Taking Workforce Development Learning to the Next Level: Developing Fast Fish
This three-session track is for those who work directly with learners and learning content in the workforce development space. We’ll help you to help your program participants develop effective learning skills, backed by the latest research on how people learn. Plus, we’ll talk about how we can support learners to modify their social, emotional, cognitive, and physical environments to enhance their own performance — kind of like fish creating vortices in the water to swim faster. You’ll leave the series with specific actions you can prepare your learners to use in their workplaces.
Individual Sessions
Session I: An In-Depth Look at the Moves of ‘Fast Fish’ for Workforce Development
Wednesday, January 31st from 12-2pm EST
In the first session, we will consider the features of learning like a fast fish and practice a set of five actions in which these learners engage. We will consider examples of each action in the workplace and how they can be applied towards workforce development. Using their own workforce development context, participants will generate examples of where the five actions might apply and generate a plan for applying each to their own programs.
Outcome: Workforce Development professionals adjust their curricula based on a new understanding of learning to support their program participants in excelling at work.
Session II: Making the Most of Emotion, Attention, and Initiative as a ‘Fast Fish’: Implications for Workforce Development Practitioners
Wednesday, March 20th from 12-2pm EST
In the second workshop, we will look at the implications of research on learning and how it informs the specific moves that fast fish learners make. We will consider how emotion can propel or derail people and how workforce development practitioners can reorient learners towards proactive management. We will also consider current ways to conceive of and manage attention and initiative in the workplace and the shifts that this implies for workforce development planning as well as the moves that fast fish learners make.
Outcome: Participants understand the importance a Fast Fish approach to the topic of attention and emotion. They seek to develop Workforce Development experiences that support learners in managing attention and emotion within the workplace.
Session III: Unlocking Learning Transfer in Workforce Development Programming
Wednesday, May 1st from 12-2pm EST
The ability to use what is learned in one context in other contexts is known as transfer and it relates to one of the five key moves that ‘fast fish’ make in leveraging assets forward. Transfer can be designed into workforce development contexts to help people gain the most from their experiences. This third workshop considers ways to frame transfer in the design of workforce development programming. We will consider the role of the individual learner, the educators that they learn from, and the environment in which they are learning.
Outcome: Participants have tools to support learners in transferring previous knowledge and experience to their new tasks or activities.