The Geneva Learning Foundation

A new interdisciplinary review from the ARQ National Psychotrauma Centre and VU Amsterdam provides an in-depth analysis of the mental health impacts, cultural and historical factors shaping coping and help-seeking, the evolving humanitarian response, and recommendations for strengthening mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) in Ukraine.  The report is an interdisciplinary literature review supplemented by key informant interviews.

Mental health and psychosocial support in Ukraine: insights from an interdisciplinary review

Excerpted from

: Victoria J. Marsick, Rachel Fichter, Karen E. Watkins, 2022.

 From Work-based Learning to Learning-based Work: Exploring the Changing Relationship between Learning and Work

, in:

 The SAGE Handbook of Learning and Work

. SAGE Publications.

Learning for Knowledge Creation: The WHO Scholar Program

Since 2019, when The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) launched its first AI pilot project, we have been exploring how the Second Machine Age is reshaping learning.

Since 2019, when The Geneva Learning Foundation

(TGLF)

 launched its first AI pilot project, we have been exploring how the Second Machine Age is reshaping learning.

The business of artificial intelligence and the equity challenge

Reda Sadki

“Some individuals are acknowledged as credible knowers within global health, while the knowledge held by others may be given less credibility.”

– (Himani Bhakuni and Seye Abimbola in

 The Lancet

, 2021) “Immunization Agenda 2030” or “IA2030” is a strategy that was unanimously adopted at the World Health Assembly in 2020.

Credible knowers

Fahamu Pecou (b. 1975) is an artist/scholar based in Atlanta, Georgia whose works comment on contemporary and hip-hop culture while simultaneously subverting it to include his ideas on fine art.

Fahamu

Burck Smith describes how accreditation is based primarily on a higher education institution’s inputs rather than its outcomes, and creates an “iron triangle” to maintain high prices, keep out new entrants, and resist change.

To be accredited, a college must meet a variety of criteria, but

 most of these deal with a college’s inputs rather than its outcomes

[emphasis mine]. Furthermore, only providers of entire degree

Accreditation in higher education is based primarily on inputs rather than outcomes

A health worker in rural Kenya notices that malaria cases are appearing earlier in the season than usual. A nurse in Bangladesh observes that certain neighborhoods are experiencing more heat-related illnesses despite similar temperatures.

A health worker in rural Kenya notices that malaria cases are appearing earlier in the season than usual. A nurse in Bangladesh observes that certain neighborhoods are experiencing more heat-related illnesses despite similar temperatures. These observations often remain trapped in the realm of “anecdotal evidence.”

Anecdote or lived experience: reimagining knowledge for climate-resilient health systems

As I’ve been thinking about building a MOOC for the 13.1 million Red Cross and Red Crescent volunteers, I’ve become increasingly interested in connectivism. One of the platforms I’ve discovered is called P2PU (“Peer To Peer University”), which draws heavily on connectivist ideas. Surprise: on P2PU there is a debate raging on about badges, of all things. I initially scoffed.

Badges for online learning: gimmick or game-changer?

In my work, I am constantly discovering and evaluating new web sites and online services related to learning in some way. Increasingly, I’m wondering if there can be an underlying method for assessing them that is different from the prevailing consumerist, product metaphor. What I mean is that we tend to look at a learning technology as if it were a product that we will consume if we adopt it in our learning/teaching practice.

Thinking about learning technology: is the product metaphor obsolete?

The concept of “norms shifting perspective”, in the field of immunization and global health focuses on strategies that aim to alter norms and attitudes towards vaccination to promote uptake and acceptance. This perspective acknowledges the influence that social norms have on individuals decisions regarding vaccination. Aims to utilize this insight to enhance acceptance through well crafted policies, messaging and interventions.

What is norms-shifting in immunization and global health?

There are myriad approaches to online learning. I’ve selected three. One of them should no longer be recommended. This is the production of information modules that test information recall. In some cases, aware of the limited outcomes using this approach, attempts have been made to encourage reflection or analysis, but then the limitation of the approach leaves the learner with limited or no formative feedback and reductive forms of assessment.

Online learning 101: Approaches

A survey of learners on a large, authoritative global health learning platform has me pondering once again the perils of relying too heavily on learner preferences when designing educational experiences. One survey question intended to ask learners for their preferred learning method. The list of options provided includes a range of items.

Why asking learners what they want is a recipe for confusion

If it keeps on rainin’, levee’s goin’ to break. When the levee breaks, I’ll have no place to stay. – Led Zeppelin

While the International Trainer lands at the airport, is chauffeured to her hotel, and dutifully reviews her slides and prepares her materials, a literally and figuratively captive audience has been herded at great cost to that same hotel, lured in by a perverse combination of incentives.

The international trainer

English version |

 Version française

À l’occasion de la Journée internationale des infirmières 2024, La Fondation Apprendre Genève est solidaire des plus de 28 millions d’infirmières et d’infirmiers dans le monde qui constituent l’épine dorsale des systèmes de santé à l’échelle internationale.

Journée internationale des infirmières 2024&nbsp;: Changement climatique et santé

A formula for calculating learning efficacy, (E), considering the importance of each criterion and the specific ratings for peer learning, is:    This abstract formula provides a way to quantify learning efficacy, considering various educational criteria and their relative importance (weights) for effective learning. Weights for each variables are derived from empirical data and expert consensus.

Calculating the relative effectiveness of expert coaching, peer learning, and cascade training

By Donna Murdoch, Ed. D.

for The Geneva Learning Foundation A search for the keyword “webinar” on Google reveals over 85 million hits.

Rethinking the “Webinar”: Sage on Screen, Guide on Side, or Both?

Will it be virtual reality (VR)? The promise of immersive, experiential learning is tantalizing. What about artificial intelligence (AI), if only to relieve humans of the drudgery of the more trivial part of assessment and feedback? Will neuroscience lay bare cognitive process? What if the blockchain stored distributed learning records? How about building a successor to creaky Moodle? Predicting the future tends to be a losing bet.

The next big thing in learning

A learning organization is an organization that has an enhanced capacity to learn and change.

Learn and change

In a complex, knowledge-driven society, learning, education and training are key to sustainability. Sustainability initiatives need to explicitly make learning strategic in order to succeed in the face of growing challenges. No organization, no sector can do so alone. Professionalization alone is not the answer. Education is failing to prepare humanity for disasters, climate change, globalization or conflicts.

Sustainability

In its first years of operation, the Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) built digital infrastructure to foster and support several global networks and platforms connecting practitioners.

The Geneva Learning Foundation: Scale, reach, and sustainability

What we do and how we do it have both changed rapidly since we launched the Impact Accelerator, the key component Geneva Learning Foundation’s learning-to-action pathway. We catalyze large scale peer networks of frontline actors facing critical threats to our societies.

What is the Geneva Learning Foundation and what do we do?

Question: Why were you looking at their data? Answer: Just out of interest to see.

Question: Why were you looking at their data?

Accidents happen

When I first saw Professor Cope’s photos of a 1983 elementary school classroom, I scoffed.

Maybe old learning isn’t so bad, after all?

We achieve operational excellence to provide a high-quality, personalized and transformative learning experience for each learner – no matter how many are in the cohort. We achieve this by: Building on the best available evidence from research and our own practice in adult learning to address, engage, and retain busy, working professionals;

How we work

Discover the leadership journeys of two remarkable learning leaders   Every episode is different, drawing on the life experiences of Key Contributors and of listeners.

Listen to the Eighth Dialogue for Learning and Leadership

When I first saw Mary Kalantzis’s photos of a 1983 elementary school classroom in Greece, I scoffed.

Understanding the problem   First. You have to understand the problem. What is the unknown? What are the data? What is the condition? Is it possible to satisfy the condition? Is the condition sufficient to determine the unknown? Or is it insufficient? Or redundant? Or contradictory? Draw a figure. Introduce suitable notation. Separate the various parts of the condition. Can you write them down? Devising a plan   Second.

How to Solve It

Discussions at the World Health Summit in Berlin this week have rightly emphasized the role of health workers, especially those directly serving local communities. Health workers stand at the intersection of climate change and community health. They are first-hand eyewitnesses and the first line of defense against the impacts of climate on health. There is real horror in the climate impacts on health they describe.

World Health Summit: to rebuild trust in global health, invest in health workers as community leaders

On August 6, 2024, the Nigeria Immunization Agenda 2030 Collaborative concluded its first peer learning exercise with a final Assembly. This groundbreaking initiative, a partnership between The Geneva Learning Foundation, Nigeria’s National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), and UNICEF, has already engaged over 4,400 health workers from all 36 States and more than 300 Local Government Areas (LGAs) across Nigeria.

7 take-aways from Nigeria’s first Immunization Collaborative peer learning exercise

According to Gavi, “community-based monitoring” or “CBM” is a process where service users collect data on various aspects of health service provision to monitor program implementation, identify gaps, and collaboratively develop solutions with providers. Community-based monitoring (CBM) has emerged as a promising strategy for enhancing immunization program performance and equity.

Integrating community-based monitoring (CBM) into a comprehensive learning-to-action model

As world leaders gathered for the COP28 climate conference, the Geneva Learning Foundation called for the insights of health workers on the frontlines of climate and health to be heard amidst the global dialogue.

Climate change and health: Health workers on climate, community, and the urgent need for action

English version |

 Version française

Ceci est la préface de la nouvelle publication

 Les visages de la vaccination

. En savoir plus… Télécharger la collection… Chaque jour, des milliers d’agents de santé, de l’Afghanistan au Zimbabwe, se lèvent et se rendent au travail avec un seul objectif en tête : faire en sorte que les vaccins parviennent à ceux qui en ont besoin.

Semaine mondiale de la vaccination: Que voyez-vous?

Read this first

: What is double-loop learning in global health? Learning culture is a critical concept missing from health systems research. It provides a practical and actionable framework to operationalize the notion of ‘learning health systems’ and drive transformative change. Watkins and Marsick describe learning culture as the capacity for change.

Learning culture: the missing link in global health between learning and performance

Argyris (1976) defines double-loop learning as occurring “when errors are corrected by changing the governing values and then the actions.” He contrasts this with single-loop learning, where “errors are corrected without altering the underlying governing values.” Double-loop learning involves questioning “not only the objective facts but also the reasons and motives behind those facts”. It requires becoming aware of one’s own “theories-in-use” –

What is double-loop learning in global health?

This summary analyzes two important articles examining the role of civil society organizations (CSOs) in global health: “Civil society organisations and global health initiatives: Problems of legitimacy” by Doyle and Patel (2008), and “Civil society in global health policymaking: a critical review” by Gómez (2018).  While both articles challenge dominant assumptions about CSOs in global health, Doyle and Patel focus more on issues of legitimacy,

Do Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) actually help global health?

English version | Version française GENÈVE, Suisse, le 8 mars 2024 — La Fondation Apprendre Genève (TGLF) partage une collection de récits intitulée « Des femmes pour la santé », partagées par 177 femmes en première ligne de la santé et de l’action humanitaire. Télécharger la collection: La Fondation Apprendre Genève (2024).  Des femmes pour la santé : Journée internationale de la femme 2024 (1.0).

English version |

 Version française


 GENÈVE, Suisse, le 8 mars 2024

— La Fondation Apprendre Genève (TGLF) partage une collection de récits intitulée « Des femmes pour la santé », partagées par 177 femmes en première ligne de la santé et de l’action humanitaire.

Voix de femmes en première ligne de la santé et de l’action humanitaire

English version | Version française GENEVA, Switzerland, 8 March 2024 – The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) is sharing a collection of stories titled “Women inspiring women”, shared by 177 women on the frontlines of health and humanitarian action. Download: The Geneva Learning Foundation.

English version

| Version française

 GENEVA, Switzerland, 8 March 2024

– The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) is sharing a collection of stories titled “Women inspiring women”, shared by 177 women on the frontlines of health and humanitarian action.

 Download

: The Geneva Learning Foundation. (2024). Women inspiring women: International Women’s Day 2024 (1.0).

Women’s voices from the frontlines of health and humanitarian action

Continuous learning is lacking in immunization. This lack may be an underestimated barrier to the “Big Catch-Up” and reaching zero-dose children  This was a key finding presented at Gavi’s Zero-Dose Learning Hub (ZDLH) webinar “Equity in Action: Local Strategies for Reaching Zero-Dose Children and Communities” on 24 January 2024.

Why lack of continuous learning is the Achilles heel of immunization

In “Prioritising the health and care workforce shortage: protect, invest, together,” Agyeman-Manu et al. assert that the COVID-19 pandemic aggravated longstanding health workforce deficiencies globally, especially in under-resourced nations.

Protect, invest, together: strengthening health workforce through new learning models

By connecting practitioners to learn from each other, peer learning facilitates collaborative development. ow does it compare to expert-led coaching and mentoring “fellowships” that are seen as the ‘gold standard’ for professional development in global health? Scalability in global health matters.

How does the scalability of peer learning compare to expert-led coaching ‘fellowships’?

This is a recorded version of my presentation, followed by Catherine Russ’s report on a session that I presented and facilitated at the Remote partnering workshop held on 23-26 January 2017 in Caernarfon, Wales. Ein Fehler ist aufgetreten. Sieh dir dieses Video auf www.youtube.com an oder aktiviere JavaScript, falls es in deinem Browser deaktiviert sein sollte.

4 rules for the digital transformation of partnerships

The severe global shortage of health and care workers poses a dangerous threat to health systems, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The authors of the article “Prioritising the health and care workforce shortage: protect, invest, together”, including six health ministers and the WHO Director-General, assert that this workforce crisis requires urgent action and propose “protect, invest, together” to tackle it.  Deep

Prioritizing the health and care workforce shortage: protect, invest, together

The WHO Director General’s report to the 154th session of the Executive Board on progress towards the Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030) goals paints a “sobering picture” of uneven global recovery since COVID-19.  As of 2022, 3 out of 7 main impact indicators remain “off-track”, including numbers of zero-dose children, future deaths averted through vaccination, and outbreak control targets.

Widening inequities: Immunization Agenda 2030 remains “off-track”

At a World Health Organization conference in Panama, The Geneva Learning Foundation is hosting an Innovations Café today.

What did we learn from the Movement for Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030) in its first two years?

We need a conceptual framework that situates health performance management within complex adaptive systems. This is a summary of an important paper by Tom Newton-Lewis et al. It describes such a conceptual framework that identifies the factors that determine the appropriate balance between directive and enabling approaches to performance management in a given context.

How do we reframe health performance management within complex adaptive systems?

In their 2014 article, Jacobson, Kapur, and Reimann propose shifting the paradigm of learning theory towards the conceptual framework of complexity science. They argue that the longstanding dichotomy between cognitive and situative theories of learning fails to capture the intricate dynamics at play.

Education as a system of systems: rethinking learning theory to tackle complex threats to our societies

Samuel Chukwuemeka Obasi, a health professional from Nigeria: “Going back home to the community where I grew up as a child, I was shocked to see that most of the rivers we used to swim and fish in have all dried up, and those that are still there have become very shallow so that you can easily walk through a river you required a boat to cross in years past.” In July 2023, more than 1200 health workers from 68 countries shared their experiences

Samuel Chukwuemeka Obasi

, a health professional from Nigeria:

 “Going back home to the community where I grew up as a child, I was shocked to see that most of the rivers we used to swim and fish in have all dried up, and those that are still there have become very shallow so that you can easily walk through a river you required a boat to cross in years past.”

In July 2023, more than 1200 health workers from 68

Before, during, and after COP28: Climate crisis and health, through the eyes of health workers from Africa, Asia, and Latin America

We honor everyone who is joining the Special Event “From community to planet: Health professionals on the frontlines of climate change”: health staff from immunization and other areas of health – environmental health and One Health, but also those who fight neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), HIV, and other ailments.

Honoring health professionals as leaders of change

A new article by colleagues at the Cambridge Digital Education Futures Initiative (DEFI) illustrates academic understanding of Collective Intelligence (CI) through the COVID-19 Peer Hub, a peer learning initiative organized by over 6,000 frontline health workers in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, with support from The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF), in response to the initial shock of the pandemic on immunization services that placed 80

The COVID-19 Peer Hub as an example of Collective Intelligence (CI) in practice

The

 ways of knowing

of health professionals who work on the front lines are distinct because no one else is

 there every day

. Yet they are typically absent from the global table, even though the significance of local knowledge and action is increasingly recognized. In the quest to achieve global health goals, what value should professionals within global health agencies ascribe to local experience?

Rising together: promoting inclusivity and collaboration in global health

In the Geneva Learning Foundation’s approach to effective humanitarian learning, knowledge acquisition and competency development are both necessary but insufficient. This is why, in July 2019, we built the first Impact Accelerator, to support local practitioners beyond learning outcomes all the way to achieving actual health outcomes.

Pandemic preparedness through connected transnational digital networks of local actors

By defying distance to connect with each other, practitioners expand the realm of what they are able to know beyond their local boundaries.  Listening to these diverse voices and experiences is critical to inform programming, policy and decision-making and build bridges across sectoral silos and other boundaries, by providing:

The Geneva Learning Foundation: Localizing programming and grounding policy

**Unique learning experiences generate not just data points but complex stories about what it takes to make change actually happen. **By connecting the dots between ideas and implementation, we can zero in on the highest-value insights.  Our Insights Unit uses the latest advances in learning analytics to map how ideas and practices shared between countries and system levels make a difference.

How we make sense of complexity, together, at the Geneva Learning Foundation

Our approach based on

 intrinsic motivation

, continuous learning and problem–solving leads to impact. Practical implementation with **peer support **accelerates progress to get results and document impact.

Motivation and connection for transformation at the heart of the Geneva Learning Foundation’s approach

As developed by our founders, the TGLF learning-to-impact pathway draws on the best available evidence and our own practice in the learning sciences and multiple other disciplines.  TGLF’s diagnostic instruments rapidly identify **the most effective strategies to develop people, teams, and networks **to drive change and performance.

How the Geneva Learning Foundation uses learning science to drive change

A digital human knowledge and action network of health workers: Challenging established notions of learning in global health   When Prof Rupert Wegerif introduced DEFI in his blog post, he argued that recent technologies will transform the notions and practice of education. The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) is demonstrating this concept in the field of global health, specifically immunization, through the ongoing engagement of

Digital challenge-based learning in the COVID-19 Peer Hub

The Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030) and the Movement for Immunization Agenda 2030 represent two interconnected but distinct aspects of a global effort to enhance immunization coverage and impact. What is Immunization Agenda 2030? Immunization Agenda 2030 or “IA2030” is a global strategy endorsed by the World Health Assembly, aiming to maximize the lifesaving impact of vaccines over the decade from 2021 to 2030.

What is the Movement for Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030)?

Part 1: The Journey Begins   Suspended in the swirling galaxies beyond our own, the celestial stage of the Cat’s Eye Nebula shimmered. The nebula was a kaleidoscope of iridescent gases, dazzling cosmic dust, and radiant energy, an ideal sanctuary for the Astral Scholars. Their gathering place, the Obsidian Forum, was a levitating, jet-black platform, as if carved from a fragment of the universe itself.

Defunking Grunter

Summary of highlights from the Full Learning Cycle, Monday 14 March Resources Anglophones: link to slidedeck; link to recording Francophones: link to slidedeck; link to recording

Summary of highlights from the Full Learning Cycle, Monday 14 March


 # of participants:

By Monday,

 6,319 immunization professionals accepted

to the Full Learning Cycle, including 3,592 Anglophones and 2,727 Francophones.

 Participation

: Scholars are participating with high motivation and bringing an incredible energy to build the IA2030 Movement.

General Assembly of the Movement for Immunization Agenda 2030 on 14 March 2022

They connected from health facilities, districts, and national teams all over the world. 4,769 immunization professionals from the largest network of immunization managers in the world joined this week’s Special Event for Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030), the new strategy for immunization, with 59 global and regional partners who accepted the invitation to listen, learn, and share their feedback.

A round table for Immunization Agenda 2030: The leap from “bottom-up” consultation to multidimensional dialogue

Charlotte Mbuh and I will be welcoming Julie Jacobson, one of the founders of Bridges to Development, for our 15-minute Global Health Symposium about neglected needs of women’s health, and specifically the upcoming Female Genital Schistosomiasis (FGS) workshop being organized by the FAST package, a group of international and country partners. Join the Symposium on Facebook, YouTube, or LinkedIn.

What does the changing nature of knowledge mean for global health?

A new global vision and strategy titled ‘Immunization Agenda 2030: A Global Strategy to Leave No One Behind (IA2030)’ was endorsed by the World Health Assembly less than a year before the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. Today, the cumulative tension of both urgent and longstanding challenges is stretching people who deliver vaccines.

What is the value of strategy in the middle of a global crisis?

“Please, I need someone to enlighten me on the pros and cons of online courses for active learning and professional development.”

There is quite a bit of contextual information missing to decode what is really being asked. We only know that it is an individual professional from an anglophone country in Africa. Still, I can think of at least three ways to answer this question. Answer #1. Wrong question.

Pros and cons of online courses

I asked three questions, four years ago, as a sympathetic observer eager to see a learning organization – launched with much fanfare and 20 million British pounds of DFID support – help improve humanitarian work. Never really got an answer. Until today. It turns out that the Humanitarian Leadership Academy is being absorbed into the UK’s largest international NGO.

Humanitarian Leadership Academy merges with Save the Children UK

Business gets done by groups in workshops and meetings and by individuals in private conversation. There is an undeniable cultural advantage for diplomacy that comes from looking your interlocutor in the eye. Emerging digital platforms are in the margins of this business. The pioneers are creaky in their infrastructure and, ironically, playing catch-up. They have long lost the initial burst of enthusiasm that led to their creation.

The significance of digital platforms to the business

The idea that adult learners have much to learn from each other is fairly consensual. The practice of peer learning, however, requires un-learning much of what has been ingrained over years of schooling. We have internalized the conviction that significant learning requires expert feedback.

Missed opportunities (2): How one selfish learner can undermine peer learning

The learning landscape is changing fast. Even the most jurassic face-to-face trainers I know are now embracing the digital transformation or at least trying to. Ephemeral fads such as the Social Age or gamification are proliferating alongside newer, more sustainable and productive approaches that match the learning contexts of humanitarians and support the development of their capabilities in a volatile world.

Why learning professionals should strive to be leaders, not just service providers

On Monday, July 3rd 2017, an expanded course team from three continents, supported by LSi’s Scholar Apprentices, began to trial a completely new approach to the development of digital learning. This is the story of how we came to reboot the amazingly successful #DigitalScholar initiative offered by the Geneva Learning Foundation just one year ago. Ein Fehler ist aufgetreten.

#DigitalScholar Reboot Day 1

Is gamification an advantageous strategy that can help increase knowledge and application when it comes to humanitarian responses? What are these advantages? Can gamification contribute to better humanitarian preparedness?

Why gamification is a disaster for humanitarian learning

Evidence from learning science clearly identifies how to strengthen learning culture in ways that will drive performance. However, in a recent study conducted by Learning Strategies International (LSi), we quickly found limitations and gaps in the data available from the organization examined, despite the best effort by the organization’s staff to answer our questions and requests.

How do we measure the impact of informal and incidental learning on organizational performance?

My presentation for the Geneva Learning Foundation at the 15th meeting of the WHO Radiation Emergency Medical Preparedness and Assistance Network (REMPAN), World Health Organization, Geneva – 3-5 July 2017. Ein Fehler ist aufgetreten. Sieh dir dieses Video auf www.youtube.com an oder aktiviere JavaScript, falls es in deinem Browser deaktiviert sein sollte.

New learning for radiation emergency medical preparedness and assistance

These are some notes on one of several blog posts that are churning in my head about what digital transformation means for learning and leadership.

Learning technologists are obsolete

This is my presentation for the Geneva Learning Foundation, first made at the Swiss Knowledge Management Forum (SKMF) round table held on 8 September 2016 at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). Its title is “Meeting of the minds: Rethinking our assumptions about the superiority of face-to-face encounters.” It is an exploration of the impact of rapid change that encompasses learning at scale, the

Meeting of the minds

Through research and broad sector collaboration, a consensus has emerged on the recognition that uneven quality of personnel is a major limiting factor in humanitarian response, and that serious effort is needed to address the global gap in skills and build capacity of countries and local communities.

Inventing by investing in new business models for humanitarian training

This came up in one of the Live Learning Moments in the first week of the Geneva Learning Foundation’s #DigitalScholar course:

 This is for Reda: I’m very used to the Coursera/EdX kind of LMS and I’m finding it difficult to follow the course related postings and schedules on the digital learning community currently.

Towers of technology

This is the final in a series of five blog posts reflecting on what is at stake in how we learn lessons from the Ebola crisis that erupted in 2014 and continued in 2015.

How close to the village&nbsp;can a global, digital education initiative get?

This is the third in a series of five blog posts reflecting on what is at stake in how we learn lessons from the Ebola crisis that erupted in 2014 and continued in 2015.

Online learning around Ebola so far

This is the second in a series of five blog posts reflecting on what is at stake in how we learn lessons from the Ebola crisis that erupted in 2014 and continued in 2015.

Why learning is key to the strategic shift in how the world manages health crises

This is my presentation at the First International Forum on Humanitarian Online Training (IFHOLT) organized by the University of Geneva on 12 June 2015. I describe some early findings from research and practice that aim to go beyond “click-through” e-learning that stops at knowledge transmission.

Can analysis and critical thinking be taught online in the humanitarian context?

We are both consumers and producers of publications, whether in print or online. Publications are static containers for knowledge from the pre-Internet era. Even if they are now mostly digital, the ways in which we think about them remains tied to the past. Nevertheless, at their best, they provide a useful reference point, baseline, or benchmark to establish a high-quality standard that is easy, cheap and effective to disseminate.

Publishing as learning

Experience is the best teacher, we say

. This is a testament to our lack of applicable quality standards for training and its professionalization, our inability to act on what has consequently become the fairly empty mantra of 70-20-10, and the blinders that keep the economics (low-volume, high-cost face-to-face training with no measurable outcomes pays the bills of many humanitarian workers, and

 per diem

feeds

Experience and blended learning: two heads of the humanitarian training chimera

My presentation at the First International Forum on Humanitarian Online Training (IFHOLT) hosted by the University of Geneva on 12 June 2015. Ein Fehler ist aufgetreten.   Sieh dir dieses Video auf www.youtube.com an oder aktiviere JavaScript, falls es in deinem Browser deaktiviert sein sollte.  A more detailed version of this presentation is available here.

The Design of a Learning System to Teach Analysis and Critical Thinking for Humanitarians

Online technologies have afforded us many ways in which we can now learn even when we are not in the same location. Yet, some of us remain skeptical about the impact of new technologies, and in particular about new ways of learning that rely on technology. We prefer to do things the way we have done them in the past. New approaches to learning may be seen as too complicated in our task-oriented learning culture.

Skepticism about learning innovation

“[…] you learn that you are not alone in dealing with a technical problem and sometimes you just need a second technical opinion. Sometimes, it does help if you listen to people who see it from a totally different perspective. To give you an example: [suppliers] are the providers of equipment and we are the demand side.

Connecting to the environment

Knowledge management and informal learning processes are not resourced, even when the organization may have made a significant investment to build containers for knowledge or its sharing. This “build it and they will come” approach has failed, time and time again. Yet the seemingly intangible nature of knowledge and learning processes makes it difficult to build a case to resource learning itself.

We need learning processes, not just tools

“Everybody in a fun environment knows more of each other.”

We interact at a human – not only utilitarian – level to form social spaces in which we can build friendships that foster and reinforce the trust we have in each other’s work.

Party time

Where some believe that the value of their network is based on its exclusivity, connectors are people in the organization who have developed large networks of people and who see their role in introducing people in their network to each other. This connector role is closely related to the knowledge brokering process that recombines existing knowledge and facilitates knowledge transfer.

What is a connector?

How do we establish a mentoring relationship? What do we do when we identify a knowledge or performance gap in a colleague? This is a sensitive issue. Pointing to a gap is more likely to lead to a productive process when mutual trust is a pre-existing condition. When we mentor a colleague, we rely on our relationships as peers and our shared values. We deploy a range of context-specific approaches.

Mind the gap

What do we do when we cannot achieve certainty? We increasingly accept that we need to make decisions without the comfort of certainty. It is okay to not know. It is healthy to accept the unknown as we no longer seek certainty. It is when we are no longer certain that we learn. In some cases, uncertainty opens the door to knowledge that we were not seeking. This is incidental learning. The organization still expects certainty.

I have no idea

In this episode, the young Noah has asked to meet with Reg, an elderly architect or engineer who had the know-how to build the wall that protects the community of Alexandria, which some believe has survived zombies and other predators mostly by sheer luck. Noah recognizes that it’s more than luck – and wants to Reg to pass on knowledge and expertise that is different from that needed only to avert death.

Teaching and learning in The Walking Dead (S05E14)

What are the learning habits that we perform on a regular basis to stay current? As professionals, we organize our personal learning habits in different ways that reflect our interests, personalities, and career paths. We rely on a variety of information sources, engage in reading, attend seminars and conferences, or take MOOCs or other online courses. And, of course, we connect with others.

Learning habits

Learning that is embedded into work resolves the dilemmas of (formal) learning that requires stopping work. What we learn as we work, we learn in order to apply, and such a learning process does not usually require dedicated resources.

The value of learning embedded in work

We recognize that large-scale, complex emergencies have a dramatic impact on many aspects of our work, including what and how we learn. Some may feel, based on experience, that emergencies kill learning habits. We put

 everything

on hold – including the things we do to stay current – to focus on the emergency response.

Emergencies kill learning habits

We need to learn faster, to deliver results faster. We find ways to accelerate knowledge development. And yet, although we acknowledge the need to focus on task completion, we accept that our shared learning takes time to build trust and deepen understanding before it can be turned into action.

Faster

The strategies we use to anchor and filter rely on building trust in our working relationships. Learning together is grounded in a shared culture of openness and trust. For example, we trust each other to keep communication to the point. We mobilize different networks of trust, internal and external, based on need.

Trust

How does an organization’s leaders recognize, encourage, and reward both existing learning practices and positive change in learning behaviors that foster informal and incidental learning?

One size does not fit all

A year ago, I announced the creation of Learning Strategies International, a talent network to connect learning leaders who yearn to solve ‘wicked’ knowledge problems. In its first twelve months, LSi has engaged with 700 leaders from 280 organizations to contribute to over 100 projects. In 2015, we will be announcing new services and partnerships emerging from connections initiated, nurtured, and strengthened in 2014.