Archive for instructor
Do You Know How Adults Like to Learn? What This Means to How You Teach
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I’m working on converting my Train the Trainer distance learning course to a new course software format. The information below is excerpted from the course.
How do you like to learn? I ask that question in my pre-conference survey before I teach the ‘live’ version of Train the Trainer–Instructor Development Workshop. (coming up in Bellevue, WA. Oct. 3-4). Interestingly, people’s answers vary greatly. Here are some of their answers about how they like to learn:
•Concrete sequential •Interaction and involvement •Experience first-hand how to teach a class •Listen and see visual examples •Small groups •Interactive environment •Take notes and ask lots of questions •Variety: lecture, video, exercises Doing/listening/visual
Do We Teach to How They Like to Learn?
Too often, we launch right into creating a course without acknowledging how adults learn. To optimize adult learning, we must include in our course those methods that are proven to result in better adult learning. This will solve many of our teaching challenges! that means we have to have a wide ‘repertoire’ of teaching methods!
How Adults Like to Learn
1. Adults learn through association: “We learn what we already know”.
I’ll bet you can remember a time when you took a course and got lost because the instructor didn’t relate what he was teaching to what you already knew.
Give an example of a time when you took a course, or taught a course, and the students didn’t understand what the instructor was talking about, even though the instructor kept trying to explain.
In both my ‘train the trainer courses, I show you how to teach with relevance, so you never ‘lose’ the student along the way!
2. Adults learn and retain best by doing.
Life is “do it yourself”. This means that the highest level of learning occurs when the student practices in class. Otherwise, there is little skill developed and little retention.
Can you remember a time when you saw the instructor demonstrate the skill, but you had no chance to practice the skill in class. (This is too often the case in real estate courses!)
How did that affect your ability to do the skill later—your retention?
What does the research about retention suggest about the importance of role play (each person practicing the skill in class) in the learning process?
3. Adults learn from each other – Use teaching methods to encourage information exchange.
What teaching methods do you use in your teaching to ‘choreograph’ (organize and facilitate) the students in your class learning from each other?
4. Adults learn through repetition – Use several approaches to the same concept/process.
What kind of repetition have you seen be effective to increase students’ retention?
What do you plan on doing to provide repetition and thus, long-term retention?
In both my courses, we explore several methods to provide repetitition–without being repetitious!
5. Adults learn through rapid recall.
What methods have you seen used by instructors to provide situations where students could practice their recall, and thus, increase their retention?
In my new Train the Trainer course, I introduce Rapid Recall, where those taking the course have an opportunity to revisit the important concepts in that section of the course.
6. Adults seek to satisfy individual needs – Experience levels vary greatly.
What methods have we already discussed to discover individual student needs?
How have you seen instructors (or how have you) revisited those student needs during the course to remind students of their needs, and to see that you are meeting their needs?
7. Adults learn practical information best. They want to know how your course content applies to their lives.
What methods do you use to assure that students can apply what you’re teaching to their lives?
Expand your teaching ‘repertoire’ with dozens of interesting, exciting, and new teaching methods. Explore either my distance learning Train the Trainer Course, or, my ‘live’ Instructor Development Workshop.
Trainers: Gaining Focus on the Great Course You Want to Create
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Trainers: Here are some tips on how to gain focus on that great course you want to create–that course that’s been bouncing around in your head for years! In my next few blogs, I’m going to give you some specific tips to make your course truly ‘teachable’. Why? From teaching for over 2 decades, I’ve found many courses are not actually very ‘teachable’. In fact, they are either
1) Streams of consciousness
or
2) Information dump
If you’ve picked up someone else’sA� ‘course’, and tried to teach it, I’ll bet you know what I mean. Unfortunately, too many times, courses are written from an ‘information organization’ perspective, not a teaching perspective. In fact, because so many instructors have expressed frustration, I’ve just finished a resource on how to write a course.
Gaining Focus for your Course
Let’s look at the 6 W’s that you should answer before starting to create your course: The What, Why, Who, When, Where, Whata��s Next of your course, so you can clarify what you want to accomplish and gain focus. As I give you these, take time to answer each of these questions.
A�What course do you want to create?
Take a moment and write exactly what is in my mind (and heart) about this course. Ask yourself, “Is this actually a course”? Or, is it your desire to persuade people to your point of view? That’s certainly okay in a course, but not as a whole course. Instead, you have a ‘persuasive presentation’. Sometimes we want to impart our beliefs to people or make them ‘be’ in some way, but that’s not a course. (Be responsible, be customer-service oriented, etc.) Now, it’s true that can be one of the objectives of a course, but, just getting in front of people and telling them how they should be won’t make it as a course!
Do you see this course as an overview?A�A�A�A� An introduction?A� Comprehensive?A�A�A� A series?
Why?A� What are your compelling reason(s) to create this course? Be sure it’s not just all about you….
Who is this course for?A� What segment of the population do you want to address? One of the mistakes we make is not narrowing our focus to the level of expertise of our desired target audience.
What is their level of learning in your topic right now?
Who would not benefit from your course?
Do you need to narrow your scope for this course?
Where (type of delivery)
Is this course ‘live’? Is it distance learning? Will it be given as a webinar? Your decisions will direct you to the delivery methods (how you will teach).
Armed with the answers to the 6 W’s, you can gain a laser focus for your course, and go to the next step of course creation.
Expert Guidance to Write that Great Course!
If you’re serious about writing that great course, this is the resource for you. Step by step, Carla Cross, who has written courses for Re/Max, Better Homes and Gardens, Keller Williams Realty, GMAC, Royal LePage, and CRB, shows you exactly how to create your course and your outline. And, for those Washington state instructors, she shares tips on how to get your course approved for clock hours.
This resource is digital. You will get access immediately.
Introductory bonus: Keys to a Killer Introduction
Includes:
2 instructional videos
Templates to use as guides for course creation
Examples of courses
2 ‘cheat sheets’ to write your course modules
Guidance in how to get your course approved in Washington state.
With 95 pages, this resource, along with the 2 instructional videos, shows you exactly how to create a course that has substance, sizzle, and ‘sell’!
Thank you for a wonderful class on writing a course. This practice and hands on class has given me the confidence and tools I need to move forward with my course curriculum. I feel I have been given a business race car and I can move forward towards my dream of training agents across the country. A�Mary Lee, former head of training for Windermere Real Estate, Spokane, Wa.
Introductory price:A� $149A�A� Click here for more information and to order. You’ll get immediate access to the 95-page resource guide and 2 instructional videos.
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