Organizations in every sector are challenged to meet both organizational and individual learning needs simultaneously, while training time and resources are in tension with organizational and individual time and learning resource investment. This presentation offers an application of connectivist learning theory to address this challenge in a semi-structured approach for workforce and amangement.
Organizations in education, industry, government and virtually evry private and public sector are challenged to simultaneously meet both organizational learning needs and the learning and career learning needs of individulas in ways that motivate and develop workforce and leadership. Said differently, can a single training and development approach be both learner-centric and still meet the organizations workforce development needs, while resolving tensions inherent in the availability and expenditure of time and other individual and organizational resources. This presentation offers an application of connectivist learning theory to address this challenge in a semi-structured approach for workforce and leadership. Connectivism employs a model in which learners form communities of practice aimed at developing and sharing new knowledge across networks of participants. Such networks enable individulas to engage in connected learning, in which each learner first connects to other learners and sources of learning both internal and exernal to the organization; creating, expanding and focusing their personal learning network. Learners then curate information from the network that is relevant to their professional and personal learning objectives. They then create new knowledge from what they have learned and share that new knowledge across the community of practice, giving back to both the organization and other learners. a Connectivist approach supports face-to-face, distributed and hybrid learning environments, while leveraging Web 2.0 technologies. The connectivist approach is also semi-structured in that leadership can direct certain learning areas and topics relavant to organizational needs, while also allowing individulas to explore topics of interest to them from a current or career perspective. Supporting research was conducted with junior and mid-level leadership of a U.S. Army organization, suggesting that the connectivist approach enables leader development, while increasing learner motivation and self-confidence.