Experiential learning has advanced significantly – And your business should, too
By Danny Abdo
Imagine a cyberattack is coming (and it is), and you need to make sure your team is ready for it.
You’ve likely trained your team to be ready. And you can validate those skills in either of two ways: You can give team members a multiple-choice test to assess their capability. Or you can have your team defend against a similar “mock” attack in an experiential training environment.
The right answer is obvious.
Yet, in a lot of cases, businesses rely on knowledge-based learning, and the only real application of knowledge and skill is trial by fire when the stakes are high. That puts businesses at risk.
Providing people with preconfigured, experiential learning opportunities is the better way to prepare them for real-life work scenarios.
Here’s why – and why it’s easier than ever to embrace and benefit from experiential learning.
Knowledge-based learning is just more of the same – and it just isn’t working
Security threats and data breaches remain a top concern for organizations. Leaders understand that if their teams don’t have the training they need, their organization might show up in the news – and not in a good way. Yet despite this understanding, organizations continue doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
That involves pushing out more videos for people to watch and more materials for their teams to read. This is the same approach they’ve tried throughout the years, and it isn’t working.
Even if you can find people with great resumes who have gone through cybersecurity training and have certifications, they may have no idea how to apply those skills in your organization, your way.
Learning based on real-world situations can drive the real-world outcomes businesses seek
Rather than providing more learning materials to people, hoping they will build the skills you need, and praying they can apply those skills on the job, start by defining the work that you need them to do at your organization. Ask yourself: What skills do these people need to do that work? Think about what learning they will require to gain those skills so that they can succeed.
After you define the work that needs to be done and the skills required to do it, embrace outcome-based learning experiences based on actual work scenarios and environments. Now people can go into safe environments and get hands-on practice before doing the work. You can validate their job readiness through the outcomes they deliver. And everyone will benefit from this high-fidelity, unbiased approach of assessing people’s ability to apply relevant skills.
With experiential learning, it’s 100% clear that someone has a specific skill you need.
Yet complexity has kept many businesses clinging to suboptimal, knowledge-based learning
But despite the many benefits of experiential, outcome-based learning – and the fact that 80% of leaders want to prioritize skills over degrees – our research also shows more than half (52%) of leaders said that they default to degree programs because that approach feels less risky.
Many leaders consider it less risky because even if they know that hands-on training is optimal, they also know that it can be difficult to create hands-on learning environments.
Assembling an environment for hands-on training can be challenging because most organizations just give you a sandbox. But that sandbox isn’t configured, so you need to know data science and you must spend several days on configuration. It takes a lot of time and effort.
That problem is compounded by the fact that cybersecurity isn’t a one-and-done endeavor. You probably want to provide your cybersecurity teams with lots of hands-on experiences.
New advancements now make experiential learning more accessible, ready to go mainstream
However, new advancements now make experiential learning far more accessible.
Rather than having to code, you can now use templates to spin up live environments instantaneously. WYSIWYG editors provide an easy way to write instructions for a lab. Tech writers can then focus on the content of the lab as opposed to making the environment work.
The ability to score skills labs is another big advancement. AI script libraries now make it easier to add scoring to labs so you can validate scores in these labs. You can also now easily create a script for a hands-on learning experience and see that a person has done everything right except for one thing, for example. The platform can share that outcome with both you and the person, suggesting what they need to improve upon based on the outcome of their actual work.
These advancements make it easier, faster and more scalable to adopt experiential learning.
The time is now for the pendulum to swing back toward custom learning
Twenty years ago most companies built their own custom learning programs. Then big box training vendors with huge catalogs came along, and the pendulum swung to generic learning.
Generic learning for things like communication and leadership made sense because most organizations treat those skills pretty much the same. But it doesn’t work for technology skills because the technology you have and the skills you need are unique to your organization.
The people responsible for cybersecurity, cloud and AI at your company need relevant, hands-on learning opportunities – not generic materials – to be ready for their jobs. With accessible experiential learning, the pendulum is swinging back toward more customized experiences.
That’s not to say that the pendulum is going all the way back to custom learning. What’s happening now is a more balanced, hybrid approach. You can now use templates that are about 80% complete and configure the other 20% to make them specific to your organization.
There’s knowledge, and then there’s the application of knowledge, which equals skill. Hands-on learning allows people to apply their skills and organizations like yours validate their skills based on the outcomes they produce. And now experiential learning is accessible to everyone.
Danny Abdo is chief operations officer at Skillable, the trusted pioneer and innovator in performance-based learning and skill validation. In job-specific scenarios customizable to any organization, people build and assess their skills through hands-on experiences that accelerate job readiness and product evidence-based skill intelligence. Since 2004, more than 400 global customers have created and launched 35 million labs using Skillable to practice and validate their skills in live learning environments.
Jesse Pitts has been with the Global Banking & Finance Review since 2016, serving in various capacities, including Graphic Designer, Content Publisher, and Editorial Assistant. As the sole graphic designer for the company, Jesse plays a crucial role in shaping the visual identity of Global Banking & Finance Review. Additionally, Jesse manages the publishing of content across multiple platforms, including Global Banking & Finance Review, Asset Digest, Biz Dispatch, Blockchain Tribune, Business Express, Brands Journal, Companies Digest, Economy Standard, Entrepreneur Tribune, Finance Digest, Fintech Herald, Global Islamic Finance Magazine, International Releases, Online World News, Luxury Adviser, Palmbay Herald, Startup Observer, Technology Dispatch, Trading Herald, and Wealth Tribune.