The Virtual-Learning Center
Dr. Raymond L. Newkirk envisioned the Virtual-Learning Center in 1988. He believed that an institution of life-long learning with focus on management practice and softskills proficiency would satisfy an outstanding need for the development of an emerging community of leaders in government, business, and industry well into the 21st Century. He believed that a gap in academic education existed which offered unique opportunities to develop practice-based programs that would immediately benefit leaders across all industries and disciplines. Differing from other training programs which may require years to transfer education into practice, "What you learn today, you can use today," is our driving principle.
The Newkirk Group recognizes that the need for innovative virtual-learning is becoming more acute as the trend toward global and more complex business challenges increases. This trend is fueled by both softskills complexity and the magnitude of the problems faced by corporate training departments. We have developed programs which focus on the bases of competence and have developed professional courses that promote the development of organization teams and their leaders.
Our Virtual-Learning Center offers a unique vision for improving professional performance by delivering programs which build the softskills and expertise of clients. For employers, our Virtual-Learning Center offers realistic, professional, task related programs that greatly enhance the contribution of employees. We developed our programs formed from the unique content derived from the rich global consulting and training experiences of our Group.
Through the support of the Systems Management Institute, our Virtual-Learning Center offers courses leading to enhanced competence in the difficult to master softskills. Our current Statement of Objectives highlights how the thinking of Dr. Newkirk benefits both clients and their organizations. Our mission emphasizes the need to leverage the consulting experience of our company by offering action-based programs especially designed to enhance softskill performance.
Approach to Learning Based on Practice
While some authorities have encouraged academic institutions to foster workplace skills in the college curriculum, our Learning Center has captured the power of the World Wide Web to provide such programs to all people anywhere who have the use of a PC and access to the Internet. In agreement with leaders in business and education, we support the development of a common language of competency-based education. Our programs exemplify this commitment.
Unique to our approach in developing our learning programs, we move from consulting practice to content and then learning and to application. Rather than beginning with theory and textbooks to develop our programs, we use the powerful insights gained from the consulting assignments of Systems Management Institute over the last two decades to inform our course content. From the insights gained on these assignments, our Learning Center developed programs to build the essential softskills and competencies of clients and refine management thinking and practice. Our programs further offer a solid learning experience grounded in the core professional disciplines as evidenced by our unique certificate programs.
The Newkirk Group offers seminars, workshops, and courses to link theory with practice and empower the management of new paradigms in business. The culmination of these programs leads to Basic, Advanced, and Expert levels of proficiency. Our virtual-learning and consulting services span several areas of expertise including softskills development, Corporate Board performance, and management & leadership effectiveness.
Intellectual Capital Development Services
These are exciting times for innovative executives as they face the new opportunities offered by the challenges of postmodern business competition. The Newkirk Group enjoys discovering the opportunities hidden in these challenges. Moreover, we receive great satisfaction from sharing the wealth of our experience, knowledge, and insights with our clients as they leverage their challenges to capture the emerging opportunities for success.
Leadership Development and Virtual-Learning
The Virtual-Learning Center reintroduces knowledge and skills that were previously known to simplify work-life but have recently become forgotten through the mad rush to employ advanced technologies in the quest for competitive leverage. In developing learning programs to expand the task knowledge and softskills of clients, our Virtual-Learning Center emphasizes that knowing what to do is more than half the battle in reducing work complexity. The right knowledge does make life easier.
Life-Long Learning
We believe that task competencies: (a) are grounded in softskills; (b) exist along a continuum of levels; (c) start with relevant information; (d) exist in relation to specific tasks; (e) are improved by practice; (f) are measured by selective judgments of performance, and (g) satisfy a criterion of "good enough."
We believe that competence consists of general and specialized knowledge. While the specialized knowledge includes discipline-specific skills, the general knowledge includes managing self, communicating, managing people and tasks, and mobilizing innovation and change, the softskills. These core competencies form the common language of competence and serve as the core softskills for mastering the external world.
Available Program Certifications
The Newkirk Group is an innovative Internet-Oriented global learning company offering a large selection of certificates and courses in softskills development for executives, managers, and the teams they support. Our Virtual-Learning Center continually updates existing programs and adds new programs to serve the needs of clients and members of the Institute. While a full list of programs is available by logging on the Learning Management System, the certificates tab introduces a few of our most popular programs. Clients can build expert level proficiency in several areas of professional study.