Visualise growth pathways within a learning platform

If you’ve ever been in the middle of a storm without electricity, you must already know how hard it is to find your way around your own home without the help of a flashlight. You end up stubbing your toe on your furniture, even while knowing the layout of your home like the back of your hand.

Even in the world of learning, it is possible to get lost. Imagine how a flashlight could help you find your way when you do. Similarly, a well-defined learning pathway helps a learner achieve a learning goal. Whether they are preparing for a specific job or want to update a skill, a learning journey should lead the way to success.

Visualise achievable growth

At aNewSpring, we are constantly thinking about learners, and how we can help them find their own road to success! So, we put on our thinking caps and focused on the question:  how can we make it easier for learners to achieve competencies within our learning platform?

First things first. To build and sustain motivation to learn and grow, we realised that learning paths shouldn’t be a single linear learning journey, but flexible. It should allow learners to branch out, explore and discover growth. A platform’s true purpose is to guide and nudge learners towards positive outcomes rather than instruct them on their learning process (hello, helicopter parenting!), and telling them exactly how, what or when they are going to learn.

The idea that people learn in different ways through flexible learning paths led us to tie certificate activities (and in the future, learning objectives, progress, retention, and so on) to competencies. Then, we provide them with an overview to keep track of their progress and find available learning journeys, before they go ahead and achieve those competencies.

Profiles and competencies within the aNewSpring platform is an overarching method of guiding learners through multiple learning journeys. Initially, the platform allowed users to only create single learning journeys or a blended delivery mechanism within a single learning journey.

To allow for greater flexibility, we explored the idea of bundling journeys together. With a larger learning outcome in mind, learners can then identify which learning journeys would help them achieve that goal.

Let's get into the details a little bit further. The instructor/designer creates a program around a competency for a specific profile, role, subject or topic in mind. The learner then performs a set of actions or activities within that role to achieve those competencies. This answers the question: what skills or competencies are needed to upskill to the next level in their career or subject.

Time to build

Then, there are the building blocks themselves:

• Profiles: The admin-users are responsible for setting up the profiles and offer these to the learners. They create a profile, add the competencies to it, and give learners and instructors access to the profile.

• Competencies: Competencies can be added in one or multiple profiles. So, learners don't have to achieve the same competency in every profile; just once is enough! Admin users can link the competency - on template or course level, to one or multiple certificate activities, and then learners will begin to see it and add to their learning path. Linking competencies on the template level will instantly make it visible for all courses of that template.

Ultimately, this helps to develop a clear picture of growth for a learner. They no longer have to wonder about getting from point A to point B any more, nor do they have to be confined by single learning journeys.

If you’ve known us even a little, you’ll know what to expect here. That’s right, we love examples that can help you relate, so here’s a brief breakdown.

Let's talk about project management. Better yet, let's take it apart. This way, we can show you what it would look like if implemented using profiles and competencies within aNewSpring.

Like some of us might know already, a project manager is an important lynchpin in running projects by coordinating across various teams.

Different organisations use certification as a measure of project management competence. Based on our initial research, we identified three project management competency areas: knowledge, proven experience and personality. Each competency area is built around specific pillars. The knowledge area can be divided into three major profiles—general management skills, project management skills and industry skills.

General management profile

What would this look like if we charted it out for better clarity from the perspective of a learner and a manager in an organisational setting?

For the sake of simplicity, we'll delve into one pillar. Within aNewSpring, the admin/manager can create 'general management' as a profile and associate the necessary competencies with it. The competencies in turn, are linked to certificate activities that allow learners to achieve them. They can also very easily visualise progress, by seeing which learning journeys will contribute to the competency they would have to acquire within a specific profile.

Now that we've shaped a graphic around the roles and what's expected of both of those roles, the next step is to visualise this within the aNewSpring environment.

You can then also see how the learner can accomplish a competency by completing the certificate activity. Notice that there is an expiry date on the certificate as well, for instances where recertification may be necessary.

That was quite a simple journey we took you on, explaining how you can string several learning journeys together and help learners develop within their role. Nevertheless, for a learning or instructional designer, it still is a walk in the park to put together learning journeys targeted at each of the competencies and then pin them to the profile they should be a part of!