“The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.”
— Herbert Spencer
What is application learning? According to SUNY, applied learning is an educational approach wherein people learn by engaging in direct application of skills, theories, and models. This is where we apply what we learned in the books to real life situations and apply it by doing hands-on work.
Every employee that comes into the business will always learn something new. These employees will learn different processes, strategies, and even knowledge about the company. Some have a hard time learning the different ways to use that knowledge, while some can properly assess the work and use what they learned wherein they may give better performance.
According to a study last December, the pandemic is widening a corporate activity gap. Most organizations have experienced reduced productivity of about 3% to 6%. The reduced productivity is due to inefficient collaboration and wasteful ways of working.
A lot of people say that knowledge is power. However, it becomes more powerful when you know how to properly apply the knowledge that you learned. Using what you learn in the workplace will help you and the company tremendously. When you apply everything that you learn, this will help increase both productivity and profitability. As you do learn a new set of skills and information, it will help you be recognized as one of the top employees.
Here are the following things that we can consider for us to improve what we learned:
1. Enlist feedback
When we apply something that we learned, always ask other people or colleagues for feedback. This way, we will know what we can still develop and improve on. This may also show us any blind spots and things that we might be doing wrong. With every feedback we receive, we also become better with what we do.
This is a practice we always implement when running a program, we always ask for feedback to ensure value and improve in our next sessions.
2. Continuous Training
We all know that consistency is key. By doing continuous training, it will improve our set of skills. If we want to improve anything that we have, we must diligently practice it. Learning helps us to stay relevant and skilled with changes going on.
Training is not only what we provide but also something we believe in, we invest in our team's development on a regular basis.
"The key to pursuing excellence is to embrace an organic, long-term learning process, and not to live in a shell of static, safe mediocrity. Usually, growth comes at the expense of previous comfort or safety."
— Josh Waitzkin
3. Reflect on What You Did Right and Wrong
When we work on a hands-on project, we must list down everything that went good and what may have gone wrong. If we know the positive and negative outcomes of what we did, we will be able to adjust and improve what we can do better. If we know the positive outcome, we may continuously do that practice. If we know what we did wrong, then we will be able to learn from our mistakes.
This is something we are grateful to facilitate last year, we saw how powerful our masterminds as part of the intervention we organized. This gave opportunity for attendees to reflect on what they have done well, learn from others and think of what else they can improve on.
4. Know What Changed in You
When we practice different things, we grow as a person. Sometimes people change and receive the best version of them. However, some people would lose sight of who they are. Always remember to look back and know your reason as to why you strive to improve and learn more things.
5. Find a Mentor
One of the best ways to improve is to have a mentor who will guide you. Having a mentor would greatly help you when you don’t understand some of the points you want to learn or achieve.
"A mentor is someone who sees more talent and ability within you, than you see in yourself, and helps bring it out of you." — Bob Proctor
Nothing is more powerful than applying what is learned.
One of the ways we found effective to bridge knowledge with application is gamification. Join us to boost employee engagement, enhance communication, problem-solving and collaboration using an effective VIRTUAL TEAM BUILDING - Escape and Unlock at https://www.ctsolutionsglobal.com/unlock-virtual-team-building!
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