Learning Enhanced by CSLE |
Shifting the Learning of TomorrowCreating significant learning environments (CSLE) within my training programs for the learning and development of employees is essential to cultivating their growth and mastery of skills needed to be successful in their positions. I need to use key concepts from Thomas & Brown's (2011) book A New Culture of Learning to construct my CSLE framework and enhance the learning process. Starting with the end in mind for my innovation plan, integrating these key concepts will resolve various challenges and be pivotal to bringing my organization to the next level of success within its industry.
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CLSE enhances learning by developing students’ minds, allowing them to tap into their imaginations and become innovators in solving today's problems. Implementing CLSE leads to learning organically (TED, 2010; Thomas & Brown, 2011). The environment has three main components: deep motivation, creative range to use unlimited resources, and guided structure (TEDx Talks, 2012; Thomas & Brown, 2011). This framework cultivates a learning environment that gives students autonomy, the ability to progress in mastering their skills, and a sense of purpose to contribute to solving present-day issues. This is significant to the learning process as it is essential for high-performance creative thinking (RSA, 2010).
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CLSE Provides Learning Solutions
Integrating CLSE resolves common issues within the traditional education system. CLSE addresses structural imbalance, outdated information use, and passive learning.
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Structure
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Information
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Learning
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Structure imbalance in traditional education typically has one of two viewpoints. It is either too rigid or incapable of integrating new technologies for digital learning (Thomas & Brown, 2011). The structure should be designed to pose questions to the student. Every answer to that question should spark another question to dig deeper. A key approach in CSLE is the shift of the teacher’s role. The teacher provides a sense of structure within the learning environment by being a mentor and serving students as a guide. This promotes guided discovery within the learning process (Dwayne Harapnuik, 2015; Harapnuik & Thibodeaux, 2023; Thomas & Brown, 2011).
In traditional teaching, information must be memorized and recited. The regurgitation confirms that the knowledge transfer took place successfully, and the student can now move on to rinse and repeat the next batch of information. This method works great when information doesn’t change. However, we are currently living in the Information Era, where information is ever-changing at a very rapid pace. To successfully navigate a world of information that evolves each day, we must change our methods to focus not on memorizing information but on navigating vast pools of information to solve modern-day problems (Harapnuik & Thibodeaux, 2023; Thomas & Brown, 2011).
Students become passive learners when information is used to memorize and regurgitate. There is a lack of autonomy, skill application, and learning motivation. CLSE addresses this problem by creating play within the learning environment. Like a board game, play has a structure of rules and provides open space for discovery to make meaningful connections (TEDx Talks, 2012; Thomas & Brown, 2011). It is interactive and offers a learning system with skill application (TEDx Talks, 2012; Thomas & Brown, 2011). In this way, students are placed at the center of the learning environment (Dwayne Harapnuik, 2015).
CSLE significantly influences my innovation plan as a learning and development professional. My innovation plan is designed to create an organic learning environment in the Student Finance office at The Community Solution Education System. As a training manager, I am responsible for successfully transitioning an employee into their new role. Within my innovation plan, CLSE plays a major role in the relationship between trainer and trainee and in navigating vast amounts of rapidly changing information. It integrates play to develop skillsets that properly serve our college students affiliated with our schools.
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CSLE and My Innovation Plan |
Constructing My Learning Environment |
In my innovation plan, I have incorporated key ideas from Thomas and Brown's (2011) book A New Culture of Learning. The lecture-based materials are housed in Canvas, a learning management system. This repositions the trainer to mentor trainees throughout their learning experience. Trainees are immersed in an environment to interact with our students. They are exposed to problem—and challenge-based learning while navigating student files. There is a strong emphasis on using their resources. Within our industry are large information resources from the Department of Education and our internal policies and procedures. Regulations and policies are changing continually, so trainees must be skilled in navigating federal and company resources to serve students. In the training environment, play is encouraged to reach the department’s objective goal of securing funding for all students before their next academic year starts. With this objective, trainees are challenged to discover efficient workflows that allow them to secure student funding accurately.
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Overcoming Challenges
The main challenges in my innovation plan are program maintenance and integrating training materials for newly affiliated schools.
This training program requires maintenance to keep up with the evolving federal regulations in the industry. One example is the new regulations being implemented for Pell Grant funding. This industry change is causing a large policy shift requiring me to design a fresh training program exclusive to how Pell Grant awarding will be performed going forward. Designing the training for this topic will require a complete overhaul of the original training content for sufficient delivery of its new application.
As our organization grows and expands, incorporating training materials for newly affiliated schools will also be challenging. Each school typically has its own set of unique programs that impact how federal regulations are applied. Training materials will need to be created from the ground up to integrate into the training program from my innovation plan. |
Propelling the Organization |
Adopting the perspective of CSLE has brought many benefits to my organization. CSLE has inspired a culture centered on learning and started fostering innovation to compete in the industry. When employees fall short on performance, leadership takes a coaching and mentorship approach to guide them in an upward progression in performance. This approach positively impacts the employee, knowing that it doesn't define failure when they make a mistake. Consequently, this shifts the organization into a growth mindset, knowing skills can be developed and are not fixed (S. Dweck, 2016). Employees have started to take shape in bringing their innovative ideas into their annual goals. Their innovative ideas are redefining key workflows for efficiency and laying out a framework to eliminate file errors.
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We must start with the end in mind to encourage the education industry to adopt CSLE. CLSE is transformative because it benefits the student and instructor. The benefits extend beyond the classroom into society. When I presented my innovation proposal, it helped to get my point across by outlining some of the current challenges being experienced and then highlighting key benefits of how the strategies I intend to use will solve those challenges. Looking at the big picture and breaking it down will help people think about CLSE holistically.
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Changing the Industry Standard |
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