Blogs

Setting the Table

“Life's a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!”

• From the 1958 movie, “Auntie Mame”

   

  Now that you have developed courseware with an eye toward appealing to the major adult learning styles, how do you deliver it? According to several research universities around the country, you should set up a buffet table and hand out plates. 

   

  Obviously this is a metaphor, but researchers have concluded that given a choice adults are intuitively drawn to educational methods and materials that best match their learning style; i.e., they know inherently how they best learn. Where it is possible, produce courseware that includes appeals to all learning styles and allow students to feast on training aids that best suit them.

   

  How is this done? It’s tricky. On many occasions you will have been charged with delivering training where the primary objectives are as much about conveying organizational policy and procedure as they are about teaching “how to” successfully use an application or step through a series of actions. For example, in educating a population about the use of a new Document Management System, your most important objective may be establishing how your organization expects users to save and manage files, not how to click on a menu. In those situations, you want to ensure that every single participant receives the same instruction.

   

  For situations like this, create courseware that directs all students through the same set of activities and learning points.  You can still appeal to various learning styles by including pieces that invoke each learning style in the courseware you build.  Consider how the components in your training can appeal to various learning styles:

   

  Conceptual Learning

   

• Stating objectives
• Providing examples of expected outcomes
• Describing major steps or milestones in a process

   

  Visual Learning (often included as part of Conceptual Learning)

   

• Providing screenshots
• Providing illustrations
• Illustrating major steps of a process visually
• Producing flowcharts

   

  Transference Learning

   

• Comparing legacy processes, procedures and applications to the new ones they’re being taught, contrasting what is different and speaking to what remains the same
• Creating a matrix of terminology that has changed, but is synonymous or nearly synonymous with terms they will use going forward
• Finding an accurate metaphor to directly describe a new area of learning

   

  Didactic Learning

   

• Creating 1-2-3 style instructions where procedures or specific actions are required
• Providing checklists to help students prepare for an activity

   

  Creative Learning

   

• Creating thought exercises for each module, leaving them open-ended to allow the creative learner to meander independently
• Always providing remedies for creative learners who are likely to get lost or make messes; populating Help menus, pointing them to existing Help menus, creating FAQs to address questions that have open ended answers, offering access to resources that can answer questions or help them solve problems (e.g., access to Support or Help Desk, access to trainers for further assistance, list of super users who can assist, etc.)

In other situations where the subject matter is more open ended, you can literally set up a buffet.  Provide your students with a table of quick reference guides, transference pieces (terminology matrix, for example), desktop videos they can watch, checklists and recipe-style instructions they can save and re-use, challenges for the adventurous learner (treasure hunts, for example), etc.

By taking this approach, you can be assured you are connecting with as many of your students as possible, providing a way forward for all.

Bon appétit!