In the midst of a self-learning workshop, have you ever thought, “It is the maximum fun I have experienced during any training session”? Don’t you agree? But we guess that notion has come up during brainstorming, a team training exercise, or when listening to somebody at a convention. What do you reckon caused that? What prompted the change? Well, whether you trust us or not, modern social settings have made learning stronger. Now, this is the main point of Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory, which he came up with in the 1970s.
People would have a hard time learning, and it could also be dangerous if they had to make decisions based on the results of their acts to tell them what they should do. Mostly, people learn how to behave by watching others. By noticing others, you can get a glimpse of how fresh habits are formed, which you can then use as a reference in the future.
Yes, Bandura’s analysis deserves recognition. However, you really don’t need theoretical concepts to show that people are social beings who would always gain knowledge and perform better when there are other people around to critique and encourage them. The social learning theory has been informally incorporated into businesses for years.
Even the 70:20:10 model says that social interactions account for 20% of the complete learning model in any workplace. But in today’s age of the internet and social networking, social learning isn’t just a few suggestions from colleagues or a discussion during lunch. So, let’s take a look at how the social learning theory works in corporate offices today and the ways in which you can establish collaboration in your workplace.
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The Social Learning Theory: Its Modus-operandi in Workplaces
“Hold on a moment… Social networking is addictive and keeps people from doing their jobs.” This is exactly what L&D managers might say when the topic of social networks is mentioned in training. Yes, we totally understand. People have tried to stay off social media for a long time and ended up failing miserably. So, let’s check out how this trend has evolved into something impressive.
In 2008, Cisco introduced its online training platform — Cisco Learning Network, which also holds certification tests. It is a community for networking experts to talk and exchange ideas. The system was a big part of how they learned to create, establish, and run networks that were more complicated. Learners can upload videos, guides, and reference materials on the network.
Social media features like online forums and messaging apps have now been added to several Learning Management Systems (LMSs). Just about all enterprises encourage and take advantage of their staff members’ presence online on sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. These sites let employees interact, talk to their colleagues and specialists in their field, and create a community where they can exchange ideas and problems.
Learning through watching and copying
Mark Twain once said, “There is no such thing as a new idea,” which means that we all do the same things. We watch and learn by observing what others do. However, this does not automatically make it wrong.
An Indiana University study found that it is best to be around copycats instead of innovators since imitators usually improve any original idea on their own, which can then be adopted and improvised by the original creator.
Internship, job shadowing, mentoring programs, and other related programs in the business world are all linked to learning by watching and doing. All are ways that people learn from each other.
This concept of the social learning theory in a learning organization is even stronger and more useful when it is combined with eLearning. On different social networks, we follow colleagues and individuals we appreciate. We work on their ideas and use them to get better at what we do. Whenever a possible question is brought up on an internet board, there is often more than one answer since learners include their individual experiences.
Gamification
One player is not a player! Games always have been a way for people to get together, from practicing football to playing with random characters in Fortnite. They give gamers obstacles and inspire them, which are both great ways to get a set of people to acquire knowledge together.
Playing and making friends always has gone together. Role-playing crew challenges at jobs and eLearning features such as badges and leaderboards are all based on the idea that learning can be done via games. And since more and more millennials are working, there really is no smarter method to get their interest.
A Forbes article says that 67 percent of millennials concur that online gaming instructs them on how to win. 70 percent claim that it enables them to become better at solving problems. 63 percent state that it helps them in teamwork. Yes, game-based modules and gamified learning serve as the best ways to train in this situation.
Helping effectiveness through content made by users
Earlier, people used to use books from libraries if they wanted to learn anything new. However, with the advent of Google, user-generated content has gained prominence. Just type a query, and no matter the context, you can access Quora posts, coupled with lengthy comment threads.
When executed in your LMS via discussion boards or chatrooms, this will create an online database of helpful hints, remarks, and viewpoints from both trainees and subject matter experts (SMEs). Because all responses are in one place, consumers looking for answers can easily start reading through the conversations. It functions like an unofficial guide that you can look at whenever necessary.
Why Should Your Training Program Focus on The Social Learning Theory?
The practical benefits of implementing the social learning theory are unending — some of which are:
Getting employees more involved
- A boost in engagement: It’s no mystery that individuals tend to get bored or overwhelmed in both traditional classroom training settings and online sessions. Implementing the social learning theory usually makes employees more interested in the training course as a whole because it requires more social interaction and activity.
- Measurable results: Contradictory to what you’d think, social learning projects are often easy to quantify concretely. As an illustration, when social learning was added to a virtual learning program at Harvard Business School called HBX, course finish rates went from single figures to 85 percent. Using strong data analytics tools in your LMS, you can also get insightful reports on how engaged and involved your learners are.
- Ongoing development: Initiatives using the social learning theory motivate staff members to participate in training sessions as a continuous process — since they believe it to be part of the corporate culture, rather than as a barrier that they must overcome to move on to another phase.
- Getting more work got done: When used correctly, digital networks and discussion boards have a clear and direct effect on how well employees do their jobs. Workers who feel backed by their colleagues feel happier at work, and a good architecture based on the social learning theory gives teammates who want to create a competitive edge more ways to get help.
How to Deploy The Social Learning Theory In Your Workplace?
We could talk about a lot of different ways to add the social learning theory to your training plan, but let’s concentrate on five major ways to do this:
Web-based meetings
Web conferencing, which is also identified as teleconferencing as well as webcasting, is a place to learn together in a digital “meeting room.” GoToMeeting, LogMeIn, and Zoom are all examples of portals for video conferences.
Companies could use videoconferencing sessions for staff meetings, notifications, training classes, presentations, group discussions, and more. After the COVID-19 outbreak, several organizations have begun to utilize some kind of teleconferencing to work with employees who are far away or in different places.
The interactive functionalities of such platforms can help your firm’s upcoming social learning project get off the ground. Platforms such as Zoom, for instance, have the following characteristics:
- Raise your hand. This shows that you want to say something.
- Screen sharing speeds up and simplifies teamwork when one individual requires to showcase a file or clip before others.
- Smaller groups can leave the main meeting and work on tasks in separate rooms called “breakout rooms.”
Gamified learning
Gamified learning, also called “gamification,” is a fantastic way to get employees more interested in their work and get them to compete with each other.
Because many of the best employees today arrive from younger generations, ranging from Gen Z to millennials, gamification lets you convert your educational content into interesting and fun classes that trainees will enjoy, in modes that are relatable to several learners.
Also, gamified material could be used to develop physical simulations and virtual reality, which makes learning action- and situation-oriented. It additionally meets all the challenges of an immersive learning experience.
Gamification projects in boot camps (what is boot camp) that include incentives and rewards can encourage employees to move forward in their educational journey and get the skills they need to be more productive.
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Online forums
Some employees like doing their own explorations when they have an issue or query, but many others feel more at ease asking an informed coworker or functioning with some teammates to get their ideas. You can use this natural inclination for the betterment of your organization by creating a web forum where more experienced staff can give answers to their less experienced colleagues.
Another of the main advantages of this forum is that professionals could get help from a supportive community at any time of the workday, rather than having to wait for a supervisor or SME to assist them
Professional knowledge
In a way similar to what was said in the previous section, you can focus on training a cohort of “mentors” who are ready to help their coworkers with any difficult problems. There are a whole lot of good things about this methodology. For example:
- Your mentors give your members of the team an additional layer of assistance and keep your management from responding to questions that other staff members can answer.
- Your advisors would be able to learn more and get better at getting along with others.
- Lastly, your counselors will be willing to inform you about organizational slowdowns, common learning problems, and other industry trends.
Knowledge library
Setting up an organizational knowledge library or online registry of good resources for knowledge sharing is yet another way to use the social learning theory in your training course. Assume it to be the “Wikipedia” of your business. Support posts can be written by specialists based on their own knowledge, and these papers can be updated regularly by other authenticated persons in the corporation, or maybe even by any worker.
Conclusion
If you use these practices for implementing the social learning theory in your organizational training program, you will definitely gain better results such as enhanced employee engagement, efficiency, and satisfaction. An LMS is a perfect tool, which can help you reach your goals for social learning. You can get in touch with our experts at PlayAblo right away to find how our solution can be the ideal choice for your social learning needs.
Ad: PlayAblo’s Enterprise-Grade Micro-Learning platform is built for millennial learners. Micro-Learning, assessments, and gamification features ensure learning outcome measurement and sustained engagement.
Find out more and request a custom demo!
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