Considering 70:20:10 in a Curriculum Framework

Over the last few months, we have hired several Curriculum Managers in my company to focus on curating learning content for key topics that have been identified as being closely aligned with learning needs in our business.  This new group of learning professionals provides us with awesome capabilities. If they help us to use available information strategically, it will truly enable us to drive growth.   Right now, they are engaged in hammering out our curriculum framework and I am advising them on governance issues.

One of the key things I want them to consider is the 70:20:10 learning model based on research from the Center for Creative Leadership. It states that the breakdown of how we actually learn to do our jobs effectively is as follows:  about 70% from on-the-job experiences, tasks, and problem solving; about 20% from conversations and feedback from people we work with; and about 10% from formal learning sources such as ILT or e-learning courses.  The concept is stated very clearly in this brief video clip from Internet Time Alliance member, Charles Jennings:



As the Curriculum Managers work together to develop our framework, I am asking them to consider how to structure our offerings so a motivated learner will have appropriate choices.  Learners must be able to pull learning to get what they need, rather than have us prescribe and push "courses" out to them.   We have the tools and technology to allow our learners to connect to experts and peers, to join communities of practice  - or to create their own.  We need to help them gain the right experiences for their development, not just train and test them as we may have done in the past.