6 weeks to change a learner’s life?
I remember helping a training provider with self assessment and our attention turning to Induction. “We used to run a two-week induction, but when we surveyed learners, they wanted it to be shorter”, I was told. “So we cut it down to one week. But when we surveyed this next lot of learners, they said the same – that it should be shorter. So we’re going to get it over with in two days next time.” This was a lovely example of embarking on a quality improvement journey without knowing the issue they were trying to resolve. It turned out that the problem wasn’t the length of the induction experience, it was the content.
The problem with many learner induction programmes is that despite some activities to break the ice and learn names, they can be overly focused on ‘necessities’. Induction checklists then become just that: checks that staff have done what they were supposed to do. But Induction should be much, much more than that.
To get the content right, you can’t start by thinking about the stuff you’re going to do – you have to ask: ‘How do I want my learners to be different by the end?’ So if we wanted our learners to be ‘bored, frustrated and just wanting induction to be over’, then we might chose a programme of activities not unlike the training provider above. But that isn’t what we want.
Once you’ve set down in detail the skills and attitudes you ideally want your learners to have by the end of the extended induction period, you begin to get a good idea of how long that will take. Then comes the wonderful creative part: ‘So how are we going to achieve all of that?!’
This is what we’ll be looking at on Wednesday June 16th at 13:00 in Zoomland. Now is the perfect time to have your induction ideas supported or challenged. Do join us if you can, and do please share this with anyone you feel may benefit. Full details here: www.ccqi.org.uk/inductionsession.
We also have the fascinating Learning Theorists and the Emotional Learning Journey session on Friday 18th June. Details Here: www.ccqi.org.uk/learningtheory
Best wishes
Tony
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