Tag: coorpacademy

Labour shortage: training as a crucial tool for recovery

As the economic recovery is confirmed, we are already witnessing the consequences of the pandemic on the labour market. Faced with the reopening, many companies are facing a shortage of skilled labour. According to the Dares, The French Directorate for Research, Studies and Statistics, although the job market has picked up again since the end of the health crisis, many positions remain vacant due to a lack of candidates. This problem therefore raises a training issue for organisations if they wish to participate in this revival of activity.

“Last year we provided 35,000 training courses. We would like to increase this year to 45,000 to help the working population find the right job.”

In response to the difficulties in finding workers, Frank Ribuot, President of Randstad France, explained in a BFM Business interview on 25 June 2021 that employers are forced to “recruit less experienced staff or staff from another sector“. Training is an essential pillar for overcoming this obstacle to recovery, as it will allow for the effective training of a workforce that may be less qualified, but which is ready to quickly upgrade its skills.

 

According to Alain Griset, Minister for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, “Labour shortages were the number one concern of entrepreneurs before the crisis – it is now the sustainability of their activity – and this issue is coming back strongly with the recovery of activity“. SMEs would therefore be even more affected by these difficulties. Nevertheless, all sectors are experiencing recruitment difficulties, particularly in the construction sector, in personal services such as cleaning or assistance to the elderly, in the digital sector and also in certain industrial sectors, according to François Asselin, President of the CPME, the Confederation of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises. Thus, the construction trades (carpenters, roofers) and the health and social action trades (doctors, home helps, domestic helpers) are the trades most affected by the shortage, according to the Pôle Emploi “Labour Needs” Survey 2021.

Around the world, the phenomenon is becoming more pronounced. In early June in the United States, the US Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) warned that companies were struggling to hire enough people to meet demand.

“It is difficult for many companies to hire new workers, especially low hourly wage workers, drivers (…) and skilled sales people. The lack of job applicants has prevented some companies from increasing their production, sometimes even forcing them to reduce their opening hours.

In Germany, same observation. In a KfW Research study analysing the current skills shortage and how it could develop up to 2040, Dr Fritzi Köhler-Geib, Chief Economist of KfW Bankengruppe – one of the country’s top 15 banks – explains:

“The German economy can respond to the skills shortage and low productivity mainly through more investment, innovation, training and qualification measures. Our economy also needs these ingredients to overcome the coronavirus crisis and its consequences as quickly as possible. We therefore need a long-term growth and investment initiative from the public and private sectors for the coming years – not only in Germany but also in Europe. The main areas of action are crisis resilience, climate action and productivity growth through innovation and digitalisation.”

 

And in Quebec, the labour shortage is reaching new heights. According to Statistics Canada, the number of vacant positions in Quebec has increased by 18,500 (+14.4%) compared to a year earlier. One of the most affected sectors is the construction industry. Just over one-third (33.8%) of construction companies reported difficulty recruiting and retaining qualified employees, according to the Canadian Business Situation Survey. As a result, Quebec businesses continue to adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic and plan to invest in e-learning on an ongoing basis in the future, according to the Quebec Business Expectations Survey for the second quarter of 2021.

As we can see, the challenge of this recovery lies in increasing the skills and adaptability of companies and workers. It is clear that the available talent is scarce in most sectors. But this difficult period can also be an opportunity. The opportunity to invest in the development of skills, on an ongoing basis, to better deal with this problem in the future. Training is therefore a remedy for the shortage of skilled labour, and can also accompany the various transformations of companies at the same time. The challenge is to plan for the needs, to understand the issues and therefore to prepare for them. It is by identifying in advance the skills that will be crucial in the future that companies will be able to initiate change and face the next difficulties. It is therefore a real training strategy that organisations must put in place to promote the recovery of activity and overcome the current labour shortage. Human resources must initiate a real reflection on the talent available and the talent required, in order to put in place strategic training plans that meet the new needs: accessible at a distance, innovative and varied formats, features to engage learners and hold their attention, etc.

 

Labour shortages do not mean worker shortages. All employees are capable of upgrading their skills, learning, and evolving. What we are really witnessing is a shortage of qualified skills within the pool of potential workers. Of course, some will say that this is an optimistic way of looking at the problem. But we are convinced that it is by believing in the potential of workers and providing them with the tools for success that companies will be able to overcome all the current and future challenges.

Trivial Pursuit : 2 new courses to make people love to learn

December 15, 1979, two friends who love board games decide to play a game. Scott Abbott, a sports journalist, and Chris Haney, a photographer for the Montreal Gazette, ask themselves: who is the better player?

One argument leads to another, and an idea germinates in the minds of the two friends on this cold Canadian night. They don’t know it yet, but they have just invented a board game that will become mythical…

Trivial Pursuit !

Vendu à 20 millions d’unités en 1984, le jeu Trivial Pursuit est depuis plus de 40 ans, le jeu de culture générale pour animer soirées ou après-midis en famille, entre amis, et entre collègues.

Selling 20 million units in 1984, Trivial Pursuit has been the general knowledge game to liven up evenings and afternoons with family, friends and colleagues for over 40 years.

And it is also a partner publisher of Coorpacademy’s emblematic courses for 1 year now. The Trivial Pursuit courses offered on the Coorpacademy platform cover different themes, each time with 30 general knowledge questions on the chosen subject.

 

A partnership for a love of learning

If we are proud to collaborate with Hasbro to enrich our training offer, it is because this partnership is the symbol of our deepest conviction: learning can be fun and entertaining, while remaining effective and engaging. Indeed, with this partnership, we combine our desire to deal with all existing soft skills (and general knowledge is one of them!) with our constant search for innovative and entertaining formats, which make people want to learn and, above all, love learning.

 

To date, 7 Trivial Pursuit courses are available on the Coorpacademy platforms, and we have just added 2 new courses accessible from today, 23 July 2021:

 

Trivial Pursuit courses

Science & Nature

Trivial Pursuit – Science & Nature

Geography

Trivial Pursuit – Geography

Entertainment

Trivial Pursuit – Entertainment

History

Trivial Pursuit – History

Arts & Literature

Trivial Pursuit – Arts & Literature

Sports & Leisure

Trivial Pursuit – Sports & Leisure

(New) Planet and Environment: 30 questions to test your knowledge of the circular economy, to develop your sustainable thinking and initiate change.

Trivial Pursuit – Planet and Environment

(New) Web & Technology: 30 questions specially created for those who think they know everything about the Internet, GAFAM and the big names of Silicon Valley.

Trivial Pursuit – Web and Technology

At the end of the programme, you can win a special certificate with all the pie charts to illustrate your general knowledge!

 

But what does an online Trivial Pursuit course look like?

Of course, you can find your Trivial Pursuit courses in your course catalogue:

Let’s choose the Planet and Environment course, published this week, which will allow you to develop the new essential skill for tomorrow’s world: sustainable thinking. It looks like a classic course, like all the courses you can find in the Coorpacademy catalogue. The same interface, a Basic, Advanced, and Coach level.

As part of this pie chart, you will, on completion of the Basic level, be able to :

  1. Know a simple technique for air conditioning homes
  2. Understand the concept of the circular economy

At the end of the Advanced level, you will be able to :

  1. Know which resource is the most exploited by humans after water
  2. Master the concept of grey energy

Finally, at the end of the Coach level, you will be able to : 

  1. Understand the etymology of the word “climate”
  2. Know the plant-based alternatives to leather

Three levels, increasing levels of difficulty. So far, nothing new.

The difference with another course lies in the structure of the questions, as well as in the way the course is “validated”. Each level will “ask” you 10 general knowledge questions. There is no lesson, no video. Each correct answer earns you 4 stars (as in any other course) and you need 6 correct answers out of 10 minimum to access the next level. Here is an example of a question:

In 2016, Bertrand Piccard made the first round-the-world trip in a…

solar-powered

nuclear-powered

hydrogen-powered

 

In a solar plane! By answering a question, whether you answer correctly or not, you will have access to these two irremovable elements of the Coorpacademy pedagogy. The Key Point, and Did You Know? As in the following screenshot:

 

Now you know everything! All you have to do is play the course. And it is perhaps in this context that the expression we regularly use (playing a course, rather than following it, for the entertainment dimension we try to add to all our training content) takes on its fullest meaning. 

It’s your turn to play!

TRIVIAL PURSUIT, the associated logo, the distinctive design of the game board, trivia cards, game tokens, and scoring wedges are trademarks of Hasbro and are used with permission. © 1981, 2020 Hasbro. All Rights Reserved. Licensed by Hasbro.

In what world do we want to live in 30 years?

 

For the past sixty years, the world economy has been structured around an ideal of mass consumption and infinite growth. But in a world of finite resources, this model is beginning to show its limits. So how can we transform this line from extraction to the end of the product’s life into a virtuous circle? This is the objective of the new course “The circular economy: from the straight line to the virtuous circle” co-published with MySezame, a training organization specialized in sustainable transformation and one of the 135 French companies to be certified B Corp, the label of impact companies of the 21st century!

We interviewed Célestine Julien at MySezame, Head of the Inter-Company Course (GR20²°), who collaborated in the creation of the course on the Coorpacademy platforms.

 

1- In a few sentences, who is MySezame and what do you do? 

MySezame is a training organization specialized in impact business.
We engage and train leaders and their teams in business transformations and innovations related to societal issues through inspiring meetings and action workshops. Our ambition is to create a shift from individuals to companies to engage them in a collective rethinking of business models and success, in order to make the economy sustainable, durable and inclusive.

2- Why did you choose to publish a training on the circular economy? What issues does it address?

The circular economy allows a new way of thinking the economy where collaboration is the cornerstone of the system. Indeed, the waste of some becomes the resources of others allowing, in fine, a reduction of the pressure of human activity exerted on the planet. Collaboration, by its definition, underlines the importance of working together to achieve a common goal. The notion of results and co-responsibility is therefore important. If we want to respond to the social and environmental challenges of our century, it is time to create a system with nature and all economic agents: citizens, consumers, employees, companies, industries, public authorities… to create a virtuous system.

We have a common responsibility where each and every one of us can act at their level and do their part.

3- Is the circular economy the breeding ground for the 4th Industrial Revolution? Is it the new economic paradigm towards which we should absolutely move?

If I tell you that in 30 years (I let you see how old you will be) the UN foresees +2 billion inhabitants on Earth, that the World Bank foresees an increase of 70% of our waste (where today there is already a 7th continent of plastic in the Ocean) and that currently, every year, we already consume in 6 months, on a global scale, all the resources that the Earth is capable of generating in one year. These few figures and the perspective they outline are quite catastrophic. However, they have the merit of making us aware of one essential thing: our current development’ mode, based on a linear economy, is not sustainable.

So let’s ask ourselves the question, in which world do we want to live in 30 years?

A world where, when we go diving in the sea, we will see more plastic than fish, where we will be forced to eat pills with a sour taste because we will have exhausted our resources, where machines will have replaced many uninteresting things we used to do but also things we liked to do, where we will be so connected that we will be chatting with a stranger at the end of the world but we won’t know our neighbor, where science will allow us to have 3 children, all of them born male because it would be more convenient for some obscure reasons, where we will hear every week that a country disappears from the map because of a lack of water, not to mention conflicts, natural disasters and other humanitarian disasters…

Or else, in 30 years, our waste will have become resources thanks to the collaboration of all the economic actors, we will know our neighbor, and with them, we will barter, we will share, we will exchange in all conviviality. We will eat organic vegetables produced in permaculture less than 150kms away and on the terrace farm of our building. We will have 3 children who will all be different, very creative and empathetic, because the school will also have changed. It will have taught them to read, write and count, but not only. It will also have taught them to manage their emotions. To make plans. To succeed with rather than against others. To ask questions rather than recite answers. To take care of themselves, of others, of their environment.

We will preserve our resources, we will share them, we will live together on the same planet.

4- The first perspective you mention is scary, and… the second seems far from our current world. How would the circular economy make us avoid the worst?

Let’s say the wave is there. The question is whether we ride it or let it drown.

We won’t lie to ourselves, the task is big. But if we choose the glass half-full option, the fear dissipates and makes way for an incredible field of possibilities!

The circular economy is a first step to act and collectively redesign our development model to make it more sustainable and desirable.

It implies taking a step aside and looking at the whole functioning of our economy in a different way. It opens up numerous opportunities for all economic agents by rethinking their relationship with the territory, their activities, but also the societal contribution they wish to make. It can therefore be a formidable lever for commitment, at all levels, around a common and revolutionary societal project!

5- Which companies (whether or not MySezame is working with them) do you think have made a particularly significant and successful sustainable transformation? Do they have a secret?

30 years ago, Ray Anderson launched a total transformation of his company, a world leader in the production of highly polluting carpets, to make it a “zero impact” company. The result? Unflinching growth in the bottom line. A better planet. Convinced consumers. Employees who are committed. (I invite you to learn more about this leading example in the course 😉 )

And on this side of the Atlantic, in France, Camif, a historic company created in 1947 to equip teachers with furniture through mail order, is reinventing itself. In 2008, the company went bankrupt and was taken over by Emery Jacquillat, who was able to engage all of his stakeholders and actors in the region around a mission: “To offer products and services for the home, designed to benefit people and the planet. To mobilize our ecosystem (consumers, employees, suppliers, shareholders, local players), to collaborate and act to invent new models of consumption, production and organization.” A true laboratory for experimentation, Camif places CSR and the circular economy at the heart of its operations. Now profitable, it proves that growth and social, societal and environmental responsibility can go hand in hand.

The secret of these successes? A sincere desire to make the company contributive and committed to the common good. Economic profitability is no longer the only objective to be achieved, but rather the contribution to the resolution of social and environmental issues.

6- Who is the course you have co-edited with Coorpacademy aimed at? What is the main objective?

This course is aimed at all employees, from all sectors and professions and can also touch the consumer and citizen in each of us. Through concrete and varied examples which illustrate this paradigm shift, the course allows to understand the main principles of the circular economy and to identify the “key success factors” which allow the economic agents to be part of this virtuous approach!

Coorpacademy is integrated in Teams: when working, collaborating and training are done in the same place

We are witnessing the emergence of new, more ergonomic collaborative tools, designed to communicate in a faster and more organized way. Emails are less and less common and the expression “Slack me“, referring to the collaborative communication platform Slack, is starting to democratize, while in September 2019, the platform exceeded 12 million daily active users. These tools that streamline communication between teams and improve overall productivity are slowly replacing older, more segmented work tools. This is both a digital transformation, which favors the adoption of these digital tools, but it is also a generational transformation of collaboration methods at work. Employees will favor comprehensive, interconnected communication channels, or ecosystems such as Microsoft Teams, which facilitates teamwork and telecommuting by combining instant messaging, video conferencing, and file sharing on its eponymous collaborative platform. By 2020, the Teams platform exceeded 115 million daily active users.

Under pressure from the lockdown and generalization of remote working, companies are adapting and adopting these new tools that allow them to work together on files simultaneously, to organize meetings, conversations, and calls, in short, to collaborate – even remotely – from a single location, common to everyone. You might as well say that next to what these new tools allow, messaging services such as Outlook, almost look like fossils of professional communication. Today, we can have everything at hand on the same interface, designed to facilitate and streamline communication. It’s a natural progression, as the user experience on the platforms improves, the work tools also become easier to handle, and respond even more to the needs of a company.

But then, to truly meet all the needs of your employees and provide them with all the tools to improve their productivity, training must also be part of this ecosystem to naturally integrate into the employees’ workflow. Because a tool is useless if no one uses it, digital training solutions must be accessible directly on these new collaborative tools, because this is where employees are active, but it is also where they encounter the need for training. There is even a parallel between the evolution we are witnessing concerning our working methods, which are becoming more ergonomic, digital, and which respond to a set of needs thanks to the same global solution; and training, which is becoming digitalized, innovating to create formats adapted to the needs of the learners and offering contents with high added value in a single place. Our ambition at Coorpacademy is to make training accessible to all your collaborators and to meet them where they work. Thus, to make training accessible to all, the Coorpacademy platform is integrated into Teams! Indeed, on the Microsoft Teams platform, you can train in 1 click by integrating the Coorpacademy application, which will be accessible directly on your working environment once downloaded.

 

Work tools are becoming ecosystems and are more and more integrated, to guarantee a secure sharing of information within the whole organization and to promote collaboration. As we mentioned in our article “Learn and work at the same time or when training is just a click away“, training must be integrated into your organization’s productivity spaces, to allow your employees to have access in record time to a catalog of premium course content and thus immediately put into practice the knowledge acquired and optimize the retention of information.

Coorpacademy promotes innovation and skills development within Swiss Life France

 

Our clients have training needs and our mission is to meet them. At SwissLife, the challenge of training is to give employees the opportunity to be more than ever a player in their professional lives and to encourage innovation by developing their skills, according to their choices, their needs and at their pace.

In order to achieve these objectives, Swiss Life and the company’s Training and Skills Development Department regularly enrich their catalog of learning offers with differentiating digital training. Today, the Training Department is integrating the Coorpacademy platform, in order to stimulate the curiosity of employees and their desire to learn!

We are very proud to be able to support the strategic objectives of the SwissLife group through 4 training courses on innovation and digital transformation, selected for the launch of the platform in mid-June 2021: “Entrepreneurial culture”, “Digital culture”, “Creativity and agility”, and “Anticipating change”.

Through our catalog of premium content, SwissLife employees will have the opportunity to develop their skills on strategic topics for the company such as cultural, digital, or sustainable transformation and to further develop a culture of innovation in line with the company’s purpose.

“The challenge is to allow everyone to live according to their own choices and our strategic objectives. To achieve this, we need to combine creativity, method and rigor. A combination of behaviors that we must adopt collectively.”
Eddie Abecassis, Director of Innovation at Swiss Life France

To know more about the role of Coorpacademy in innovation at SwissLife.

 

New skills available on the Coorpacademy catalog!

 

Coorpacademy’s catalog is being renewed to better meet the training expectations of tomorrow. In a constantly evolving environment, it is necessary to know how to train continuously. To do so, it is crucial to identify the essential skills to be acquired. As mentioned in our article on the 10 key skills to be developed by 2025, identified by the World Economic Forum in its Future of Jobs 2020 report, training is essential to prepare companies and employees for the challenges that will disrupt them, and to anticipate the major transformations to come. While we already cover 100% of the skills identified by the World Economic Forum, we are investing in new skills for the future, such as sustainable thinking!

Therefore, we are glad to enrich our training catalog with 3 new skills. The ones that we, and the World Economic Forum, believe will shape the future of work in the years to come. In order to better accompany you in the training of your employees, in your upskilling or simply to feed your curiosity, discover the new skills to be developed on Coorpacademy:

Adaptability and Resilience

Showing adaptation and resilience is crucial in all circumstances. We can never say it enough, being prepared for the unexpected is essential to remain efficient and not to be destabilized by the obstacles we encounter. For companies, developing a culture of adaptability and resilience allows them to prepare for the unexpected, paradoxically. 2020 has shown that the unexpected is often confusing, which is why you should learn how to react to such situations, and do so before the next event.

Sustainable thinking 

The next (r)evolution will be ecological and to prepare for it, we are adding the competence entitled “sustainable thinking” in the Coorpacademy catalog. The ecological transformation of companies involves numerous stakes and the changes it implies must be thought sustainably, in order to conceive an organization that would take into account its whole ecosystem (economic, social and environmental) to build a sustainable model. To begin the acculturation to these vital subjects, we’re adding the sustainable thinking competence to the Coorpacademy catalog!

Learning to learn 

Because learning is not always easy, between notification and lack of concentration, we think it is important to go back to the basics: learning to learn. This is the theme of the new skill added to the Coorpacademy catalog. Rediscover the mechanism of your brain, to better understand the way it processes information and thus learn more efficiently. As we evolve in an uncertain world, learning to learn is essential to develop your adaptability and respond rapidly to the transformations of your profession. Become a learning ace with this new skill available on Coorpacademy! 

By enriching the Coorpacademy catalog with new skills, we enable companies to promote their transformation(s).  To ensure a successful digital transition, discover the 3 main skills to acquire:

Digital transformation: what if it is not over? Discover the top 3 skills for a successful transition

To discover in detail the new skills available in the Coorpacademy catalog, click here.

For the second time in a row, Coorpacademy has been recognized as a FrontRunner® for Learning Management by The Gartner Digital Markets Research Team!

 

Coorpacademy has been recognized as a FrontRunner® for Learning Management by The Gartner Digital Markets Research Team, for the second time in a row!

FrontRunners is a 100% data-driven graphic, published on Software Advice, which helps businesses easily identify the top software products in a particular category, based on verified user reviews across three websites: Capterra, Software Advice and GetApp, which operate under Gartner Digital Markets umbrella brand.

Coorpacademy recognized as a FrontRunner for the second time in a row

How does it work?

Software Advice’s FrontRunners uses reviews from real software users to highlight the top-rated Learning Management software.

To be eligible for inclusion as a FrontRunner, a product must:

  • Have at least 20 unique user reviews in the last 24 months
  • Offer the following core functionality: course tracking, course management

Products that meet these requirements and earn the top scores for Usability and Customer Satisfaction made the cut as FrontRunners.

We are proud at Coorpacademy to have been recognized by users as a top player in terms of Usability and Customer Satisfaction for the second time in a row. This result rewards the work we’re doing at Coorpacademy to offer the most user-friendly learning experience, and demonstrates that our product improvements are always centered on the learners’ overall experience.

Discover more here!

 

Show Me How You Learn And I’ll Tell You Who You Are!

 

We all learn in a different way! But only a few online training platforms, especially in the corporate learning space, take behavioral specificities into account… It’s high time training providers start using behavioral analytics!

According to a study from Accenture Strategy, Harnessing Revolution: Creating the Future Workforce, by acquiring soft skills (such as problem-solving, creativity or emotional intelligence) two times faster than we do now, it will reduce the part of jobs threatened by automation by a third or even by half!

What are we waiting for to accelerate the rhythm of corporate training and engage employees on developing their soft skills?

Digital learning is a powerful tool when it is flawless, seamless, individualized, omnichannel – pretty much like a successful customer experience. And like customer experience, training begins with a deep knowledge of the users/learners. A HR executive, a training manager or a learning officer must begin with understanding the way their teams learn!

Big Data doesn’t rhyme with individualization.

A training manager has to gather data but also select the data, exploit the data and analyse the data in order to improve the experience offered to employees. Doing so will also allow training managers to detect new talents, open career suggestions or even anticipate people leaving…

When learning analytics didn’t exist yet, data was not “Big” yet and online training data were only attendance rates or achievement rates. They were only performance indicators. Not a lot of improvements were coming from this type of data.

Big Data arrived after allowing companies to collect and store large amounts of data, with the big promise of revolutionizing training with ‘Learning analytics’. But what do we really learn from this type of data? To improve learners’ engagement, does the number of followed courses, the time spent on a course, the connexion frequency or the obtained results really help? They’re obviously important indicators but are not enough to improve engagement or detect talents.

To develop a behavioral analytics culture.

We all learn in a different way. It’s a complex, evolutive process and depends on several factors linked to us or to our environment, such as our emotional state, context, topic or even to the time of day. A learning experience will then be successful only if we take into account these new indicators which mirror all these different learning behaviors. Like curiosity for example. Curiosity is linked to evolved capacities, including when it comes to learning. Curiosity is a skill that comes from our evolution: individuals with curiosity had a competitive edge on their counterparts lacking curiosity. Research show that learners will show more curiosity about a topic when they already have some knowledge of it but lack insurance. We need to take that into account in our choices of corporate training content.

Perseverance is another example. People retaining interest and effort over a long period of time succeed more than individuals showing less perseverance. It is wise to consider the engagement, but not only – it’s also important to take a look at the activity that motivates the learner to complete a training.

Regularity is another behavioral indicator which gives information on how a learner manages his/her time and training course.

By using behavioral analytics, the sets of data available to HR and managers will be way richer and more complete. But only a few training platforms provide these types of analytics. However, exploiting them in HR and at the operational level (algorithms and machine learning) brings more and more beneficial insights for the company, as well as for the user.

Companies now can access all kinds of new insights: not only what a person actually learnt, but also how the learner ended up learning this, what learning approach he/she chose, and therefore companies can suggest the most precise recommendations, accurate in regard of what the learner really needs. In order for the employee to be autonomous in the way he/she trains, in order for him/her to control and secure his/her employability: it’s necessary for the company to understand the way the learner learns!

This article is the English adaptation of an article from Frédérick Bénichou, co-founder of Coorpacademy, published in the French press (Journal du Net). You can read it in its original version here!

Aristotle said it and it is still true: there’s no real knowledge without ethics

 

This article is part of our Learning research and innovation series, offered by Coorpacademy in association with the EPFL’s (Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne, Switzerland) LEARN Center. The authors are Jessica Dehler Zufferey, Executive Director of LEARN and Roland Tormey, Coordinator of EPFL Teaching Support Center.

When reflecting on your lifelong learning journey, you probably contemplate on which training you would like to take, what knowledge you might lack, and which of your learning habits are sub-optimal. In some moments, you might even find yourself thinking about what “knowledge” really is; is it being up-to-date with the latest flow of information? Is it having accumulated expertise in a specific domain through experiences? Is it our general level of education? Or could it be something else?

Three types of knowledge

In Ancient Greece at the dawn of scientific knowledge, Aristotle distinguished three types of knowledge. (1) 

  1. Epistème refers to the understanding of the world and the universally true reason of why something is. Today, we would talk about this as scientific and theoretical knowledge.
  2. Technè applies and uses this scientific knowledge, most of the times in order to achieve something. While epistème allows to understand the world, technè is about acting on the world. (2)
  3. Phronêsis, the third type, takes the reflection one step further.  Not only is theory applied in action, but phronêsis adds the consideration of the ethical implications of the proposed  action. Some have translated it as prudence, but not in the sense of hesitant application, but rather practical wisdom or sagacity and the capacity to distinguish good from bad action in day to day life. It seems easy to consider phronêsis as a necessary ingredient of knowledge, when we remind ourselves that not all application of scientific knowledge was and is ethically optimal. 

These ancient concepts continue to bubble through in contemporary social and human sciences research too. Jonathan Haidt (3), a social psychologist at the University of Virginia, has explored the way in which our actions are often driven by emotions and instincts rather than by rationality. Much of our ethical behaviour is, he argues, driven by ‘moral emotions’ like compassion, gratitude, contempt and anger, rather than by ‘moral reasoning’ as it is traditionally conceptualized. For those who think of themselves as rational people, his research is eye-opening in the way it demonstrates the typical cognitive bias in ethical decisions:  they are taken very quickly and driven by emotion, with our rational mind being used to justify the decision after the fact. Cultivating the aptitude to live ethically then requires more than developing our rational selves. Developing phronêsis – practical wisdom – will require emotional as well as intellectual work, it seems.  

Are we there yet in our current education models?

Of the three types of knowledge identified by Aristotle, epistème, related to science & theoretical  knowledge, is the most teachable. Universal laws can be explained and demonstrated to learners. In turn, technè builds on epistème. The identification of possibilities to apply that theoretical knowledge can be trained for example by experiential learning. Most of our learning, at school, at university, in apprenticeship and in corporate workplace learning is of the first or second type. Instructional designers often try to optimize the learning experience in order to facilitate the transfer from epistème to technè, i.e. the application of theoretical and conceptual knowledge.

However, phronêsis cannot be taught independently of the other two. It is considered to grow naturally with experience. However, the opposite might be happening. François Taddei reports in his recent book Apprendre au XXIe siècle (4) how the consideration of ethical implications can drop with growing levels of expertise and education. He refers to a 2011 study showing that the number of years of medical studies was negatively correlated with empathy (the dimension of ethical considerations addressed in this study). Similar results are reported for management students who seem to lose their collaborative attitude over the course of their studies. Our own studies with engineering students have found that their levels of moral reasoning may decline as they study. (5)

Many call for a more integrated view on education that integrates all three types of knowledge. For example, the French national engineering accreditation body CTI (Commission of Engineers Titles) included the capacity to identify ethical responsibilities as an essential criterion for any training of engineers. (6) (If at this point, you want to analyse the capacity of practical judgement in your organisation, you could apply the inventory on ethical climate for example). 

A training program addressing all three types of knowledge

Research suggests that training of phronêsis should not be implemented as pure philosophical courses on ethical reasoning. Criteria for success are for instance cognitive engagement through complex dilemmas with diverse potential decisions, emotional relation with realistic rather than dramatic case studies, and integration in subject-matter courses. 

Take computer science education as an example. In this field, there has long been a focus on teaching computer science (the epistème part of it) and/or ICT (Information and Communication Technology) usage (the technè part of it). Only recently, and probably due to the general awareness about the digital transformation of all aspects of life and society, the analysis of the impact of digital technology on the world was included as an essential ingredient. The German Society for computer science, for instance, has declared in 2016 that digital education needs to include three questions: 

  1. How does digital technology work? 
  2. How do I use it? 
  3. How does digital technology impact the world?

In order to educate on the third question in our current projects on, more generally, computational thinking education, we sought for inspiration from the latest thinking in a quite new domain called sociology of digital technology (the most recent and complete view was presented by Dominique Boullier). Different perspectives are used in order to analyse the impact of digital technology on many levels: 

Cognitive science and psychology help to analyse the impact on ones behaviour and thinking as a user of digital technology; 

Social psychology and sociology support the evaluation of impact on interpersonal relations, social groups and society; 

Historical comparison allows us to identify the impact on any aspect of life such as work, mobility, communication, security, or health. It can even shed some light on the question of how digital technology might impact the future. 

Why it matters

Today, we see that scientific knowledge and technological evolutions, especially in digital technologies, have an enormous impact on the world. There are few things we now do without digital help, whether it’s explicitly using digital tools, or it’s the algorithms working in the background sometimes without us being aware of them. Our communication patterns have changed dramatically. In parallel, algorithms inside social media platforms recommend us social interactions. Professionals from multiple domains have included digital practices into their working habits. Our consumption is turning more and more towards e-commerce. Our online behaviour is used to advertise products and services more successfully, and the internet of things will expand the data available to improve these recommendation systems further. We should get prepared for more transformations in the future. 

At the same time, we are confronted with incredible challenges, ecological (global warming, access to drinking water, renewable energy, …) and societal (just think of public opinion and democracy in this time of ‘fake news’), that we need to tackle if we want our societies and species to survive.

As a result, it is time to learn to learn again – not only theoretical knowledge and how to use it, but how to make use of it for the betterment of ourselves, of our relations with others, of our society, and our world.

Innovation in Learning Science and Educational Technologies are top of our agenda at Coorpacademy, as we see them as critical to our mission to continuously improve the learning experience on our platform, making it even more personalized, flexible and enjoyable for learners.

Authors EPFL Jessica Dehler Zufferey and Roland Tormey

Sources

(1) Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, second edition, translated by Terence Irwin, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1999.

(2) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Episteme and Techne. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/episteme-techne/#3

(3) Haidt, J. (2013) The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. London: Penguin

(4) Taddei, F. (2018). Apprendre au XXIe siècle. Calmann-Lévy

(5) Tormey, R. LeDuc, I., Isaac, S. Hardebolle, C. and Vonechè Cardia, I. (2015) The Formal and Hidden Curricula of Ethics in Engineering Education https://www.sefi.be/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/56039-R.-TORMEY.pdf

(6) CTI https://www.cti-commission.fr/fonds-documentaire/document/25/chapitre/1217

(7) Cullen, J. B., Victor, B., & Bronson, J. W. (1993). The Ethical Climate Questionnaire: An Assessment of its Development and Validity. Psychological Reports, 73(2), 667–674. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1993.73.2.667

(8) German Society for Computer Science, 2016, Dagstuhl-Erklärung.Bildung in der digitalen vernetzten Welt. https://gi.de/fileadmin/GI/Hauptseite/Themen/Dagstuhl-Erkla__rung_2016-03-23.pdf

(9) Dominique Boullier. 2019. Sociologie du numérique. Paris, Armand Colin.

Coorpacademy in the Top 15 Performing Learning Technology Platforms for the second year in a row by The Learning and Performance Institute

 

After making it in 2018, we made it again!

We are pleased to announce that we are part of the 2019 Top 15 Performing Learning Technology Platforms unveiled today by The Learning and Performance Institute, the UK’s leading authority on workplace Learning & Development.

It is great recognition – this supports our ambition to be the partner of choice of companies that are willing to implement a continuous learning culture and develop the employability of their employees.

 

The Top 15 report is available here!

Here are some insights from The Learning and Performance Institute website on how these Top 15 highest-performing learning technologies providers have been selected.

What does ‘highest-performing’ mean?

Since 1995, The Learning and Performance Institute has consulted with, evaluated, and mentored thousands of organisations worldwide to help them build internal capability and deliver notable performance improvement. This is done through the LPI’s “Performance Through Learning” programme: a consultative framework that leads to accreditation by prioritizing outcomes over delivery, homing in on the value, efficacy and business impact of learning, and aligning competencies with organisational strategy and goals.

The 15 organisations listed in this eBook have a clear roadmap by which to build their capability and adapt their strategy for continual success. They demonstrate a strong customer value proposition and have a corporate culture that instils confidence throughout sales and marketing, to delivery and after-sales support. They are passionate and committed to developing their staff, their products, their market reach, and their performance.

Prospective and existing customers can be assured that these 15 organisations will provide the highest quality of service and the best user experience. They are trusted business partners, acting always in the best interests of their clients and, as such, fully endorsed by the Learning and Performance Institute.

How are they measured?

During an accreditation assessment, the LPI evaluates organisational efficacy against the following key performance indicators (KPI’s), scoring each against a reference framework.

  • Client Integrity
  • Corporate Integrity & CSR
  • Client Value Proposition
  • Marketing
  • Sales
  • Learning Technologies Consultancy
  • Learning Platforms
  • Learning Authoring Tools
  • Quality Management
  • Service/Product Roadmap
  • Qualifications/Accreditations
  • People Development
  • Business Stability

 

The results of this are fed into a formula that applies weightings to each KPI to generate numbers representing Best Solution, Best Operational Management and Best Overall. This eBook uses the figures from Best Overall.

Discover more here by downloading the eBook!

We are proud at Coorpacademy to be part of the Top 15 Highest-Performing Learning Technologies Providers.

 

MENOU

Voir l'étude de cas