Comments on: Linking Lean Thinking to Education – Conference Notes: Womack’s vision of a ‘Gemba University’ http://www.leanblog.org/2006/11/linking-lean-thinking-to-education_30/ Mark Graban's leanblog.org - Lean Healthcare, Lean Thinking, Lean Manufacturing, Toyota Production System Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:59:58 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Craig Woll http://www.leanblog.org/2006/11/linking-lean-thinking-to-education_30/#comment-1306 Craig Woll Fri, 01 Dec 2006 23:34:00 +0000 http://leanblog.bigbigdesign.net/2006/11/linking-lean-thinking-to-education-%e2%80%93-conference-notes-womacks-vision-of-a-gemba-university/#comment-1306 I'm intrigued by this blog post. I have PhD in Instructional Technology and work in the Learning and Development organization of a large multi-national semiconductor manufacturing company. I would like to differentiate between Education, Training, and Learning for this discussion. <br/><br/>Education is a system designed to maximize the teaching resource by putting 50-500 students in a room listening to the "expert" talk about a topic. Transfer in this case is very low because knowledge is not applied for a long time afterward. <br/><br/>Training is a system designed to maximize student time so they can get back to their job by cramming the same information into their head in a fraction of the time using an less experience instructor. Transfer is better because the proximity of application is closer to the instruction. <br/><br/>Learning is when the student actually knows something they did not previously know or is able to do something they could not previously do. <br/><br/>These are super simplistic definitions that all professionals in my field disagree on. With that disclaimer it has been my experience that we could eliminate most of the "Education" and "Training" in corporations and get better results by using master/apprentice models, job aids, and performance support embedded into the system.<br/><br/>Now that I agreed with Womack on part of what was said, I'll disagree with this assertion:<br/><br/>"If we gain new knowledge through experimentation, why doesn't all learning work this way?"<br/><br/>Why? Because there are lots of ways that we learn. It's not just through experimentation. If that were true we should all list our copy of "Lean Thinking" on eBay and stop reading this blog. I don't think we want to do that. The truth is that we probably learn at a much higher rate through experimentation than we do in many other ways so we could use that method as the pinnacle of our learning journey because education is not an end state it is a process that has no end. I’m intrigued by this blog post. I have PhD in Instructional Technology and work in the Learning and Development organization of a large multi-national semiconductor manufacturing company. I would like to differentiate between Education, Training, and Learning for this discussion.

Education is a system designed to maximize the teaching resource by putting 50-500 students in a room listening to the “expert” talk about a topic. Transfer in this case is very low because knowledge is not applied for a long time afterward.

Training is a system designed to maximize student time so they can get back to their job by cramming the same information into their head in a fraction of the time using an less experience instructor. Transfer is better because the proximity of application is closer to the instruction.

Learning is when the student actually knows something they did not previously know or is able to do something they could not previously do.

These are super simplistic definitions that all professionals in my field disagree on. With that disclaimer it has been my experience that we could eliminate most of the “Education” and “Training” in corporations and get better results by using master/apprentice models, job aids, and performance support embedded into the system.

Now that I agreed with Womack on part of what was said, I’ll disagree with this assertion:

“If we gain new knowledge through experimentation, why doesn’t all learning work this way?”

Why? Because there are lots of ways that we learn. It’s not just through experimentation. If that were true we should all list our copy of “Lean Thinking” on eBay and stop reading this blog. I don’t think we want to do that. The truth is that we probably learn at a much higher rate through experimentation than we do in many other ways so we could use that method as the pinnacle of our learning journey because education is not an end state it is a process that has no end.

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]]> By: Mark Graban http://www.leanblog.org/2006/11/linking-lean-thinking-to-education_30/#comment-1301 Mark Graban Fri, 01 Dec 2006 16:12:00 +0000 http://leanblog.bigbigdesign.net/2006/11/linking-lean-thinking-to-education-%e2%80%93-conference-notes-womacks-vision-of-a-gemba-university/#comment-1301 Thanks for the report, Luke! Keep an eye out for my podcast interview that I recorded with Jim, will be coming soon. Thanks for the report, Luke! Keep an eye out for my podcast interview that I recorded with Jim, will be coming soon.

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