Temple is creating the vice provost for online and digital learning to lead a universitywide transformation in how we design, deliver and scale high-quality, flexible academic programs. This role is central to advancing our strategic plan, Forward with Purpose, particularly around expanding access, improving student success and increasing Temple's impact in Philadelphia and beyond.
Product knowledge training is about methodically educating employees, partners, and customers about the ins and outs of a company's products or services. For employees and partners, it's the essential working knowledge they need to confidently sell, support, and deliver the product. For customers, it's the know-how they need to adopt it smoothly and get the most value from it.
One of my favorite movies is Good Will Hunting. Will Hunting (played by Matt Damon) is a 20-year-old janitor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Although he works a blue-collar job, he is secretly a self-taught genius with an extraordinary gift for mathematics and an exceptional memory. One day, he anonymously solves a complex math problem left on a chalkboard by Professor Gerald Lambeau, astonishing the faculty.
A recent study on students' intentions to take online courses highlights that performance expectancy, hedonic motivation, and flexibility are the main reasons why students adopt online learning programs. This finding is like what I have seen in the study of student enrollment trends in higher education. If we want to discover the secret of turning student curiosity into a commitment to completing an academic program, we need to understand the motivations for student course enrollment.
Choosing the right training content isn't about how much training content you offer. It's about how well that content fits the job it needs to do. The real training challenge is not content. It's fit We often hear that teams need more training. But when we dig deeper, the problem is rarely a lack of courses. It's a lack of focus. Training often fails because different needs get lumped together into one giant learning initiative. For instance, it's impossible to use the same approach for teaching introduction to Python as for harassment prevention.
Scaling learning should be a sign of success. More employees. More roles. More regions. More skills to build. On the surface, these are the markers of a growing, forward-moving organization. But for many Learning and Development (L&D) teams, scaling learning feels less like progress and more like pressure. Every new hire cohort, geographic expansion, or capability initiative introduces friction. What once worked well for a few hundred employees begins to strain-and eventually break-when applied to thousands.
