If
your 8-year-old daughter tells you that she is taking sex education in school,
how would that make you feel? Now, turn
that around and your 8-year-old daughter tells you that she is taking sex
training in school. Would you feel the
same way?
The answer is most likely no because the
distinction between an education and training in this instance is the
difference between learning about something and learning how to do
something. While learning about sex from
school is mildly troubling for many parents, learning to have sex would be
troubling to most parents.
With this distinction in mind, the
success or failure of training is not whether the person being trained can pass
some arbitrary test once; rather, it rests on whether the person being trained
can successfully execute the task after the training is complete. This does not belie the importance of a good
education; however, it does emphasize the importance of ensuring that the
training is successful the first time and every time that it is done.
What we know about people is that everyone
learns in a slightly different way and that no single training method is going
to be 100% successful with everyone we want to train. So if the goal is to ensure that 100% of
everyone who goes through a training program can successfully perform the task
to be trained, then we have to understand how people learn and how we can
leverage technology to adapt to each person.
Most people learn in three different
ways:
Visual – Learning by observation
Auditory – Learning by listening to
instructions
Kinesthetic – Learning by doing
If we had to pick a single method to
teach, most people fall into the kinesthetic category; however, we are not
restricted to a single modality.
Combining all three modalities into a single lesson is going to produce
the best results as it stimulates all of the learning centers of the brain.
There are two significant roadblocks to
successfully developing and executing training: time and money. Although few would argue the importance of
good training, companies rarely resource training with a sufficient budget or
provide sufficient time to allow students to gain a level of proficiency to
execute all tasks successfully the first time.
In 2012, the New Media Consortium, an
international community of experts in educational technology, released its
Horizon Report on Higher Education. The
Horizon Report examines promising new emerging technologies and looks at
different ways that they can be used to improved education. While I did take time at the beginning of
this post to discuss the differences between training and education, the one
commonality shared between the two is that people do not learn differently if
they are being educated versus being trained.
As a result, what works in the school will work equally well in a
training environment.
One of the emerging trends that Training
has not thus far taken greater advantage of is the use of digital media
literacy of classroom trainers. Much of
the resistance to include digital media in the classroom (digital media is used
extensively for distance learning environments) is based in part in
institutional group-think where developers of training concentrate on more
familiar and traditional classroom style lectures, discussions, demonstrations,
and practical exercises that engage students in all three learning modalities. What is often ignored is how digital media can
be used both in the classroom and after the training is completed to reinforce
the trained tasks.
Organizations are slowly moving away
from traditional computer-based training (CBT) – talking slideshows and videos –
to Interactive Media Instruction (IMI) for distance learning solutions. The primary difference between the two is
that traditional CBT tends to only engage a learner’s visual and auditory
modalities whereas IMI attempts to also engage the learners kinesthetic modality
through forced interactions, simulations, games, and in-line quizzes that test
the learner’s understanding of concepts and steering the training to address
identified weaknesses on the fly.
While both methods of training
(Classroom and IMI) can be quite effective on their own if they are properly
designed and executed, combining the strengths of IMI and classroom techniques
can reduce the amount of time required to train and increase learning
retention. This addresses the time and
money roadblocks that often limits the amount of time that needs to be spent on
training in three ways:
- Students can learn academic
concepts, background, history, and rules through IMI outside of the
classroom before the formal training session begin. The leaner’s proficiency can be measured
and minimum passing standards can
be established to ensure that each student begins training with the same
level of understanding of foundational principles.
- The use of interactive media in the
classroom can ensure that each student stays equally engaged in the
lessons. As an example, in a
traditional classroom setting, the instructor may ask a question of the
group to encourage discussion and to check learning. The problem has always been that the
same students are eager to answer all of the questions while others sit
quietly hoping not to be called on.
Using IMI, the instructor can pose the question on tablets or
computers assigned to each student and each student will have to answer
the question on their own. After
each student has answered, the instructor has a tally of how many students
answered correctly and can adjust the follow-on discussion appropriately
depending on the level of understanding that the class has on the subject.
- IMI that mirrors the concepts,
simulations, and interaction of the classroom can be provided as a
takeaway to refresh the student’s understanding of the tasks trained. Retention is improved as students can
play back the lesson repeatedly until the task can be done without further
instruction.
Using technology to leverage traditional
training methods (not necessarily replace them) can enhance the learning
experience while reducing the amount of time necessary to conduct the training;
however, training developers need to be retrained themselves to understand the
advantages that existing and emerging technologies can provide.
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