TURNING TO LEARNING

As insurance professionals, we sell not only security, but also knowledge. Our competitive advantage is often based on what we know and how well we can apply it. This means that individually, as brokers, and collectively as an industry, learning is the key to success.

Traditionally, we’ve accumulated knowledge by taking courses, reading books and practicing on the job. Though these are proven methods of training, it is well documented that the majority of training dollars have historically been spent with disappointing outcomes. This is because all these methods have gaps and shortcomings that make them slow and inefficient and therefore expensive.

While there has been growing interest in the potential of computer-based learning resources, as evidenced by the growth in CD-ROMS and Web-based use of information technologies, users often complain these techniques are cold and confusing ways to learn. The prime problem facing the insurance industry is how to lower the rising cost of doing business. Our industry can no longer afford to train haphazardly with methods that only work for some people. Professional development, education, and training must become more effective in terms of dollars spent. The question is how.

In early 1998, the industry lacked significant self-directed learning resources. For the record, self-directed learners are learners who can identify what they want to learn, can determine the resources necessary to learn it and can evaluate themselves honestly to see what it is they have learned.

Self-directed learning resources are resources that enable even people who are not naturally self-directed learners to learn skills and master education material as if they were. Developing effective self-directed learning resources requires knowledge of the breakthroughs that educational theory and brain research have made in understanding how different people learn.

Researchers have established four basic learning styles. Your learning style determines how you will enter into any medium (book, lecture, CD-ROM, etc.) and work through it. From these learning styles, researchers developed an eight step learning cycle, which identifies all the steps that a learner must go through to master a specific topic or subject.

This means we can now create learning resources guiding learners through all steps of the learning cycle and allow them to tailor content presentation to precisely fit their individual learning styles. Within this context, the interactivity and flexibility of computer technology becomes invaluable and makes the medium itself warm and inviting. The ability to use resources customized to your particular learning style means a quantum leap in learning effectiveness and efficiency.

While technology-based learning resources aren’t for everyone, people in the insurance industry are ideal candidates. They are used to learning on their own and tend to be both entrepreneurial and collaborative. People within the industry are highly motivated, frequently use technology because they are busy, and in some provinces, the brokers have a professional responsibility to ensure both they and their staff receive continuing education. They have a developing comfort level with computers in general, and can see technological learning resources as just another kind of software application.

Self-directed learning CDs do not provide a course of study — curriculums are already in place — but rather they help develop study guides and offer broad-based resources containing all the necessary elements for learning and which enhance the use of existing resources. These programs provide a self-directed learning tool that systematically address the needs of each learning style and guide insurance students through every step of the learning cycle so that people can benefit more from their traditional on-going education (teachers and books).

Books deliver content exceptionally well, but they don’t help students evaluate how well they’ve absorbed the material, nor do they give hands-on experience. Teachers personalize material, but may omit context. CDs can provide hands-on experience, customized evaluations of learning, and references to other materials to help them improve their marks and practice in writing exams. And, with a click of the mouse, they can access the historical background to remember those obscure insurance clauses.

Computer assisted learning exploits the interactive nature of the medium to meet the needs of the learner. Through these products, the industry is achieving the prototype for learning resources that will radically reduce training costs within insurance while improving the overall effectiveness of existing training materials.

The Wired World welcomes your feedback. Contact us, via E-mail at <lconn@corporate.southam.ca”>b>lconn@corporate.southam.ca