Social learning theory was developed by psychologist Albert Bandura. According to him, learning is a cognitive process that takes place in a social context and occurs through direct observation or instruction by peers. Social learning contributes to creating rich learning experiences, which allow better adoption and completion of training courses, as well as better retention of learning. Where do you start to develop a social learning strategy? What are the steps and are there any prerequisites? Let's take stock.
Step 1: Evaluate the adoption potential of social learning
Starting point for a strategy of Social learning, The evaluation phase makes it possible to determine how ready the community of learners at the company or training center is to understand a training course that uses social learning. Who are the learners? Are they already used to learning in groups or at least in interaction with other learners? Are learners familiar with social learning and to what extent? If learners have never learned in a social learning context, the strategy to be developed around social learning will necessarily have to use levers to support the adoption of the practice. Keep in mind: social learning is not new, since it can be observed in the context of face-to-face training or learning. It is therefore a safe bet that if the company is not familiar with digital tools that use social learning, it is probably already using them in a training context.
-> What actions should be put in place?
1 - Assess the current level of adoption of social learning in the company or organization
2 - Ask learners about their familiarity with social learning and their propensity to adopt it as part of their learning
3 - Identify the social learning mechanisms that “naturally” exist within the community of learners to include them in the social learning strategy
Step 2: Determine the goals for using social learning
Making use of social learning in training courses is good. Knowing why you're doing it and having goals in sight is much better. It is important not to think of social learning as a “gimmick” in training. As we saw in the intro, it is intrinsically linked to the learning process. When you want to develop a social learning strategy, it is important to list the objectives for which this mechanism is used. Do we want to hire learners who have resigned? Do we want to put people back at the heart of training? Do we want to encourage the exchange of knowledge between learners? Create a learning community ? Or even encourage the generation of training content by employees? In all cases, defining these objectives makes it possible to determine the contexts in which social learning can be used.
-> What actions should be put in place?
1 - Determine the objectives that social learning should meet
2 - Determine scenarios and contexts for using social learning accordingly
Step 3: Choose a platform adapted to social learning
Choosing the most suitable platform for social learning does not happen in half a day. So don't wait until the last moment to find out about existing offers on the market. In any case, a social learning platform must offer functionalities and options directly linked to the sharing of knowledge between learners. These include instant messaging, social media integration, forum features, and the ability to share training content in the form of curation or content creation. Some solutions allow learners to create training modules on subjects in which they have expertise, in the form of videos or microlearning.
-> What actions should be put in place?
1 - Allow time to compare existing solutions to identify those that can meet the objectives listed in advance
2 - Choose a platform that offers a wide range of social learning tools, in order to introduce functionalities to learners more or less gradually, according to the evolution of the social learning strategy
Step 4: A social learning strategy that capitalizes on “early adopters”
Regardless of the level of adoption and understanding of social learning within the learning community, it is necessary to capitalize on the learners who are most committed to the social learning process. They are easy to spot, they are the first to throw themselves at the social functionalities of the tools that can be put in their hands. They are also those who thrive the most in exchanges with their peers (we also talk about Peer learning) and are always eager to share their knowledge, explain things, etc. In any case, it may be interesting to develop a pilot strategy with this micro community of early adopters, in a beta testing process and in order to make them social learning ambassadors for other learners.
-> What actions should be put in place?
1 - Identify the learners most likely to engage in the process, in order to involve them at the early stages of the social learning strategy
2 - Make these learners the ambassadors of social learning for the rest of the learning community
Step 5: Gather feedback, measure and adapt
It's becoming a cliché as you repeat it, but let's go anyway: in any strategy, including social learning strategies, the key to success lies in measuring results and collecting feedback. A good habit that should start with the first thoughts on the strategy, by collecting learners' feedback and expectations. Humans evolve, habits, ways of learning and tools too, which is why a strategy is constantly adapting. Establish processes to collect regular feedback and measure performance indicators and return on investment linked to the objectives set by the strategy makes it possible to correct trajectories, but also to quickly identify weak signals among learners to address them as needed.
-> What actions should be put in place?
1 - Gather learners' opinions as soon as the social learning strategy is implemented, then throughout the year, at the end of each training course
2 - In the training performance indicators monitoring dashboard, include those related to the objectives set out in part 2.
