Human Resource Learning and Development - Essay Example

Assessment: Reflective Learning Critique _______________________________ I am talking about LEARNING - the insatiable curiosity that drives the adolescent boy to absorb everything he can see or hear or read about…. in order to improve the efficiency and speed of his cruiser. I am talking about the student who says, "I am discovering, drawing in from the outside, and making that which is drawn in a real part of me." I am talking about any learning in which the experience of the learner progresses along this line: "No, no, thats not what I want"; "Wait! This is closer to what I am interested in, what I need"; "Ah, here it is! Now Im grasping and comprehending what I need and what I want to know!" Carl Rogers 1983 (Cited in Jarvis 2003, p. 217) Socio - Psychology depicts human beings as social animals, seeking and learning from experience, through observation, cognition and reflective processing of mankind. In theory, it enhances the human thinking and inculcates the notion that we; the social animals, adapt to changes in society and learn as the society evolves. The learning experience is one which is a never ending process, one that defines our very existence (Hassan, 2007). According, to the Swiss Biologist, Jean Piaget, when human beings are born, they know nothing; they have no mental or verbal skills. However, with experience they learn and adjust themselves in the very society they live in. According to the literature, one uses each experience either positively or negatively; completely ignoring it would not make it an experience (Jarvis, 2003). A constructivist learning environment is a place where people can draw upon resources to make sense out of things and construct meaningful solutions to problems. It emphasizes the importance of meaningful, authentic activities that help the learner to construct understanding and develop skills relevant to solving problems. The literature and theories that we have analyzed and fathomed have given a more profound understanding to the learning process that one takes for granted but which leaves a strong impact on our persona and psyche. The models we studied provided a valuable insight into analyzing my experience and use it as constructively I can. My experience is one which is holistically simple but taken in a reductionist perspective, one can see how, I have learned from it (Mathis & Jackson, 2004). The transition from a high school, to a university is a crucial experience in a student’s life, I was no exception. In school we are used to being given structured lectures, supervised assignments, or study at the end of the term. In university, a student learns to imbibe Kolb’s famous experiential learning model while studying vigorously, with determinism, throughout the term. When I joined the university, I was looking forward to faculty members walking in, reading a text and distributing handouts of their lectures. To my shock, nothing like this happened, the teacher made us do an activity that I presumed, to be an extra academic activity. At the end, he asked us to read through a reference book to make the activity concept clearer. It then, dawned on me, that we were studying and were alone in this. I have come a long way from being a greenhorn. We have been allocated into groups and are encouraged to do group studies, assignments and activities. One needs to observe, reform abstract things into a reality pattern to make it applicable. The semester system incorporates the very essence of what it is like to be at a work place. It inculcates a sense of broad mindedness, practicality and engrains confidence within the student. I use this experience in every aspect of life; I envision every task as a challenge and face it with nothing but a positive and steadfast attitude. Assessing a problem and facing it with positivism. I strongly believe that what I have learned is through the emphasis of social learning through imitation and modeling my behaviour on that of my fellow students. Learning is approached, by Kolb, as a process leading to the production of knowledge. Underpinning Kolbs well-known model are the concepts of experiential learning, which is close to the Social Learning Theory, which attempts to extend the Behaviouristic concepts of Classical and Operant Conditioning. Its premise of imitation, reinforcement and modeling are widely incorporated with observation (Foster & Akdere, 2007). These are interaction /observation in social contexts. Movement is from the periphery to the centre of a community of practice. These approaches involve contrasting ideas as to the purpose and process of learning and education - and the role that educators may take. It is also important to recognize that the theories may apply to different sectors for socialization in organization, training of personnel, team work and social participation. Learning is in relationship between people and environment (Jarvis, 2003). Learning enables individuals, organizations, and ecosystems to change conditioned behavioral routines to be mode adaptive, to generate and evaluate a wider range of hypotheses about the future while selecting appropriate mind-tools and environments to enhance their learning, thinking, and implementation capability (Gilley, 2000). There are two types of Organizational Learning Incremental: learning that is characterized by simple, routine problem solving and that requires no fundamental change to your thinking or system Radical: breakthrough learning that directly challenges the prevailing mental model on which the system is built. Learning is the key competency required by any organization that wants to survive and thrive in the new knowledge economy. Market champions keep asking learning questions, keep learning how to do things better, and keep spreading that knowledge throughout their organization. Learning provides the catalyst and the intellectual resource to create a sustainable competitive advantage. The key for leverage of any organization lies in its ability to accept new ideas, to role-model new concepts and learn from imitating and observation (Gilley, 2000). Knowledge organizations obtain competitive advantage from continuous learning, both individual and collective. In organizations with a well established knowledge management system, learning by the people within an organization becomes learning by the organization itself. The changes in peoples attitudes are reflected in changes in the formal and informal rules that govern the organizations behavior (Mathis, 2004). High individual knowledge is not enough in todays dynamic markets. A company also needs a high corporate IQ – intelligence, knowledge, and expertise of the company - which hinges on the facility to share information widely and enable staff members "to build on each others ideas". This is partly a matter of storing the past, partly of exchanging current knowledge. Knowledge is most productive when it is shared by all. A learning organization is "an organization that is continually expanding its capacity to create its future".1 It is continuously learning new ways of doing things and also (necessarily) involved in a continuous process of forgetting old ways of doing things (Mathis, 2004). The best kind of quality oriented learning (and training) is just-in-time-style learning, that is, learning that happens on the job (imitation), knowledge which is applied immediately as needed, and learning by doing (Conditioning). The sooner you can apply the material you learned, the better you will understand it and the longer it will be retained. On another note one can argue here then that what is the use of qualified and professionally trained workers if we are going to nurture on the job trained personnel? The important thing to remember here is that while formal education does teach you all aspects of theoretical knowledge it is the implementation of the concepts that is taught through conditioning or learning through imitation (Garrick, 1998). Likewise, an important criticism of Social learning theory is that it presents a rather static view of human interaction, when in fact of the key features of such a model is the way it unfolds over the course of time. There is a need to establish an inter-observer reliability, the agreement of two independent observers, on the observation that they make. What is the yardstick for this observation, the validity or reliability? No written manual for doing something but based on observation and imitation. Can this be incorporated in the learning systems of an organization? Peter Senge introduces interesting dimensions that could be personally developmental, and could increase organizational effectiveness (Hassan, 2007). Still other trends emphasize the importance of training and development. Intellectual capital has become a critical factor for competitive advantage. The development of partnerships for knowledge sharing (e.g., consultants and/or academic partners as subject matter experts in webinars) has increased. To develop specialized programs, such as executive programs in corporate university settings, training departments often work closely with academic partners to prepare high-potential employees for leadership roles. Further, competition due to globalization is a significant business challenge, thus bringing focus on the importance of global mindset (Foster, 2007). These trends and business challenges have created, the need, for strategic approaches to training and development. Human Resources ability to align human capital resources with the business strategy and improve workforce skills through strategic training and development is paramount for organizational success. The business advantages of continuous learning--expansion of human capital knowledge and business performance--place Human Resource in the key leadership role to focus on strategy, design and implementation of training and development. Works Cited: Garrick, J. 1998. Informal Learning in the Workplace: The Subtle Power of Informal Learning. Routledge Gilley, J. et al. 2000. Organizational Learning, Performance, and Change. Perseus Jarvis, P. 2003. The Theory and Practice of Learning. RoutledgeFalmer Mathis, R. L. & Jackson, J. H. 2004. Human Resource Management). South-Western College Pub Hassan, A. 2007. Human resource development and organizational values. Journal of European Industrial Training, Volume 31, Issue 6, Page: 435 – 448, Emerald Group Publishing Limited Foster, R. D. & Akdere, M. 2007. Effective organizational vision: implications for human resource development. Journal of European Industrial Training, Volume 31, Issue 2, Page 100-111, Emerald Group Publishing Limited Read More