What is Social Learning?
Well, Albert Bandura offically introduced the Social Learning Theory in the 1970s. Social learning is a term used to describe any process through which one individual influences the behavior of another (Breed, 2010) and has been used as a means of training and educating in corporate and educational contexts for many years. Facilitators enhance Social learning and allow learners to think critically and better understand the material.
Today it is being reinvented through social media platforms. Social media platforms provide many different applications and tools that facilitate teaching and are used to facilitate interactions between learners, between learners and educators, and between learners and content.
Today these tools are very helpful because learners can choose from them when doing assignments and collaborating with classmates and colleagues. Some examples of important social media platforms are Wikis, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
What ground rules should be in place before launching a social learning platform?
Explaining the organization's expectations in plain English so that all within the organization can read and understand. Such as, "In making decisions about using social media, make sure that you give what you are saying or posting some good thought, making sure that you are posting appropriately for the tool you chose to use. (Bozarth, 2010)
How should employee accountability and online reputations be addressed?
For example, if you are on LinkedIn, you should not share about your drinking and mental health problems because the tool is for networking and connecting in a professional setting.
But if you were on your personal FaceBook page, you could share with your family and friends. By ensuring you behave appropriately and respectfully while on social media."(Bozarth, 2010)
Our College of Conceptual Framework Candidates should keep the highest ethical standards aligned with the national and state standards.
How might Social Learning affect the role of the trainer within an organization?
Traditional training events often do not allow for this easy assimilation of knowledge
Traditional training approaches often result in bored learners. Social learning is interactive, with hands-on activities that raise interest levels and keep learners engaged.
Trainers are often students throughout the collaboration process while gaining knowledge and experiences from their students.A social learning environment empowers employees to take control over their learning. They can learn at their own pace, clarify concepts and navigate through learning pathways that they find interesting.
Benifits and Improvments
How might interpersonal relationships and productivity improve within an organization because of an integrated approach to training and professional development?
This approach involves employee collaboration and knowledge exchange. Though demos, tutorials, and examples play a vital role, peers put the ‘social’ in social learning. Successful strategies include discussion forums, peer coaching, and live events.
Above all else, you must cultivate a communicative training culture that supports lifelong learning and diversity. Everyone should feel comfortable sharing their ideas and opinions with the group to expand the collective knowledge base.
As well as set an example for their co-workers who may need help overcoming challenges and bridging gaps.
What are some benefits of creating a social learning environment within an organization?
The most powerful learning happens outside formal training sessions. In fact, the majority of what employees learn in the workplace occurs through observation and imitation, using the simple process of trial and error.
How will your strategy for creating a social learning environment as part of the overall training and development offerings improve knowledge and relationships within the organization?
Employees working with peers on networking forums, sharing knowledge, and answering questions improve their performance and productivity.
When team members reach out to each other to collaborate on issues they are facing, they feel included and supported. These collaborative teams establish a positive workplace culture that nurtures growth and boosts productivity.
Features
Highlights
Structured social learning represents both an opportunity and a challenge for the training profession. Companies clearly benefit when informal content from employees contains useful ideas and just-in-time solutions to problems not addressed in formal curricula. At the same time, many organizations struggle to effectively manage the influx of informal content and to measure the actual benefits gained from it.
Here are some best practices in social learning that have been identified by training professionals.
Encourage collaboration. The key to social learning is learning through collaboration with colleagues. Among the most beneficial are conversations that feature story telling and problem solving of workplace challenges.
Measure true success. It’s helpful to know how people are utilizing social learning opportunities, but measuring that activity is limited in value. Organizations should also identify success criteria such as a trackable performance metric for a sales team. Also, process automation can yield measurable business results.
Stress formal learning. A foundation of formal learning must be the basis of every social learning network. Learners start with a foundation of knowledge, and build around it via informal learning methods.
What are some challenges?
Some challenges that could arise are:
Less validity
Internal conflicts
Unexpected issues
Loss of origination
Extra Knowledge
Facebook
Two billion users choose Facebook daily to interact on this free social network with friends, coworkers, strangers, groups of like-minded people with similar interests, and family. This platform shares thoughts, photos, videos, ideas, music, articles, and memories. Facebook can be used as an application or webpage on a desktop, laptop, or smartphone.
Wikis
Wikis are collaborative databases of information in which learners can share and tap into the knowledge of others. While content is typically text-based, most allow simple uploading of photos of multimedia objects (Bozarth, 2010, p. 109).
This editable tool allows learners to create a source of truth that can be curated to the needs of the team's. Collaboration through wikis can enforce formal training and encourage informal discussion during the training.
LinkedIn
What exactly is LinkedIn? According to their website, the company was officially launched in early May 2003 in the creator’s (Reid Hoffman) front room. LinkedIn’s vision is to create a cheap opportunity for all its members globally. But the core of what the company was designed for can be explained in its mission statement: “helping professionals be successful by being more productive through virtual connections with over 200 million members and in over 200 countries worldwide (LinkedIn, 2003).
References
Bingham, T., & Conner, M. (2010). The new social learning: A guide to transforming organizations through social media. ASTD Press.· Bozarth, J. (2010). Social media for trainers: Techniques for enhancing and extending learning.Wiley/Pfeiffer.
Breed, M. D., & Moore, J. (2010). In Encyclopedia of animal behavior (pp. 260–266). essay, Elsevier Science.
The University of Phoenix. (n.d.). The University of Phoenix CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Social Learning Theory: Benefits, Examples, and Best Practices. (n.d.). Valamis. https://www.valamis.com/hub/social-learning?_gl=1