The Many Benefits of Learning
A long time ago, I started writing a list of outcomes that learning enables. My list was very small (seven items) and not worth much. More recently, I came up with a larger list of 17 items. I shared this list with members of the LDA community during one of my Learning Insights Weekly meetings. I asked and they suggested more items.
Special Thanks (to the following people who added ideas so we could expand the list):
Fernando Senior
Heather Larson
Mike Kennedy
Sylvain Rouanet
Rich James
Alexander Schiller
Rahul Dogra
Alison Danforth
Mark R. Thompson
Mark Nilles
Here is the list of learning outcomes (edition April 25, 2021). Feel free to add ideas in the comments or by emailing me.
Learning Outcomes (the things that learning supports or enables):
Comprehension of ideas/concepts/skills.
Remembering of ideas/concepts/skills.
Updating/improving/replacing previous ideas/concepts/skills.
Easier and shorter relearning.
Successful use of external memory storage.
Successful use of job aids and other performance support.
Learning of advanced concepts (by providing prerequisite knowledge).
Red flagging, or agenda setting to help people target future learning.
Creating distinctions to spur in-the-wild learning.
Mirroring: Helping people see their strengths/weaknesses.
Motivating people to apply learning.
Giving people a sense of purpose.
Making people feel they belong, that they are safe.
Supporting creative ideation.
Helping people be loyal to an organization or effort.
Helping people be self-directed in further learning.
Creating knowledge accessibility for key ideas, values, goals.
Prompting people to set specific goals.
Prompting people to set situation-action triggers.
Legal, regulatory, cover-your-butt requirements.
Creates joy (when learning itself is intrinsically enjoyable)
Gives people a feeling of personal achievement/development.
Creates learning exemplars to model for future learning-design efforts.
Connection between people.
Future people-to-people learning, because connections made can support future learning.
Sets and/or exemplifies norms.
Challenges norms.
Builds richer/deeper schemas around what people already know.
Nudges or enables learners to become advocates for a particular idea, issues, cause (or for learning in general).
Deeper linkages between learning concepts and motivations.
Comfort in speaking up, making it more likely someone will speak up in the future.
Comfort in socializing between experts and novices—for both groups.
Comfort in wrangling with, and arguing over, different perspectives.
Future reflections on topics covered (and on associated ideas/concepts as well).
Passing learning from one group to another, from one generation to another, etc.
Improving the functioning of the groups and organizations of the learners.
Improving the success of the groups and organizations of the learners.
Impacts the designers/delivers of the learning, both positively and negatively—for example rewarding or punishing their efforts, providing feedback, making feel worthy, making them frustrated, etc.
Wow! This is an amazing list!
As our Learning Insights Weekly meeting went on—and by the way, you really ought to join LDA so you can share your wisdom and learn from other learning professionals—as the meeting went on we talked about how to use such a list in our learning design and development work. We asked questions such as:
Can items from the list be used to design learning?
Can items from the list be used to design our evaluation of learning?
Have we been thinking about learning too narrowly?
What Now?
Please share your thoughts!
Please try stuff out and let us know how it goes!
Again, my special thanks to the amazing group of folks who join me each week for Learning Insights Weekly!
L&D Conference 2021
And please consider joining me and an absolutely world-class group of speakers at the tradition-shattering L&D Conference 2021. Learn more at this link: https://ldaccelerator.com/ldc