The Growth in Training?
So why is T&D suddenly going to grow? The September 2003 issue of Business 2.0 had an article on how baby-boomers are starting to retire, thus, a lot of expertise is now going out the door. In addition, we are becoming a lot more knowledge dependent. With this shift towards a knowledge economy, I believe that our profession is going to start shifting to the development side. While there is some overlapping between the two, training is normally more beginner-orientated, thus it focuses on new skills; while development is normally more advanced orientated, thus its focus is more knowledge orientated.
This means a shift towards a more constructivist, rather than instructivism design. Beginners tend to need strong frameworks to guide them in their knowledge acquisition, while those who already have a strong knowledge base require more dynamic means as they are looking for specifics to fill their knowledge gaps.