3 Lessons: Learning Beyond the Education Sector

Lifelong learners face many challenges, there is always more to learn and rarely enough “time and space” to do so. As a provider of professional learning, I find that it is easy to put my head down and immerse myself in designing and facilitating learning, building partnerships, and developing plans to sustain positive movement alongside school and district leaders. Taking a step back each year to pause, reflect, and set a course for my personal and professional growth is an essential strategy to mitigate time slipping away as I focus on designing learning experiences for others. Successfully implementing this strategy of stepping back requires intention, which is why in late August at Leading EDge, while schools are kicking off first days and getting to know new staff and students, we retreat to an offsite location to reflect and focus.  From this retreat, we walk away with goals for Leading EDge Learning as an organization and professional learning goals for emerging research in the world of education to ensure that we can serve our partners with the most up to date, evidence based practices. This year we added stretch goals that would push us beyond our routine learning opportunities, which included expanding our learning to explore international successes and seeking out emerging practices for learning and development from non-education sectors. 

Early December came quickly and off I went to Orlando for the Learning 2023 conference. The conference is hosted by The Learning Guild, a member based organization serving learning and development leaders across myriad sectors. I arrived excited for a multi-sector experience on a scale larger than the community of colleagues I developed while earning my MBA. My anticipation reminded me that it had been too long since I poked my head outside of the education world. My intention in joining was to seek out similarities and differences when comparing learning in outside sectors to my world of preK-12. The goal was to learn through examining approaches with curiosity, pushing myself to observe familiar content with a beginner’s mind and “new to me content” with conscious academic critique. The week passed quickly, with quick stops at Disney Springs in the evening to grab Christmas gifts, lots of new colleagues, and some very deep conversations. As an introvert, I was exhausted (a great reminder of the tax learners in my sessions can experience) and pleased to walk away with 3 major takeaways; One protocol, Many Hats, Learning Must Also be Business, & Same Essentials, Different Sectors.

One Protocol, Many Hats 

Protocols, protocols, protocols. Instructional designers rely on protocols, the way plants rely on sunlight. Everyone uses them and everyone has their favorites. Sharing your go to’s is almost a religion for this community. I expected to walk away with a ton of new protocols gathered in my trusty conference notebook and I did. The unexpected was the unique applications that I learned for protocols that I had been using for years. Many times across the week, I would see a familiar protocol “name” on a slide and be pleasantly surprised to participate in the process in an unexpected way.  Simple 3, 2, 1 protocols were given new life through the lens and personality of the designer presenting the session. In addition, I learned a few new favorites too. As an introvert, who is also a naturally shy person, I am always seeking new ways to allow less vocal learners to contribute voice to the learning.  My favorite that I experienced as a learner was a 1, 2, 4, all format. 1- write your thoughts in your notebook, 2 - share with your shoulder partner, 4 - pair up with another set of partners, all- 1 person of the 4 shares out. Protocols, simple, beautiful, processing, learning. 

Learning Must Also be Business

Learning and Development is the “business” all attendees were in, but learning and development is always a portion of a larger world. While our worlds were unimaginably varied, I work with teachers, school leaders, etc. and was attending with others who were training oncologists; we shared the common challenge of influencing the “clients” we serve. The familiar story resonated across hallway conversation and session descriptions and discussions.  It goes something like this, “They came to me asking for a 1-day training that would change… insert key function of the business… this behavior across the whole organization.” Followed by, “They did not have any more time to give for the staff to be trained.” This story resonates with me all the way back to my days teaching high school mathematics, staring down a pacing guide that disregarded both the current level of understanding of the actual students in my classroom & all of my training, knowledge, and experience in teaching and learning.  

While I would love to say the lesson is that everyone who is not in learning and development just doesn’t get it, the academic critique lens pushed me to evaluate how I contribute to this pervasive phenomenon. This mindset shift led to many useful conversations steering me and many of my new colleagues to explore a new root cause for this disconnect. Where did we land, we feel that both sides are often laser focused on their “job to be done” and not spending enough time working together to understand the larger “business purpose”, the context in which the behavior will need to shift, why, and what it will take in real practice to make the change sustained, ultimately becoming “the way things are done here”. While many in the world of education don’t love the word “business purpose”, if we shift that language to eduspeak it is akin to the vision for teaching and learning, aka what we are trying to accomplish or foster. In order to accomplish this systemic and sustainable change, we must work in seamless partnership with the participants in learning and those that give and receive the handoffs in their organization, reaching across formal titles and departments to link the learning and change across the system.

Same Essentials, Different Sectors

Fortunately, academic critique can also lead to affirmation of practice.  While I experienced a lot of new ideas and approaches, I also found many tried and true, evidence-based practices in the preK-12 learning and development world are effective across myriad sectors. Many of the sessions, topics, and discussions explored the importance of building relationships, having realistic expectations for the time learning and change require, and how follow up coaching and/or mentorship are essential to fostering & sustaining new practices. From these old familiar strategies, I was able to revisit practices that I unintentionally let languish and also to garner new strategies and structures for flexible implementation based on varied constraints. Not surprisingly, all sectors have ever changing constraints which require endless creativity.

Looking back at my foray beyond the education sector, I am renewed in my passion for lifelong learning and also encouraged by the community of learners seeking best practices beyond the fences of their world. Together, we change the world for the better each day.