be seen as an advantage, and both trainers and participants can build on it.
You can support the personal responsibility of your learners as follows:
Set concrete deadlines
Schedule sufficient learning times
Convey the relevance of the training
Design online content to be visually appealing as well
Communicate transparently about the process of the training
What do you think? How will the future of continuing education develop and what role do the learners themselves play? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments – we are curious!
