YouTube instructional talk by Larry Weidel on designing effective training programs. The speaker promises six ideas and so far emphasizes (1) focus training on doing/using rather than passive listening (advocates ~80% doing, 20% listening) and (2) break learning into small, doable tasks to build learner confidence and engagement. The aim is to get participants to apply skills daily rather than merely pass tests.
Lets talk about designing a great training program. I got six ideas for you. First of all is that a great training program is not just a curriculum with a book and a checklist with PowerPoints, but it's going to involve a lot of elements. If you want to get people involved, you actually want them to learn and take ownership of the information to where they're going to be using it on a daily basis. In other words, not do it. Like most training is where you teach. You know most training is in school. You teach, you test, they get some kind of score. As long as they pass, then you move on. And there's no emphasis on actually using. But if you're doing a great training program, you're going to get people to actually use this stuff. So the first key to designing a great training program is to, is what you're going to focus on. And the focus has got to be on what? What would you think? Focus on doing, using. Now the point of that is that usually you have programs designed 95% on the people listening and maybe 5% doing okay little Johnny, come to the board and write it up there and what did we say? But the thing is this is really not going to assimilate it into their heads. You can't really be sure because you don't know what they're hearing. And again it's not what you teach, it's what they learn. So the formula, if you're going to think of a formula, think of this. Think 80% do and 20% listen learn. So you take it more in bite sized chunks where you're teaching them this much and then you're quizzing, questioning. We'll get into how you get them to involved in doing and using, doing, using. So that will kick us off. Now that leads us to number two which is going to be. Let's talk about the second phase of this thing is you start small doable tasks. It's the whole thing of how you eat an elephant one mouthful at a time. Elephant, chew slowly. Yeah, the whole thing. Have you heard of thing a cinch by the inch, all these cliches, that's where it comes from. If you break it down and usually in anything in life where you're having trouble getting it done, if it's a task, if it's, you know, just something is just monumental. You just got to do something, take one step at it. So if you have a big subject, the way you get people into it is get one piece of it. You start one piece. Well they understand that. Okay, now you're starting to build confidence. You know, one bite, one little move, you start to build some confidence, and they start feeling like, this is not necessarily going to overwhelm me. You don't have a chance. It's a matter of getting them active. See, when they're sitting and listening to you, they're in a passive mode. You get them active, them involved, and so what happens is you get them to where you're building them step by step. They feel like this is not so hard. If they sit up there and see you do 40 steps in a row or A, B, C, D, E, F, G all the way through the Alphabet, that's going to be complicated, especially if it's in a foreign language. But if it's ABC now, repeat back ABC to me now. If it's in French or whatever, you can, you can start to build your confidence. I don't know what ABC is in French, but I do know how to count to 10. And I know in German. That's why I drive here. Fun Sec. Siebenach neuen Sen. And on and on. You can remember one through ten. A, B, C. And that gives you a little confidence that you can learn the whole thing. All right, let's. I've got some great illustrations on this, but let's move over to video 2 and I'll give them to you.
