How Are We Preparing for the Future Learner?

By Luke Whitworth & Rachel Woodland

Generation Z – how different are they from other generations? What will Generation Alpha be like? It doesn’t matter what generation someone is in, they’re just people.

These are questions and comments we have heard from our interactions with the network over the past couple of years which drove the inspiration to engage in a roundtable discussion around ‘The Future Learner’, whether that be from the athlete, coach or staff perspective. Within the conversations, the group sought to explore two questions:

1. What are some of the differences and similarities you see in how this generation learn?
2. How are you thinking about the design of your environment to cater for any differences you see or predict will come?

The current learner

As a starting provocation for the conversations, the group took time to reflect on the ‘current learners’ in their environments to outline what we see as consistent with other generations, but also identifying some of the differences between the likes of Millennials and Generation Z. What are we seeing and experiencing?

• Outlining the Why: players in our environments want to know the why behind the things they are doing and how it is going to help them.
• Being Honest and Transparent: explaining clearly that this is the current state of play in their development and if you want to be a successful athlete or practitioner, these are the thresholds and predictors of success of where you want to be. Once you have outlined this, engage in open discussion around what we want to do to get you to that point – strategies to maximise your strengths and ways to work on those deficiencies. Encourage them to take advantage of the strengths they have and accountability to develop in other areas.
• Access to Technology: this access encourages that sense of ‘why’ as they’ve got access to a depth of knowledge that a previous learner might not have had. Therefore, it may foster inquiry and curiosity in their outlook.
• Increased Input: there’s currently a lot of input into the current learner at present and it makes us wonder how effectively they are able to process all of the information, accompanied with all of the different views that they’re getting from different stakeholders.
• Coaching: it is arguably harder than it has ever been to be a coach. It’s a whole different aspect of being really versatile, and making sure that you’re covering all different mediums. There is more focus on the individual: ‘what about me? What are you doing for me?’ It’s challenging the idea of how we prepare coaches to deal with that and navigate it well as there is a heightened need for validation in the coaching practice.
• Balancing Challenge and Support: they’re a very protective group of their identity and their image. They’re averse to risk and uncertainty, so trying to get them to grow through challenge is becoming more and more difficult.
• Encouraging Reflection: there is an increasing need to figure out how to help them critically reflect on the information they are absorbing. Do they have a filter around what works best for them and what’s actually serviceable for your performance?
• Co-Creation: people are more likely to commit to things that they help create, and so finding ways to provide more autonomy with the balance of expertise from others who have seen things before.

 Projecting forward – the future learner

After taking time to take stock of the current learner, the second part of the call focused on projecting forward. Taking the reflections above in mind, what trends could we see in the future learner that is important for our environments to begin considering?

1. The ability to see social cues

With the influence of social media, will we witness a deficiency in the ability to be aware of social cues in both larger settings and even in one-on-one interactions? The group shared that in some environments, individuals are mis-reading certain dialogue and shy away from face-to-face communication which will prove even more challenging for interaction and collaboration between staff and other athletes. We expect we may well see gaps in the subtleties of group communication.

2. Elevating self-awareness

We will likely have to shift more strongly towards having conversations around identity. They’ve grown up in a world where externally through social media and other technology, there’s expectation that has been casted of what matters and what people value. However, what we’re beginning to see when peeling back the layers is a kind of established identity on things that can be taken away which will set you up for crisis. Working with them to elevate their ability to be self-aware is going to be important.

3. Shifting away from ‘content dumping’

Historically, learning has come about through traditional workshop settings. Consider open discussions more as a way of driving learning and growth through speaking to other leaders in the room on a given topic so there’s a level of empowerment for involvement. With the immediacy of content and answers through technology, we will likely have to dive into the weeds with them to help connect the dots and understand what those answers haven’t taken into consideration. To complement this point, how can we add value to the learner beyond the information that they have access to? Checking for understanding is also important – what methods can be used to assist this?

4. Being intentional with creating psychological safety

Helping coaches and staff to be able to connect, communicate and create these environments that have clarity around the message of ‘we’re here to learn in the environment’. Helping them to create their own values more from the inside out than the outside in. We need to also be intentional in how to help them learn. We live in a distracted society, so how do we help them receive, retain and recall information when it matters most?

5. Personalising

How do we make the things we do personal? How do we extract input from them? We want to create dialogue and get them talking and learning from each other so when they have to verbalise it through their own words, their retention and ownership of it becomes a lot stronger – this all links back to the notion of developing them to be better critical thinkers. To take this point a step further, how are we then measuring the learning? Typically, many organisations are still measuring by objectives tied to on-field outcomes, rather than the processes behind achieving those performances. Motivation and alignment to one’s learning is why personalising it is key – how do we do that? 1) ask them what they want; 2) change something based on their responses; 3) asses the balance between their wants and the expectations of the environment at their next stage.

6. Being ‘facilitators’

We have a role as leaders and senior staff to provide structure so that there is common language and consistency. There is an overwhelming number of possibilities for athletes which means that help in focusing attention is key. If we were to shift focus of the question of ‘what does the future learner look like?’ to instead ask about the ‘future leader’, it ties into the idea that our roles will be more as ‘facilitators’ of learning. One example of providing structure to them is to narrow their focus to two things. One they pick themselves, which is the most important, where they will have the motivation to own their own development. The second should be the one with the biggest potential impact or performance gain, which we need to make sure their training evolves around. Linking to number two, how do we make sure all staff know what that focus is to enhance programme alignment?

10 takeaways: group reflections and insights

At the end of the call, attendees were asked to share a key reflection from the roundtable that they’d like to take forward:

1. Reconsider the learning environment to support the growth of the humans we are working with. Not being ‘plug and play’. Engage in discussion and options to identify the best solutions for learning to occur.
2. Find out actually how the current coaches and athletes feel about this topic. Don’t make assumptions.
3. Using the term ‘best guess’ to preface responses.
4. Coaches’ roles expanding beyond just being ‘problem solvers’ to ‘thinking partners’ with athletes. We have to help create an environment for players to effectively coach themselves.
5. Further supporting coaches and athletes capacity to process the wealth of information available and demonstrate critical thinking skills.
6. Determine what the learner needs and don’t force them to fit into a box. How can we influence other departments?
7. Athletes don’t want to sit in classrooms and take on content dumping. Find more creative and interactive ways for learning and teaching.
8. There are more similarities than differences in how people learn across different generations but finding what the differences need to be and being prepared to enact them is key.
9. Safety – help coaches in creating this. Set learning environments applicable to subject matter with key takeaways and shorter meetings.
10. Explain the why. Help athletes find their values and vision for their future.