Merits of Collaborative Learning
In
collaborative learning two or more people learn or attempt to learn something
together. In most organizations where work is distributed and executed by
teams, collaborative learning can have a great impact. Collaborative learning
encourages everyone to work within a team and efforts are distributed across
the team. Since it involves independent learning, it makes team-members
self-dependent and at the same time, boosts team spirit. The shared learning
gives learners an opportunity to engage in discussion, take responsibility for
their own learning, and thus become critical thinkers. Apart from achieving
higher levels of thought, collaborative learning also helps trigger creative
thinking because people are not simply taking in new information or ideas;
instead they are creating something new with the information and ideas. In
functions such as Marketing, Sales and Advertising, collaborative learning can
help generate many options as part of problem solving through creative thinking
and group participation.
Why Learning Design is important
Most
organizations carry out training programmes for its employees but very few
organizations can actually keep their employees engaged and help them develop
interest in learning. Very often it is seen that half of the people don’t
complete it. Even if they do, they rarely develop the kind of interest it
requires for one to bring about changes within the organization and create an
impact. Hence it is important to design
trainings in a way so as to enhance the overall experience and have the
employees generate some sort of interest. More than that, an enjoyable learning
experience helps people retain what they have learned and contributes to
improved performance. And that is exactly what organizations want from its employees.
Learning
design is what brings order to information chaos and presents essential
components of the learning material; ensuring trainers don’t give their
audience jumbled messages, in a willy-nilly fashion. It tailors content to the
psychological and affective needs of the audience, optimising the effectiveness
of that content in producing learning experiences. Instructional design is the
broad area that caters to such needs of the audience. Instructional Design
models may be thought of as frameworks for developing modules or lessons that
can enhance learning and engage learners so that they can learn faster and gain
deeper understanding of modules.
Upside of Gamification
One
of the most popular technology trends is Gamification. Gamification refers to
providing a game-like experience to applications. It is just a means to keep
the user engaged in a game like experience that he has to strive to win, be it
with the scoring system, leader board and badges to motivate people to do
things that they would otherwise be unmotivated about. Not only does it help
improve performance by keeping the user engaged in a life-like scenario where
he is competing with his colleagues but being the fun exercise it is, it also
helps in a great way to retain learning over a period of time. Most importantly, it doesn’t get boring for
employees to take a test in the form of a gaming exercise. After a certain age,
taking tests become very boring. However, with this gaming experience, people
will be interested in playing through the entire game. And that is something
hard to achieve otherwise.
Collaborative Learning, Learning Design & Gamification: how can these three things when combined together provide for better learning of the workforce and future of global organizations?
In
case of individual or personalized trainings, the three won’t work together.
However, collaborative learning especially for those that need to work in
groups can work wonders for them, if and when coupled with Learning Design and
Gamification. In any organization there is always a high probability of
internal trainings being conducted by an external trainer which in turn is an
expensive proposition. Instead it is always cost-efficient and more interesting
if such trainings and consequent quizzes take place in a Gamification platform
where people have a choice to engage with each other on a common gaming
platform. This engagement with colleagues within a virtual environment can
further lead to boosting the morale of a team where every single person learns
and plays collectively for his own team.
When
a specially designed training module is integrated into the gaming platform, it
draws attention of its audience for a much longer duration than simple
training. Add to it the fact that the training content has not been prepared by
an ordinary trainer but by an Instructional Designer who has a lot of ideas on
how to make learning and practice much easier. Not only is it a good practice from a learner’s perspective, it also
opens up a lot of possibilities for instructional designers and companies
working in the Gamification industry in times to come. With constant
communication and feedback, knowledge transfer and experience sharing sessions
between the technology and instructional design teams, it opens up wide
opportunities for greater innovation. It not only helps us progress as an
organization but also opens up many doors for better jobs in these domains with
time. Integrating such possibilities makes it easier for both technical and
learning design teams to work in harmony with each other and also opens up for
vast exposure in both areas, which is good for their personal growth and
learning.
Looking
beyond trainings and assessments, the Learning Design team has to study aspects
of human behaviour like psychology, group and cooperative processes and
behaviour etc. Such knowledge when passed on to HR functions can lead to
effective knowledge sharing within organizations. The HR is constantly on the
lookout for improving its processes. Since one of the primary duties of the HR
is Employee Engagement, it can work well for the HR to accomplish its objective
of engaging employees over a Gamification platform to train, gain feedback,
keep employees engaged with each other or to just have fun at work!
Often
organizations have communication specialists who train employees on effective
communication skills, vocabulary building and appropriate usage of language.
Gamification can greatly help in this cause by introducing people to games such
as Hangman, scrabble etc. to help build their vocabulary and improve on their
communication skills. Apart from such uses, it also helps develop interest in
topics such as communication which are otherwise hard to teach.
Apart
from this, it is always considered a little difficult to persuade and engage a
team into working on something interesting such as learning, taking a test,
giving feedback etc. after office hours. But with the concept of Gamification,
collaborative learning and learning design, it has become easier for companies
to engage their employees in trying out games that can be shared over social
media networks such as Facebook or hosted over public space on the Internet
even beyond routine office hours. And being the fun concept that it is,
employees never really get bogged down by such work. It becomes an enjoyable
experience even beyond office hours.
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