The Schoolhouse Approach

Think back to when you were in college. Some core classes were required, and some electives were not. You submitted your desired classes and the university scheduled your classes. Sometimes you got a good professor and other times you did not. Either way, you had to make the best of it until the next semester.
When classes began, each student came from a different background, which resulted in the Goldilocks learning paradigm. In the same way that Goldilocks found Papa Bear's porridge too hot, Mama Bear's porridge too cold, and Baby Bear's porridge just right, quick learners, or those with relevant experience, found the pace of courses too slow. Other learners struggled to keep up, and others still found that the pace was just right. Those who already knew the material covered in the beginning of the course got in the habit of skipping class. Some of those who struggled asked questions and slowed down the pace of the entire class.
A baseline level of learning was achieved by everyone, but at a great cost to the faster or more advanced learners. Rather than spending time learning new things, this group of students spent much of its time waiting for others to catch up. In a college environment this was acceptable, but under the tight deadlines, productivity requirements, and competition presented by the business world, it is not.
The emergence of self-paced, online learning technology, like learning management systems (LMSs) has provided some reprieve to under-challenged learners in business settings. No longer must learners move at the pace of their slowest peers, but can instead access and complete online courses at their own pace. In many ways this is like giving Goldilocks control over the temperature of her porridge, instead of forcing her to find the bowl of porridge that suits her taste. But still, these LMS systems only address half of the problem. After all, even with control over temperature, Goldilocks still only has one flavor of porridge to choose from, and one flavor won't work for every person.
Self-paced learning still forces learners to waste time and cycles studying material that they already know, because they follow the same philosophy as the "schoolhouse," in which a single set of static content applies to every learner taking the course. Corporate learners go to the LMS like they would go to school, and then have to turn through HTML pages from the beginning of a course to the end. Like school, all learners cover the same content, and have to attend entire classes—even if they know 90 percent of the information already.
In the work environment, learners' responsibilities extend far beyond those of full-time students and include a variety of job responsibilities. This creates increased pressure to skip courses that learners feel are not highly productive. As a result, courses accessed through LMSs tend to have low completion rates, and online learners skip courses like college students skip classes (and Goldilocks skipped Papa Bear's and Mama Bear's porridge). In addition, the curricula itself often has high dropout rates, as students either access only what they need to get specific information and then leave, or become bored with course work that yields little new knowledge.
Complaints about LMS complexity abound as well. The needs of the primary end user—the learner—are often secondary to those of the learning administrator. The model of only being able to access learning content as part of a large course makes it difficult for learners to find the content they need and extensive navigation is often required to even start a course.
Fortunately, there are ways to combat the challenges of the schoolhouse approach to learning that LMSs create within the corporate environment. Consider a learner-focused, content-centric approach that makes granular learning content, not just whole entire courses, easily accessible. These capabilities ensure that learners can rapidly find and review a smaller portion of material that meets their specific learning needs; so that time spent learning is optimized. To do this, organizations must not only manage learner activity and courses, but must also manage learning content with a learning content management system (LCMS), to ensure that learners can access the specific content that helps them perform their roles better.
Today's corporate learners need a prescriptive learning environment that can assess and measure a student's knowledge and fill in the knowledge gaps with a tailored educational program built around the right content, not just the right courses. The key is that the learning is customized to the individual, not to the course. Enhancing LMS functionality with the means to manage and prescribe individualized learning content is like giving Goldilocks control over the temperature and flavor of her porridge. She no longer has to make due with whatever porridge the bears have made available to her, but can cook up the perfect bowl for herself all on her own.
One word sums up the importance of a personalized approach to learning in business today: time. The schoolhouse approach, or only delivering complete courses, requires people to waste time reviewing content they already know. Content-centric learning allows learners to focus on just the information that will make them more productive.
The emergence of learning suites that offer both LMS and LCMS functionality serve as proof that vendors recognize the value of moving beyond the limits of the schoolhouse approach driven by traditional, course-based LMS functionality.
Companies that opt for a learner-focused and content-centric approach to learning will find a faster return on their investment by embracing a streamlined approach that ensures that time spent learning is productive. And that is worth its weight in gold.

Massood Zarrabian is CEO of OutStart, a Boston-based learning software company.