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Fostering life long learners with Eva Keiffenheim

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Episode summary

Eva Keiffenheim is a learning enthusiast, entrepreneur, and writer with +650K Views on her Medium blog, which is where I first came across her. Eva believes that we are all lifelong learners, so she joins the show to delve into the three things that organisations can do to help their employees be more self-directed in their learning. We also explore the areas of learning that corporations often neglect, cohort-based learning, and the power of learning through repetition.

About Eva Keiffenheim

Eva Keiffenheim left teaching in Summer 2020 to become an EDUpreneur. Her life’s mission is to make education fairer and better for as many learners as possible. She is a writer, and helps research, consult, and implement education projects. She also co-founded Speed Up, Buddy!, an NGO to support first-gen students. She shares in her weekly newsletter of +3K subscribers, Learn Letter, where she shares useful tools and resources.

Key Takeaways

  • Eva shares the three things that organisations can do to help their employees become lifelong learners:

1. Provide opportunities for continuous learning. This might be a formal learning pathway that is made up of courses or collections of resources. It could be structured stretch projects, peer groups or suggested workplace learning activities.

2. Leverage from powerful technologies. Studies have shown low completion rates come from limited engagement, e.g. just watching videos, and there are plenty of EdTech solutions that help provide more active learning, for example Maven, a cohort-based course (CBC) platform. Ultimately, adopt technologies that can help facilitate ways of engagement, e.g. testing, leaderboards and immediate feedback.

3. Make space and time to learn and practice. It helps learners get into the flow of absorbing information, and gets them out of the ‘content consumption’ trap. The main thing is to make sure that learners have enough time to repeatedly practice what they’re learning.

  • The human brain’s ability to recall information diminishes, and it’s no flaw of human memory, so include this fact in your corporate learning designs. E.g. revisit the topics, don't just lecture!

  • Good grades alone don't reflect acquired learning. Having just a visual dashboard and tracking time spent are not enough. Consider accountability systems and ways to embed motivation within your learning platform.
    Encourage learning exchange and the concept of learning in public through feedback and connections. For example, share your notes or internal blogging.

Segmented time stamps:

02:50 The three things organisations can do to help their employees become lifelong learners

05:41 Why it’s important to schedule in time for learning

07:47 Key strategies to practise new skills in the corporate environment

09:12 Leveraging technology to acquire new skills

13:36 The role of dashboards and measuring real progress

20:28 How to make the most out of note taking

22:27 Applying cognitive science to your learning design

27:22 Eva’s key advice to L&D experts

Links from the podcast:


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