- They write: “a single word has the power to influence the expression of genes that regulate physical and emotional stress” (Newberg and Waldman 2012). They found that the use of words, both positive and negative, can be recorded on an fMRI scan. You can see an increase of activity in the amygdala and the release of dozens of hormones and neurotransmitters when we listen to someone speak. Single words have the ability to support or interrupt the normal functions of the brain, such as those involved with logic, reason, language processing, and communication. - Adults may have negative memories of school, which they could bring with them to your training. Why use words such as teacher, lesson plan, or student if they may generate negative memories—especially if you don’t need to. If science tells you words can make a difference, be artful and use terms and labels that have a more positive connotation. For example, use learner instead of student or project instead of homework. - They have found that most trainers begin any quest to train by looking at the content. However, they argue that trainers should first focus on the learners’ needs, concerns, desires, fears, frustrations, and characteristics. I couldn’t agree more. Focus on the learner. It’s not about covering content. It’s about helping the learner do something better, faster, easier. It’s about transformation. - The problem begins with the fact that learning something you don’t already know requires another person (a trainer) or medium (a book, smartphone, or computer) to provide it. Trainers need to think about not only what, but how they are covering the topic, making sure they do not prevent the learner from uncovering it themselves. This only happens by virtue of the learner’s own activity. Ultimately, you—or a book or a computer—cannot do the work for the learner. - There is so much more to training than “show and tell.” Learning is not an automatic consequence of pouring information into another’s head. It requires the learner’s own mental involvement and participation. Lecturing and demonstrating, by themselves, will not lead to real, lasting learning. Only trainers who facilitate participants to take control of their own needs will ensure learning lasts. - There are four learning theories that attempt to describe what is happening when we learn: - Constructivism focuses on knowledge acquisition through experiences and interactions with the environment. When you learn you use previous knowledge to “construct” new understanding. - Behaviorism focuses on observable behavior and the reasons that learning occurs when strengthening or weakening associations between stimuli and responses. Learning designs would include chunking and creating objectives. - Cognitivism is based on the idea that learning occurs when you store information in long-term memory. Learning is based on how content is processed, stored, and retrieved, relying on Gagné’s nine conditions of learning. - Connectivism explains how Internet technology has created new opportunities for learning by using networks to access information you need, when you need it. - When training adults, Knowles believed that: - They need to know why something is important. Adults have a need to know why they should learn something before they’ll invest time in a learning event. As trainers, we must ensure that the learners know the purpose for training as early as possible. - They have a self-concept of who they are. Adults enter any learning situation seeing themselves as self-directing, responsible grown-ups and don’t like taking directions from others. - They bring life experiences and want to be recognized. Adults come to a learning opportunity with a wealth of experience and a great deal to contribute. - They prefer relevance. Adults have a strong readiness to learn those things that will help them cope with daily life effectively. - They are practical. Adults are willing to devote energy to learning those things that they believe will help them perform better or solve problems. - They are internally motivated. Adults are more responsive to internal motivators, such as increased self-esteem, than they are to external motivators, such as higher salaries. - Trainers need to ensure that the content is relevant, and remember that short-term memory can only handle two to four chunks of information at a time. This means that to be successful as a trainer you should draw on personal memory, use questions to help structure a mental model, work with multiple senses to grab attention quickly, and structure information in short chunks. - Stella Collins (2015) suggests that there are six questions you should ask about any scientific fact: - Who did the research? - What’s on their agenda? - Where was it published first? - When was it published? - How was the science conducted? - What does the result really say? The bottom line is that you need to be wary of what you read and even more wary of what you hear. - An active approach to training requires a variety of strategies that promote all six processes—hearing, seeing, questioning, discussing, doing, and teaching. - To alleviate the audio bombardment of lecturing, master trainer Becky Pluth Pike (2016), CEO of The Bob Pike Group, recommends that participants should be given a chance every eight minutes to internalize what they have been hearing before it’s simply supplanted by the next wave of information. - Learning is enhanced if you ask participants to: - Volunteer information in their own words. - Provide examples of it. - Reflect on the information. - Look for connections between it and other facts or ideas. - Practice higher-order thinking, such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. - Apply it to case situations. - “each step forward is made possible by the feeling of being safe, of operating out into the unknown from a safe home port.” One of the key ways people feel safe and secure is when they feel connected to other people and are included in a group. - The best thing you can do for your participants is prepare for their success. If you do not need to worry about your delivery, you can focus on your participants, which is most important. - Plan to share something of yourself to begin a trusted exchange of ideas. Stimulate discussion among the learners. Show that you value their opinions and ideas. Pair individuals as sounding boards for each other. - Use self-deprecating humor. If you show that you don’t take yourself too seriously, you will allow learners to relax and take themselves a little less seriously, too. This will help them be more open to learning and experimentation and less concerned about keeping up appearances. - Long-term memory relies on the use of new information, which is known as the theory of plasticity. New learning must be transferred to the workplace for memory to remain. Without application, the new skills are lost because our brain “prunes” unused new cells. Even before you agree to conduct a training program make sure that the learners’ supervisors will ensure the new skills are put to use immediately - Cognitive load theory presents three design principles that have been around since the 1980s: align material to learners’ prior knowledge; avoid unnecessary and confusing information; and find ways to stimulate rich knowledge - Giving participants choices can improve performance. In one study the choice was as simple as the color of markers and the topics. The result was that those who were given a choice completed twice as many tasks and continued the task on their own into the break. The researchers concluded that when participants were given autonomy they were more meaningfully engaged and they improved their performance - Use realistic practice. The more similar the training situation is to the situation on the job, the more likely it is to last. Even re-creating the physical environment of the job can be helpful. For example, call center training is greatly enhanced if recordings of actual customer calls are used and the training takes place in an actual call center. - At the close of the workshop, provide participants with a postcard and ask them to address it to themselves. Have participants write two MVTs (most valuable tips) and two things they intend to implement from the workshop. Tell the participants to select a learning accountability partner to contact and debrief upon receipt of the postcard. Mail the postcards. - “In the agricultural era, schools mirrored a garden. In the industrial era, classes mirrored the factory, with an assembly line of learners. In the digital-information era, how will learning look?” —Lucy Dinwiddie