Over the last several weeks I have been doing a considerable amount of reading on the topic of self-directed learning in adults. An interesting concept, and one that has made me do a lot of thinking. I know that people learn on a continuous basis, and much of it is unplanned, but what caught my attention was the question of how businesses and schools go about teaching adult learners. For all the many trainings I have had in my professional career not one attempted to be effective, efficient, and engaging. Instead, data was thrown out at a very fast pace and those who got it were in good shape. For those who did not....well they were left to flop around like a newly caught fish on the river bank. Businesses in a hurry to get people out of training and back to work fail in almost every attempt to train their employees new things, and I was one of the biggest offenders. The old routine of putting everything on a Powerpoint just doesn't work anymore....heck, it never worked for the most part. It looks nice and neat, but not very effective in teaching something new.
Our school systems also fail our young adults in this regard. Many high school students are ready to be taught in a different manner, yet our schools continue to teach in the lecture format. Sometimes that works, sometimes (most of the time) it does not. We need to change our view of education and training in this society. Just because someone has to learn something to do their jobs does not mean they will. What's the answer? We'll I have many suggestions....stay tuned for more.
Aging Might Not Be Inevitable
6 months ago
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3 comments:
You have posed some great questions. Having 2 high schoolers I have been thinking about how engaged they are with their teachers. Certainly some are better than others, but I would guess not many of their teachers (who been in the field for while) have thought about changing their style of teaching or even worrying about how engaging they are to their students.
You have posed some great questions. Having 2 high schoolers I have been thinking about how engaged they are with their teachers. Certainly some are better than others, but I would guess not many of their teachers (who been in the field for while) have thought about changing their style of teaching or even worrying about how engaging they are to their students.
Interesting...
I just attended a class that was all lecture through work about project cost and schedule control. It was all new material to me and was overwhelming. One of the pitfalls to corporate training is that employees attend training and yet they have no way to apply to their job because the groundwork hasn't been laid down to fit it in to the process. I think if you want someone to attend training or an educational event, but have no way laid out for applying the information afterward, it was a waste of time and can cause much frustration.
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