Training Tips Blog

 

When I look at strategies to get common people to do or perform uncommon things, I relate this question directly to my students who I teach in adult evening programs.

I am always searching for ways to get them to learn or “do the uncommon things” with the materials I am teaching. As you may agree, going back to school at night is very challenging, especially when you have competing priorities (demanding jobs, family, kids, dogs & cats, other things in your life). 

I teach at several universities in the Philadelphia area. I teach as an adjunct instructor in several Human Resources programs. These are undergraduate, graduate and students seeking an HR certification or degrees.

To get the students to learn (or do uncommon things), I am constantly seeking new ways of teaching and facilitating my courses.

I constantly look for active learning exercises for all my classes to keep people engaged and awake in class, no matter how boring the subject matter can be. An excellent book for adult learning is: Active Training: A Handbook of Techniques, Designs, Case Examples, and Tips (Active Training Series) by Mel Silberman, 2005.

Using Mel’s books helps me to give the students activities to keep them engaged in the class and forces them to do the learning or take responsibility for the learning.

Mel says in his book, “active training occurs when the participants do most of the work. If you neatly package the information or elegantly demonstrate the skills, you, not the participants, are doing “the work” for them. No one is suggesting that well-designed instruction is unnecessary. The key to effective training, however, is how the learning activities are designed so that the participants acquire knowledge and skill rather than merely receive them.”

Mel was just at the 2007 ASTD conference in Atlanta this year and going to his session on engaging the learner, was very powerful to see some of his techniques in practice.

Active learning is nothing new to me and is something I’ve utilized over the years in the classroom, but it is great for me to go back and review new materials which reinforces this concept it over and over again.

When I use interesting activities, exercises and case studies, I get a lot more out of my students. I truly see the uncommon happen in class.