Strategies for Teachers and Trainers

Although I enjoyed all of the readings for this first week, especially the overview that was presented in Hoare's Handbook since it did such a wonderful job of explaining why linking adult learning and adult development, and studying them together is so critical. 

What I discovered however is that I found the most resonance in a snippet from Taylor, Marienau, and Fiddler; Developing Adult Learners; Strategies for Teachers and Trainers. 

In it the authors write: 

"If learners come to the learning environment expecting to accrue knowledge as discrete bits of information, and if nothing is done to influence a change in that perspective, reproductive learning will be the outcome (Richardson, 1999)." 

Then this which comes several sentences later:

"By contrast, instructors who supported deep approaches to learning were those who saw the study of history as a process of developing interpretations and shared with their students their own process."

This hit home with me because as I said during our class introductions, I support a learning community that sees what we provide as "training" not "learner." The idea of providing courses as "discrete bits of information" is common and normal within our industry. It's not odd to hear safety and training leaders say, "this is just check the box training" a turn of phrase that I find short-sighted. 

It's the "by contrast" aspect of the quote that also hit me. How might we as a learning community inspire our learners to think more deeply and approach it from a different perspective? Hopefully, a perspective that provides for greater reflection and the chance to utilize and apply the learning in the field and with their colleagues on the job. 

They go on to state that when learners have that moment to reflect and explore the learning by applying their own expertise and experience:

"They are more likely to hold multiple perspectives, think flexibly, and deal with ambiguity - in short, they are not simply adopting new ideas but moving toward changing the ways in which they construct the ideas they hold."

This is exactly what I'm hoping to find. In some of my work, I've already seen that shift in some of the older learners we support, especially with the innovative training techniques we are trying to apply. But in most of those cases, it is pinpoint rather than a global change. Finding a way to bring this type of learning (as opposed to training) to a greater number of our learners is what I'm hoping to find from this class.