EDU 623: Knowledge Management and Workplace Learning

Overview

The field of training and instructional development is evolving. While once event-based and isolated from daily workflows, it is now often process-based and integrated with workflows. At the same time, many organizations have shifted to a more knowledge-oriented approach, capitalizing on the knowledge and skills of their people to gain competitive advantage.

This course provides a foundation in the theoretical and practical knowledge needed to integrate knowledge management with workplace learning. This may further shift the role of workplace learning beyond simply mastering processes and workflows to supporting the creation of new knowledge and improved processes that help organizations more effectively reach their goals.

By completing a course-long project and participating in peer dialogs, you will gain an understanding of knowledge management philosophy and approaches, and how they impact training and can be impacted by training. You will explore how combining technology, organizational structures, and cognitive-based strategies can help organizations gain knowledge from employee experience.

Note that while this is a course designed for those involved in training and education, the focus is on knowledge management. The goal is to prepare you for a role in developing effective learning and training systems, focusing, in this case, on management and systems that develop knowledge creation and use within an organization. Sometimes this will seem somewhat removed from training, but the integration of knowledge management with training and learning systems is critical for success within organizations.

Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Define the extended organization (enterprise) that workplace learning serves.
• Assess the readiness of the enterprise for knowledge management solutions.
• Diagnose issues faced by the enterprise that are sensibly tackled through a knowledge management program.
• Identify specific activities that are suited for solving diagnosed enterprise issues.
• Prioritize activities based upon value generated for the enterprise.
• Create a coherent project plan for completing prioritized activities.
• Recommend performance indicators for managing the progress and outcome of the project.

Required Texts
EDU 623 texts are available from the JIU/MBS bookstore