Or, at least it’s true that your perceived support for using new skills makes a huge difference. Transfer: Not as Sure as Day Turning to Night A couple of actions on your part can make all the difference whether your employees use what they learned in training (or not). Before Training. Tell your employee that… Continue Reading
For learning to occur—and stick—one part of the equation is the contribution designers can make to encouraging mental engagement. So Many Elements to Make Engagement Happen As we put a training program together (when training is the right answer), designers can do more (than is commonly done) to promote engagement. We should remember not only… Continue Reading
Nobody can pour learning into someone else’s brain. At least not yet. We can imagine implanting chips, or Matrix-like downloads, but we’re not there yet. What are all the things I can see in this photo? In the meantime, learning requires effort. Engagement on the part of the learner. Does being in the same room… Continue Reading
Once upon a time I worked with a training council inside a Fortune 500 company to assess training and development needs for the Finance organization. When the assessment results came back, nearly every topic on the list was related to management and interpersonal skills. Be Clear | Have Compassion The CFO said in response, “You… Continue Reading
What if we were to offer smallish bits of training to make skill enhancements, updates, reviews, and following up a little easier? I’m working with some folks to do just that, and they’re calling it “flash training.” Here All Summer: Gone in a Flash What is flash training? It’s a small unit of instruction, created… Continue Reading
Do they work? Can people learn from them? Are they a colossal waste of time? Can so many learners at once find value? Here’s my answer: It depends. I posted a link to an article about types of MOOCs the other day, and two people I respect jumped into the comments to suggest that MOOCs… Continue Reading
When I was teaching a graduate course in instructional design at USC, I mentioned that it doesn’t make sense to consider “learning styles” when designing or delivering instruction. Some of my students looked at me like I was nuts. How do you teach an “auditory learner” to recognize Ginkgo leaves? A colleague recently made an… Continue Reading
In (for example) news, history, sociology, psychology, management, or marketing, I don’t think there’s such a thing as an “opinion-free zone.” Maybe in math and some of the sciences, but even there you find opinions. Once upon a time I had a history/government teacher who gave us a homework assignment I haven’t seen since. It… Continue Reading
Want to remember something? Want to give your learners a fun way to study on their own to enhance their memories? Maybe add a little gamification to an otherwise boring pursuit? Want to Remember? Try Repetition with Variety Memorization usually takes time. When it’s required, one way to encourage studying for memory is to use… Continue Reading
Want to make learning easier? This ice breaker is fun, but more importantly, it also helps participants to “wake up what they already know” about a topic. Is “waking stuff up” important? Yes! Here’s why: We learn by adding to what we already know. When we get people to think about what they know already—even… Continue Reading
