I've been reading a lot lately in the discussions and literature that come to me through my professional education connections about how we can better find out how learning impacts someone's life and work after a class ends.
We're getting better at developing ways to track or test the progress someone makes up to the point the class is over and we all go our different ways. But how is that new information or those new skills used? Was the learner able to increase their income because they could offer a new service? Did they get a new job or a promotion? Is life better or more productive because they are better able to manage their business, or their time?
Sometimes we hear positive results from a student and can record this anecdotally. In the case of something like an exam prep seminar, we can track the progress of the student through the exam process and celebrate their achievement when attaining RPT status. With the multi-day classes sponsored by PTG throughout the year, we've recently been able to take advantage of the new my.ptg.org social media platform to set up communities for each class that continue the learning and give students an opportunity to posts their successes. It's been fun to see the enthusiasm and positive comments as people try out the skills they learned in class.
The cost of training is sometimes considered an intangible, but that shouldn't be true. We should be able to identify and track some real, meaningful results. They may not happen right away, and maybe not in the context expected. I'm going to keep my eyes open for new, creative, and long-term ways that we can demonstrate the impact of the different opportunities we offer. We're exploring new learning environments right now, so it's a perfect time to talk about new ways to measure learning, too.