A Workplace Program Takes a Different Approach to Learning at Work

RUTH FARRELL AND TRACY DEFOE

Who and What is Team Time?

Team Time is a project of Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters BC Division and Teleflex Canada Ltd. Team Time is a training model that combines Continuous Improvement content and methods with experiential team learning. Tracy Defoe and Ruth Farrell, two workplace education consultants working with Teleflex Canada, are the educators behind the Team Time model. The National Literacy Secretariat, Human Resources Development Canada, provided a grant for about half the costs of the model development and a Steering Committee guided the project.

Team Time’s goal is meaningful participation for everyone. Specifically, the overall goal is to develop and pilot learning activities and materials that will work to support learning in a workplace undergoing changes toward becoming a Lean Manufacturer.

Team Time follows a participatory approach to developing materials. We tried to make the materials and the experience of being in the sessions more “pull” than “push.” We see a need for many kinds of learning groups, and we know that often coaching one-to-one or small group teaching to support Team Time is essential. Finally, Team Time has goals to support people to be teachers and learners at work.

Team Time Sees Workplace Literacy as Social Practice

• Different points of view are real and often valid.

• Where change is rapid and ongoing, questions are more lasting than answers. At the same time, we are not starting from zero. People already know a lot. In the Team Time approach, we acknowledge and draw out what people already know, what they have learned through work experience and what they believe.

• The model is based on adult learning for high retention — and it teaches about learning styles and preferences so that the activities are reasonable and the purposes apparent.

• Everyone has multiple roles and many things to learn.

• Team Time draws on real situations and real working groups.

• Materials can be developed only by the teamwork of a diverse group of people. Customization and revisiting material is always necessary. Team Time assumes continuous improvement and revision.

• Many people need individual or small group support to be able to participate in discussion, documentation, Intranet use, reading and interpreting data and other workplace literacies.