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Leading Workplace Learning
EDU T446

Course Information

Description

How do corporations, start-ups, non-profits, and other organizations effectively support learning in the workplace? What are the guiding theories, concepts and practices of workplace learning? Success in today’s global, distributed and high-velocity environments require organizations to prioritize learning and development in order to adapt. In response, organizations have increasingly added new roles, such as Chief Learning Officers, that develop and oversee a variety of learning experiences and programs - ranging from leadership and talent development, change management, onboarding, and communities of practice. Each of these aims to support development, change and innovation in the workplace. This module will explore how leaders at all levels effectively design and support individual, group and organizational learning in contemporary workplaces.   

In this module students will explore the nature of workplace learning, the learning theories on which experiences and programs are built (e.g., social learning theory, adult development, situated learning, etc.), and key research-based concepts that enable their success (e.g., psychological safety, informal learning, self-determination, etc.). Students will engage with organizational learning leaders and learn from a variety of examples from real organizations that excel at embedding learning into workplaces. The course will offer opportunities to meet and discuss challenges of workplace learning with leaders involved in Project Zero’s Learning Innovations Lab (LILA). For over twenty-five years, the LILA research project has convened leaders of learning from sectors such as health care, technology, manufacturing, finance, education, government, pharmaceuticals, and transportation.

School Graduate School of Education
Credits 2
Cross Reg

Available for Harvard Cross Registration

Department Education
Course Component Lecture
Instruction Mode In Person
Subject Education
Grading Basis HGSE Satisfactory/No Credit
Learning Goals Students will understand core research insights, strategies, and theories that support workplace learning including: - formal vs. informal workplace learning approaches - technical vs. transformative learning purposes - individual, group and organizational levels of workplace learning - key socio-psychological conditions that support and impede workplace learning (e.g. psychological safety, motivation, agency, etc.) - key cultural-structural conditions that support and impede workplace learning (e.g. hierarchy, norms, routines, work design, etc.) - strategies from leaders and designers on how to implement and sustain workplace learning in a variety of contexts
Career Focus Learning designers, teachers, school leaders, organizational leaders, teacher developers, learning managers.