Perspectives
“Picturing” the Importance of
Effective Training
by Richard Buse
How crucial is it for a trainer and learner to have a mutually-understood frame of
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reference? How important is it to provide clear direction, and to respond to any uncertainties
with specific questions to evoke useful answers? How much do we rely upon a range of stimuli without fully appreciating how that contributes to learning? At the September Accelerated Learning SIG, facilit
ator
Shirley Lee led participants through a “Picture This”
exercise that illustrated the importance of addressing such questions.
For the “Picture This” exercise, participants had to sit back to back. One
participant had a drawing illustrating how Tangram pieces
needed to be aligned. The other person had the Tangram
pieces. The first person had to provide instructions – within a 10-minute limit
– that the second person could use to correctly align the pieces. While the
second person could ask questions and seek verbal clarification, neither person
could turn around to look at each other.
Although the drawing and
the required alignment seemed simple in retrospect, only one pair of
participants was able to correctly finish the assignment within the allotted
time. That rate of failure helped participants realize just how much more
challenging it can be to provide effective instructions and subsequent feedback
for tasks far more complex.
In addition to providing
that instruction, Shirley said participants could click on the “free stuff”
link on her website for computer tips, team-building activities, management
statistics, and her electronic productivity newsletters which includes
additional group activities. The address for that site is: www.geocities.com/slee_rightfit.
The
Accelerated Learning
SIG meets each month at
About the Author: Richard Buse is an
independent writer/consultant. His assignments include developing training
materials as well as providing writing services for marketing and public
relations efforts. Contact Richard
at
Busewrites@aol.com or (972) 937-3973.