On-the job knowledge sharing: how to train employees to share job knowledge

One of the challenging issues many organizations are facing is to find the best ways to encourage employees share what they have learned on their jobs. Rewarding employees may be one of the techniques used to promote knowledge sharing but there are still psychological barriers preventing employees from sharing knowledge. In many cases, rewarding employees for sharing knowledge ends up in developing the behaviour of hoarding knowledge among employees. Based on a review of existing literature, this article explains how employers can make employees practice knowledge sharing in their daily work activities. The article introduces 12 approaches on how knowledge sharing can be cultivated in the job and train employees to accept that it is their job to share knowledge. Some of the methods discussed include; peer assist, training and mentoring, challenging projects, job description, job rotation, cross training, and sharing sessions. The article also discusses how on-the-job knowledge sharing can promote individual performance among employees. The intention of this article is to provide a framework that helps organizations to choose various methods of knowledge sharing that suit the organization’s needs in order to cultivate sharing of job knowledge and to save the knowledge as an asset

The Learning Edge: Supporting Student Success in a Competency-Based Learning Environment

State by state, our country is revamping our education system to ensure that each and every one of our young people is college and career ready. Over two-thirds of our states have adopted policies that enable credits to be awarded based on proficiency in a subject, rather than the one-size-fits-all seat-time in a classroom. Now states such as Maine and New Hampshire are taking the next step in establishing competency based diplomas in which students are expected to demonstrate that they can apply their skills and knowledge. To ensure high-quality competency education, in 2011 one hundred innovators created a working definition to guide the field. This paper delves into the fourth element of the definition: Students receive timely, differentiated support based on their individual learning needs. Through a series of interviews and site visits, an understanding of how support in a competency-based school differs from traditional approaches emerged. Learning in a competency-based environment means pushing students and adults to the edge of their comfort zone and competence -- the learning edge. Common themes that were drawn from the wide variety of ways schools support students became the basis for the design principles introduced here. It is essential to pause and understand the importance of timely, differentiated support. Our commitment to prepare all of our young people for college and careers demands that we be intentional in designing schools to effectively meet the needs of students of all races, classes, and cultures. It also demands our vigilance in challenging inequity. There is a risk in competency education -- a risk that learning at one's own pace could become the new achievement gap and that learning anywhere/anytime could become the new opportunity gap. Therefore, our goal in writing this paper is to provide ideas and guidance so that innovators in competency education can put into place powerful systems of supports for students in order to eradicate, not replicate, the inequities and variability in quality and outcomes that exist in our current system. Please consider this paper as an initial exploration into what it means to provide support for the individual learning needs of students. It is designed to generate reflection, analysis, and feedback

Consumer Engagement: Helping People Want What They Need

Developing or delivering a product, tool, or service that meets consumers' needs and leads to impactful behavior change is a significant challenge. Simply creating tools to foster financial security has not been enough to ensure that consumers will use them, much less benefit from them. Consumer engagement is an approach to tackling these key challenges that focuses on the needs, expectations, and realities of those being served by financial empowerment practitioners.Consumer Engagement: Helping People Want What They Need describes both a philosophy and a process for developing and delivering financial products and services. At the core is the consumer, who is the intended target of financial empowerment efforts and the key stakeholder; he/ she is the actor who ultimately decides what tools to use and is an indispensable source of intelligence about his/her needs and wants.Three pillars define consumer engagement, each of which informs and relies on the others: Demand Focus, Deep Connection, and Enthusiastic Use

Diversity, identity and belonging in e-learning communities: some theories and paradoxes Teaching in Higher Education

It is often assumed that online collaborative learning is inclusive of diversity. In this exploratory paper I challenge this notion by developing a theory which proposes that inclusion occurs through congruence between learners’ social identities and the identities implicitly supported through the interactions in a particular community. To build identity congruence, e-learning communities need spaces for both commonality and diversity and I present three paradoxes which underlie the aims of online learners and teachers to embrace diversity online. I illustrate these with some examples from online learning and teaching. The ability to ‘listen’ to each other online offers a way forward and the paper ends with some future possibilities about how we can ensure that e-learning communities benefit from diversity

Seizing the Moment: Realizing the Promise of Student-Centered Learning

This brief outlines policy recommendations for supporting student-centered learning at the local, state, and federal level

National research on the postgraduate student experience:Case presentation on postgraduate student diversity (Volume 2 of 3)

This is volume two of a set of three case studies that explore the postgraduate student experience. The theme of this case study is postgraduate student diversity and is based on experiences derived from student engagement breakfasts, interviews, and focus groups with 366 people across the stakeholder groups of postgraduate students, educators, and university executives from 26 institutions. The case studies constitute part of the output from the project, Engaging postgraduate students and supporting higher education to enhance the 21st century student experience

Renewing Universities of the Third Age : challenges and visions for the future

The University of the Third Age [UTA] has developed into a global success story. Whether holding a ‘top-down’ administrative arrangement or embodying a culture of self-help, there can be no doubt as to the triumph of UTAs in meeting the educational, social, and psychological needs of older persons. However, on the basis of fieldwork conducted at the UTA in Malta a cautionary note must be warranted. UTAs may also function as yet another example of glorified occupational therapy that is both conservative and oppressive. At the same time, UTA models seem to be running the risk of becoming obsolete as societies embark on a ‘late-modern’ model of the life course in which the sequential division between learning, work and retirement is becoming increasingly blurred. This article calls for the UTA movement to go through a cultural revolution to remain relevant to contemporary ageing lifestyles. Six key directions are forwarded: embracing a trans formational rationale, ensuring that access overcomes class, gender and ethnic biases, guaranteeing that teaching and learning strategies are skilfully suited to older persons, making greater use of eLearning techniques, extending its activities to frail and physically dependent older people especially those in residential/nursing homes, and organising activities that promote intergenerational learning.peer-reviewe

Preparing Teachers for Their Prophetic Role to Serve with Heart, Head, and Hands

As teacher preparation programs seek to diversify their pre-service teachers’ exposure to teaching situations, Mount Vernon Nazarene University’s Education Department has discovered how to maximize its freshman’s educational technology field experiences through meaningful cross-cultural community service. A plan has been implemented since the spring of 2004 where candidates taking educational technology classes are required to give 8 hours of technology tutoring as a community service to populations in cross-cultural situations. Based on the Spring 2004 successes, the cross-cultural tutoring opportunities have been expanded, leading to renewed vision in candidates’ perspectives on education and job placements. At a freshman level, this challenge sets the tone for further diverse field exposure. This study will look at the multiple positive outcomes that result from a model that uses technology tutoring as the pre-service candidates’ first exposure to a cross-cultural instructional environment and thus enhances the prophetic call that rests on teachers