Instructing for Understanding

Most trainers will tell you that just because you teach something, doesn’t always equate to the learner understanding it. Especially when it comes to very complex actions that have to be performed under stressful situations. This is especially common at the Challenge Ropes Course (CRC) where our instructors-to-be have to learn to take care of the safety of their participants and even perform risky rescues when the situation calls for it. So how do we make sure we train them well? How can we make sure that what we are teaching gets absorbed by them as much as possible? The trick is to be more learner-centric in our instructions.

At Blackbox OE, our trainers make use of the 3-D Instructional Method when we teach on the CRC. We find that this helps the learners master the skillset and allows them to get to the practice stage next much faster. The 3-D’s stand for :

1. Demonstration without Explanation
2. Discuss about what you saw
3. Demonstration with Explanation

It is important to note that learners will always have questions, and typically they will interrupt you (the trainer), as you attempt to go through the process. But sometimes it is good to hold the tension as this curiosity that is building up can increase the motivation of the learner to learn. A good trainer will learn to play around with this tension to capture the attention of his crowd. Think of any good movie that you have watched. If the director were to resolve the conflict for you immediately, would you still want to watch till the end of the movie?

Besides that, as you move along the sequence, the learners will slowly find the questions they had initially gradually get answered one by one as you slowly reveal the reasons behind your actions. And even if they do not get answered, there will still be a chance at the end for them to clarify. So nothing actually gets lost in the process as long as all their questions are answered at the end.

The Discussion in Step 2 will also serve as an opportunity to increase learners’ motivation to learn. Humans are social beings and most (if not all) of us will appreciate an opportunity to interact and share what are on our minds. Hence by providing that opportunity, the neurons in our learners’ brains are actually being fired as they interact with their partners, drawing linkages to what they saw in the first demonstration and expanding their experience with the subject. When they see the final demonstration in Step 3, this Discussion phase would have already primed them to accept and pay attention to critical points that they want answered in their discussion.

What you eventually get are learners who are eager and motivated to see what happens next in your lesson. The learners will now have interest in what you are teaching and they are an active part of the lesson able to socialize and learn together with their peers in the class. This will make your job as a trainer so much easier rather than constantly having to vie for the learners’ attention. If you think about it, all it takes is for us (the trainers) to shut up, and resist the temptation to answer back immediately, just to get a bunch of attentive learners!

P.S. The 3-D Instructional Method can help hold the tension in learners and create a more motivation to learn.