Learning Levels


All the training events are designed to help the participants achieve a specific level of knowledge that will result in improved personal and business performance. We believe that for the training investment to deliver value through sustainable change there must be a clear line of sight, across three primary areas:

  •     The learning that will take place at the event and the resulting knowledge.

  •     What performance capability the new knowledge will deliver.

  •     What business value will be generated by this enhanced performance.

The key thing is to ensure than the knowledge is fit for purpose and not over or under engineered. It is important for sponsors and delegates to ensure that they attend an event that will help deliver the new performance and value. Clearly it can be depressing for a delegate to attend a course that offers them nothing to take away and use in the workplace. Conversely, it is a waste of the delegates and sponsors time if the delegate becomes over educated - learning a host of new thoughts, feelings and behaviors that has little or no relevance at all to their role.

The net result is that it is possible to create a taxonomy or hierarchy that shows the translation of knowledge into business performance. At the lowest level of knowledge acquisition is someone who reads a book, visits a seminar or uses a web site. They may have discovered some new knowledge and can describe this to others. The value is that they now have a language by which they can have productive conversations through the use of a shared language and mental map. At the next level is someone who can use their knowledge to apply or actively use their knowledge at an operational level. This step process continues up to the highest level where someone is seen as an authority or expert in the field. This incremental  process can be seen in the following table:

Knowledge Level

Performance Level

Business Value

At the end of the event I want someone who might be viewed as:

..... and they are able to:

 ...... that will create value by:

5 - An Authority

.... judge other people's work from a position of authority and against accepted criteria.. 

 .... setting new business performance standards against wider markets and business trends. 

4 - An Architect

.... originate, integrate and combine ideas into a new product, plan or proposal.

 ... improving business benchmarks and performance.

3 - Able to Analyze

.... compare, contrast and classify information in order to form a performance judgment.

 .... ensure and assure that performance standards are being maintained. 

2 - Able to Apply

.... use the knowledge to resolve operational problems .

.... delivering improved performance

1 - Aware

..... explain what they know and how it might be used. .

 .. facilitating productive conversations within the company and with customers.

The following hierarchy sets out in the more detail the five learning levels. If you are not sure what level of knowledge is required then please contact us and we can work through the levels to help define which is most appropriate and will realize a return on your investment.   

Level        Title

       Description

      Learning processes      
1 AWARENESS

The ability to grasp and remember the meaning of the ideas. This may involve the recall of a wide range of material, from specific facts to complete theories, but all that is required is the bringing to mind of the appropriate information. 

Examples of learning objectives at this level are: know common terms, know specific facts, know methods and procedures, know basic concepts, know principles.

This level of knowledge might be used for people who need to know the ideas sufficiently to have a basic conversation with others, but not to the extent where they would need to use the knowledge when under critical moments of pressure or stress. 

 

  • Seminar or conference

  • E-learning

  • Written material such as books or web.

 

2 APPLICATION

This refers to the ability to use information, methods, concepts, theories in new situations and to solve problems. This may include the application of such things as rules, methods, concepts, principles, laws, and theories. Can take knowledge and apply in a different context. Can infer causes associated with knowledge and predict consequences of action.

This would be the more common learning level for people who need to make use of the knowledge in the market. They would be expected to apply the knowledge to create value and deliver a demonstrable return on the training investment..

 

  • Workshop

  • Coaching

  • Peer assessment

  • Post event web-support

  • Post event peer workshop

  • Applied accreditation

3 ANALYST

Able to break ideas down  into their  component parts so that the organizational and underpinning structure may be understood. Able to see patterns and components in the blueprint. Also able to recognize hidden meaning within the knowledge. This may include the identification of parts, analysis of the relationship between parts, and recognition of the organizational principles involved. 

Action using this knowledge represents a higher intellectual level than application because it requires an understanding of both the content and the structural form of the material.

This might be the learning level achieved by someone who wised to supervise people others as an expert . They might need to critically appraise and test others to assure that performance meets a required standard and diagnose what action must be taken where performance deviates from the expected level. 

 

  • Expert assessment

  • Case study development

  • Site visits

  • Peer validation processes.

  • Academic research 

  • Context specific tests 

  • Benchmarking assignments

 

4 ARCHITECT

This refers to the ability to put parts together to form a new whole. Actions in this area stress creative behaviors, with major emphasis on the formulation of new patterns or structure. 

This includes the use of old ideas to create new ones, generalize from given facts and relate knowledge from several areas. 

The learning level would be required where the participants will be expected to originate knowledge for use in the business. For example to integrate external ideas and models with existing internal business templates and standards.

 

  • Composition of papers that explore new frames and ideas.

  • Academic study

  • Research programs

  • Longitudinal studies

  • Cross boundary integration

  • Cross cultural experiences

  • Peer presentations

5  AUTHORITY 

Able to sit as final authorization and in judgment of the knowledge based on personal values/opinions. Can discriminate between ideas, assess their value and make choices based on reasoned argument. The judgments are to be based on definite criteria. These may be internal criteria (organization) or external criteria (relevance to the purpose). 

Learning in this area sits in the highest knowledge level because they contain elements of all the other categories, plus conscious value judgments based on clearly defined criteria.

This learning level might be quite rare in a business. However it would be necessary where the individual or organization needs complete independence from external sources of knowledge and wish to be able to originate and sign off proprietary knowledge for use within the business. 

.

  • Mentoring

  • Training and assessing others

  • Authoring of critical papers.

  • Academic verification

  • Peer verification

  • National and International Publication  

  • Citation from  other authorities and authors.

  • Public scrutiny 

 

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(c) Mick Cope