. 

I chose to write about "Over the Shoulder Learning" as it is the first time I hear about this concept/ type of learning.

'Over the Shoulder Learning-(OTSL) can be defined as the mobile and informal feedback/ coaching among workers when moving through a process. According to Twidale (2005) OTSL is the informal, spontaneous workplace help-giving interaction that is often used by people to learn from the colleagues how to use a computer application.

Quoting Nielsen, 2003 ‘ the learnability of any application is a crucial aspect of its usability, usefulness and acceptability’, Twidale argued that systems were designed for individual work not for collaborative one and the process of learning how to use a computer application often implies collaboration, individuals often 'lean over the shoulder" of colleagues to learn how a system works but not everybody that uses a system is able to 'translate' effectively the process to a co-worker.

Twidale was interested then to assist the learning of systems to support people to accomplish their work tasks.

Twidale et al. 1997 examined learning in a library, findings from this study shown a substantial amount of learning occurred by watching what other people do.

Berlin and Jeffries studies (1992) of computer programmers shown they informally learnt from their peers and Robert C. Miller, Haoqi Zhang, Eric Gilbert, Elizabeth Gerber argued that while collaboration and help-seeking can boost productivity and produce better research, few mechanisms in academic research directly promote and facilitate it.

For Twidale, the question was how technology can be designed to support over-the-shoulder learning?.

The significance of OTSL can be explored with Learning theories. Some individuals enjoy learning on their own but evidence suggests that many prefer learning in a social context, Vygotsky(1978) argues that learning requires social interaction, learning alone is one characteristic of the e-learning experience however in a work place individuals involved in a e-learning experience instead of reading manuals they tend to engage in over the shoulder learning (Twidale and Ruhleder 2004).

References:

http://up.csail.mit.edu/other-pubs/cscw14-pair-research.pdf

https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/2254902/machine-learning-for-real-time-single-trial-eeg-analysis-from-

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10606-005-9007-7

http://people.ischool.illinois.edu/~twidale/research/otsl/intro.html

http://people.ischool.illinois.edu/~twidale/pubs/otsl1.html

http://people.ischool.illinois.edu/~twidale/pubs/otslhics.html

http://courses.education.illinois.edu/edpsy317/sp03/challenge-reports/kurt.htm