Creating the Learning Community in Workplace Health Promotion.

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Creating the Learning Community in Workplace
Health Promotion.
presented by
Dr Ravi S. SharmaWee Kim Wee School of
Communication and Information
Launch of Health _at_ Work Portal 6-Feb-07
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Outline

• What is a learning community?
• An architecture for e-learning.
• Strategies for the learning community.
• Good Practices from the NHS.
• Lessons Learnt from edveNTUre.

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Learning Communities

• Learning Organization. Learning organizations are
  those that have in place systems, mechanisms and
  processes, that are used to continually enhance
  their capabilities and those who work with it or
  for it, to achieve sustainable objectives - for
  themselves and the communities in which they
  participate. David Skyrme
• Community of Practice (CoP). A network of people
  who share a common interest in a specific area of
  knowledge or competence and are willing to work
  and learn together over a period of time to
  develop and share that knowledge. NHS
• A Learning Community is hence a hybrid of a LO
  and CoP. And learning is essentially a social
  activity, best done in groups.

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Architecture

• Voluntary membership
• Whereas teams and work groups are formed by
  management, membership of a learning community is
  voluntary
• Specific focus
• Teams and work groups are formed to focus on a
  specific objective or activity, while learning
  communities may have some stated goals, but are
  more general and fluid
• No expectation of tangible rewards
• Teams and work groups are required to deliver
  tangible results, whereas learning communities
  find the journey rewarding
• Existence defined by group members
• Teams and work groups are disbanded or
  reorganised once they have achieved their goals,
  while learning communities of last as long as
  their members wish.

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Getting Started

• Launch - organic and self-organising should
  emerge naturally may be seeded area or
  function where knowledge is not evenly
  distributed is a potential.
• 1 Defining the scope
• What is the domain of knowledge? - Workplace
  Health, but ...
• 2 Finding participants
• Who are the subject experts, and possible
  co-ordinators, facilitators, and librarians
  and/or knowledge managers? Will membership be
  open or by invitation only?
• 3 Identifying common needs and interests
• What are the core issues? What are members
  interested in and passionate about? How do they
  hope to benefit from membership of the community?
• 4 Clarifying the purpose and terms of reference
• What are the specific needs or problems that need
  to be addressed? What is the community setting
  out to achieve? How will the community benefit
  its organisational members?

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Good Practices

• Developing and sustaining - after initial
  enthusiasm, communities can easily wane and fade
  away unless
• Coordinator must constantly generate interest and
  participation ensuring that members meet face to
  face regularly to keep personal relationships
  alive allowing time for socialising ensuring
  organisations support members motivating and
  rewarding contributions introducing new and
  challenging perspectives in the subject in a
  timely manner.
• 2 Growing the community members will come and
  go, and ongoing recruitment is essential
  responsibilities must be rotated between members
  over time ongoing success affected by
  integration of new members.
• 3 Developing the body of knowledge more
  proactive and formal stage with typical
  activities including creating knowledge maps,
  organising knowledge resources, identifying and
  seeking to fill knowledge gaps
• 4 Moving the agenda forward and adding value
  communities thrive when supported and valued
  important that a community develops in alignment
  with overall goals, rather than to its own
  agenda.

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Lessons Learnt

• Creating a learning community is a journey.
• A portal is a necessary but not sufficient
  starting point.
• Content and search are critical for explicit
  knowledge.
• Emerging communication and collaboration tools
  such as blogs and wikis are more amenable to
  tacit knowledge sharing. Expertise locators (or
  yellow pages) seem passe.
• Engaging in reflective writing
• Facilitating learning via peer review and
  feedback
• Encouraging critical thinking and creativity
• Collaborating on online with peers
• Creating shared resources by authoring content,
  linking to external resources, contributing
  opinions and analysis, and reframing existing
  content.
• Recognising group participation

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References

1. S. Foo, R. Sharma A. Chua, Knowledge Management
   Tools and Techniques, Prentice Hall, Singapore,
   2007.
2. UK NHS KM Specialist Library http//www.library.n
   hs.uk/knowledgemanagement/
3. David Skyrme Associates http//www.skyrme.com/
4. The KM Resource Centre http//www.kmresource.com/
   exp_periodicals.htm