Step 11: Implement and monitor learning and logistics

Now that you have developed or obtained the instructional material and equipment, oriented and prepared all persons responsible for implementing and supporting the learning intervention and prepared the learning sites, the trainers and facilitators should be ready to carry out the learning intervention.

The products of all your careful planning up to this point should be preserved by careful monitoring of the implementation to ensure the overall effectiveness of the learning intervention.

Process

Use Tool #13 Action Plan for Transfer of Learning to document how the learner will apply new skill and knowledge competencies on the job, and to guide the training follow-up and supervisory support after the learning intervention is completed. (See #4 below)

1. Use the instructional program overview, lesson plans, learning activities and materials developed during Steps 8 and 9 to guide the implementation.
2. Use the monitoring and evaluation plan and instruments (see Step 12) to monitor the implementation. Mentor and support the faculty, tutors, instructors, trainers, clinical preceptors and others as they use the new materials, content and methods to facilitate the learning process. Encourage the learning facilitators to conduct regular in-process review sessions at the end of every day, if possible, to identify what is going well and what needs improvement. Plan for the next day.
3. Make adjustments, as necessary, in the content, process and logistics of instruction in order to support the training team and learners and to improve learner achievement.
4. Ensure that activities to support the transfer of learning are incorporated into the implementation. For example:
• Ask each learner to keep a learning diary with lessons learned and their application to actual work situations.
• Have each learner develop and use an Action Plan. This is an effective way to make sure the transfer of learning process matches the need and context of each learner (see Tool #13). An action plan sets expectations for the learner and helps plan for application and follow-up of new skills and knowledge.
5. Provide follow-up support for learners and supervisors after the learning intervention. Follow-up visits help ensure the transfer of learning, identify and solve problems and strengthen supervisors' skills in supporting learners' performance on the job.¹ Examples of activities for follow-up support include:
• Sharing training outcomes and recommendations and learners' action plans with their supervisors.
• Reviewing the learners' progress on their action plans and helping them work with their supervisors to reinforce learning and improve their job performance.
• Making sure that other performance factors and working conditions are in place.

Helpful Hints

• Encourage and arrange for sharing of feedback and experience among all those involved in a learning intervention. Regular meetings among preceptors or participating facilitators during the process of training are helpful as is a meeting to receive feedback from the learners at the end of a course and to plan how useful feedback can be incorporated in future training courses.
• Check on the status of the HRH strategies and performance support interventions that you documented in Tool #2 HRH Context Worksheet and Tool #3 Performance Factors Worksheet. Monitor the progress on these interventions and coordinate with the intervention leaders to make sure the interventions support and contribute to the success of your learning intervention.
• Sometimes the first implementation of the intervention can serve as a pilot-test of a promising new approach (see also Step 12). If a design is new, it may be helpful to roll out the implementation gradually (e.g., in one location and in small stages) so that the design team can make adjustments as needed. Other times the intervention may be an adaptation of an intervention that has already proven successful. In this case, a pilot-test may focus on testing only the new or adapted elements. Occasionally, resources may not be available to pilot-test the intervention.

Tools

13. Sample Action Plan for Transfer of Learning -- /

1. See Marquez L, Kean L. Making supervision supportive and sustainable: new approaches to old problems. MAQ Paper No. 4. Supplement to Population Reports, Volume XXX, No. 4, 2002. Available Here