3 Creative Ways Your Team Can Use Peer Learning

Peer learning is a great way to engage your entire team in a fun and effective learning process. Your team members will appreciate having recorded video content at their fingertips, ready to watch at their convenience and on their schedule. And they’ll pay more attention to peer-provided materials, instead of fast forwarding (or napping) through boring, third-party materials. Here are three unique scenarios where peer learning can make all the difference.

Sharing conference or training knowledge.

If a few of your employees have just come back from a conference or have taken part in some off-site training, then it’s only a matter of time before some of that new knowledge starts to fade away. Before they leave for their conference or training, task those employees with taking notes or making recordings of everything they learn. Let them know that they will be responsible for sharing this same knowledge with the rest of the team when they return. The benefits of this approach are three-fold: those employees will pay closer attention and absorb more information if they know they have to turn around and teach it the next week; your team will enjoy learning the material from trusted, experienced peers who will provide their unique perspectives; and you’ll save money and resources by not having to send as many people to expensive training courses or industry conferences. Employees can incorporate PowerPoint presentations, handouts and quizzes to create a complete learning package that can be used again and again.

Team-building activities.

Whether your team-building activities are centered around completing a big project, welcoming new hires, or celebrating a holiday or an event, you can use peer learning to enhance your activities. One fun way to do this is to ask team members to create a video that teaches or demonstrates a unique skill they have, like playing the ukulele, restoring vintage cars, or brewing craft beer. That person will use valuable teaching and presentation skills to create their demo. And their audience will love learning something new and interesting about one of their co-workers. Team members can even collaborate on their videos or create ‘reply’ videos to keep the fun going. This is also an ideal way to maintain close ties with employees who work remotely or travel often for work. They can take part in these same activities and feel like they are part of the group.

Knowledge transfer before a team member leaves.

When an employee is about to leave the team or the company, it can be a frantic couple of weeks as you look to offload their projects and download their knowledge to other team members. This is an even worse situation when the employee is a senior team member or a subject matter expert who is critical to operations and cannot easily be replaced. Peer learning is perfect for this situation. The employee can essentially download his or her knowledge and expertise in a series of learning videos that team members can watch at any time in the future. The videos can be organized by highest priority projects, most recent work, or any other criteria. They can include step-by-step instructions on things like business processes, client intake, system access and project knowledge. And you can rest a little easier knowing all of that knowledge won’t be walking out the door with your ex-employee.

Peer learning has the potential to bring your team together, strengthen bonds, and ease knowledge transfer. It’s also quick to set up, easy to execute, and fun to use. Contact us today to find out more about what peer learning can do for your team.