e-Learning Ecologies MOOC
Deborah SchusterMinda Carl’s Updates
E-learning Ecologies - Essential update 1
I'm not sure whether this would be over the shoulder learning (?) but here's an example of a great way I learned about how to improve my written communication when I started to work for a bank, a field I had no knowledge of and in a company that was 20 times the size of the old one.
My boss would ask for a text on a specific topic including a number of points. I would write a draft and send it to her. She would then delete/reword/rearrange/reformat as needed. Sometimes there were several iterations between us. Initially, there were a lot of changes but as I read through more and more of her texts and understood what she wanted (a lot easier than trying to understand an explanation/instructions that wouldn't necessarily have meant much when I started), there were fewer and fewer changes.
When time came to ask others to write texts for me, I followed the same pattern to 'train' my colleagues on how to present the information.
I do think what you've described is over-the-shoulder learning. I'm intrigued by whether you feel that method of learning about writing--job embedded, about content you know well and with a very specific target audience in mind--was more effective for you than the way high school or college writing instruction tends to happen, often about literary texts and with a general academic audience--or the teacher--in mind. Speaking as a former high school English teacher...