2.3: Exploring talent development in practice - Part 2

When you are ready, one member of your group should post a summary of your agreed learning points on the whole tutor group TGF discussion thread that your tutor will have started for this activity. Read the posts from each of the other groups and try to respond to at least one of the others.

Discussion by Group 2

Eve Hamilton, Jordan Michael Hector, David Brian Hilton, Leah Agnethe Jespersen.

Please work on Activity 2.3 individually and then post answers to the following questions here.

When you have posted your individuals responses by 14 May 2021, start discussing the important aspects of your discussion until 21 May 2021. Please make sure to appoint one member to post your group answer in the related thread by 25 May 2021.

Questions to discuss here:

  1. Introduce your organisation to the rest of the group (sector, size, etc.)
  2. Give some example of the talent development initiatives in your organization.
  3. Would you say that the talent development strategy is inclusive or exclusive and defined broadly or narrowly? Does it use a blended approach?
  4. What do you regard as the main strengths and weaknesses of this organization’s approach to talent development?
Common themes emerging from over 20 different definitions of HRD:
  • Developing knowledge, skills and competencies (92%)
  • Enhancing human potential and personal growth (83%)
  • Improving individual or group effectiveness and performance (79%)
  • Improving organisational effectiveness and performance (37%)
  • Explicit mention of organisational change and organisational development (12%)

(Adapted from Hamlin and Stewart, 2011, p. 210)


Within the wider context of talent management, talent development has the following aims:

  • to complement workforce planning by identifying knowledge, skills and abilities required to meet current and future business needs
  • to engage and retain staff (based on the assumption that investment in employee development shows that employees are valued)
  • to develop learning interventions that are:
    • linked to business objectives (to support flexibility in a fast-changing environment)
    • smart and efficient (making good use of internal expertise and resources)
    • dynamic and constantly reviewed.

An inclusive view of talent management reflects a HRD approach and clearly requires HRD practitioners to be flexible and have the skills to be able to offer many different types of training and development across the organisation. These HRD interventions need to be regularly reviewed and evaluated.





Activity 2.4: What does learning mean for you? (Part 1)

Week 3: Timing: Allow 90 minutes for this activity

Part 1

Spend some time making notes about what you think is meant by ‘learning’. 

This could be based on your own experience as an HR or HRD practitioner or as an individual learner. 

Try to construct your own definition based on the question: 

  • What does learning mean for you?

Activity 2.4: What does learning mean for you? (Part 2)

Week 3: Part 2

Now listen to the speakers in Video 2.2: Talking about learning. 

As you listen - click on transcript - make notes about what they say and the words they use in their interviews. 

The following questions might help in your note taking:

  • Are there common elements that all speakers highlight in the way they talk about learning? 
  • Are there any areas of disagreement?
  • How does your initial definition of learning compare to the views expressed here?


Activity 2.5: Reflecting on your own learning experiences

Week 3: Allow 60 minutes for this activity

Spend some time reflecting on the types of learning experiences that you have had in the past. Select two contrasting examples from these learning experiences and note down what you learned and how you feel that you learned it, in each case.

Feedback

Look at the words you used in your responses. Notice whether you’ve talked about:

  • knowing more
  • gaining something
  • being able to do something
  • participating in new activities or a new group
  • having new ideas or finding new possibilities for yourself – feeling differently about something.

You probably used several of these phrasings and, if so, your learning may have been quite varied or rich in significance. Many of your examples may have referred to learning in terms of acquiring knowledge or skills, others may have been about participating – and perhaps others fitted neither category. We have asked you to think about these ideas about participation and acquisition because they demonstrate some common underlying assumptions in a wide range of different learning theories (Sfard, 1998; Elmholdt, 2003), although they do not represent a specific learning theory in themselves. You will read about learning theories in the next section.

Activity 2.6: Behaviourism in practice

Timing: Allow 60 minutes for this activity

Reflecting on your previous learning experiences, can you think of any examples of HRD interventions that you have developed or been part of which seemed to be based on a behaviourist approach? The following questions may help you explore this:

  • (1): Did the training emphasise observable behaviours?
  • (2): Was the behaviour to be learned clearly explained to you and broken down into its simpler components?
  • (3): Did you have enough time to practise the behaviours under training?
  • (4): Were you given feedback and/or correction?

Feedback

One of the applications of classic conditioning for adult learning is in the treatment of irrational fear or phobia in clinical practice. At a less extreme level, fear of the unknown, of failure and rejection can and does influence adult learning. An understanding of how we may associate a neutral stimulus with a sign of threat due to previous experience highlights the need to consider emotional aspects in the design of learning interventions.

Operant conditioning is often used as one of the tools in the HRD toolbox which should be complemented by others. In clinical practice, this explains behaviours such as gambling and gaming online. Within the adult learning context, this should remind learning designers to pay attention to the contingencies that need to be in place for the desired behaviour to occur.

Week 4: Activity 2.7: Applying learning theories to practice (Part 1)

Timing: Allow 180 minutes for this activity (part 1 & 2)

Part 1

Read and take notes on pages 48 to 59 of the article ‘Behaviourism, cognitivism, constructivism: comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective’ by Ertmer and Newby (2013). 

Here you will find a more in-depth explanation about how each of the learning theories explored so far informs learning design (a summary of this is provided in Table 2.1). 

This will help you to address Part 2 of this activity.

Week 4: Activity 2.7: Applying learning theories to practice (Part 2)

Part 2

In the following vignettes you will find examples of some learning events. In each case try to identify the main underlying theory or theories used to inform the design of the activity. Please note that although we have presented the classic learning theories separately, quite often trainers will incorporate elements from different theories. Since the information about each example below is limited, whether your answer is correct will largely depend on how you argue the case for it. You can record the reasoning that supports your choices in the response box if you wish (it will save your answers) and compare your answers to the feedback provided.

Example 1

Read and identify the main theory or theories informing this learning scenario.

Mohammed has been working as an IT manager in a large multinational company for around six months. He is a very experienced IT practitioner who used to work in a small company and has supervised and mentored less experienced IT technicians but has never formally managed people before. It is the time of the year when he is supposed to carry out appraisals, and although Mohammed has had informal chats about performance before, he has never conducted a formal process like this. He has asked to shadow an experienced colleague for a couple of days and asked this colleague to be present when he runs through the process for the first time.


Week 4: Activity 2.8: Organisational learning

Timing: Allow 120 minutes for this activity

Read and take notes on the article ‘Cohesion or confusion? Towards a typology for organizational learning research’ by Shipton (2006), which you will also find in your printed Reader. When you have done so, make notes in answer to this question:

  • How would you characterise the approach to organisational learning of your own organisation or one well known to you?
  • What could your organisation do to improve its ability to learn?

Feedback

  • Your answer will be specific to your organisation.
  • It may be that your organisation adopts a variety of OL approaches (whether these are explicitly or not named as such). 
  • With relation to the second question, this will depend on your chosen perspective of OL. 
  • For instance, if you use the explanatory perspective perhaps you can suggest better ways in which knowledge can be managed. 
  • Or perhaps your organisation adopts an explanatory OL perspective but your views are more closely aligned with the descriptive perspective; you might argue that rather than pursue an instrumental view of managing knowledge, your organisation should ensure that there is an environment which fosters the development of communities of practice.

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