SUPPORTING TEACHERS & TRAINERS

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”   (Benjamin Franklin)

 When talking about the challenges facing both education and training today, one size no longer fits all.  Stand-up instruction, books, distance learning, networked computer-based instruction, and multi-sensory e-Learning may all have a place.

Equally important is the support required by education and training professionals in dealing with the increasingly complicated challenges that effect learning.  And, we must remember that the challenges facing trainers and educators outstrip the time-demands necessary for them to stay abreast of the “latest and greatest.”

While many tools exist to help educators stay current, it is not so easy to do so for the corporate trainer.

Unfortunately in business and industry, an organization too often chooses to focus certain time and money on training only when either some process/function within the organization has gone awry or an edict-to-train has come down from high up in the organizational structure. 

Due to pressing time restraints, the effected trainers rely on a reactive decision process, ignoring the two bottom line questions: “whom-to-be-trained?” and “what-to-use?”  

And yet, the answers to those two questions are what the successful trainer has to find — for isn’t having well-trained personnel going to ultimately be more valuable to those individuals – and, at the same time, give more of an ROI to their organization? 

Most importantly, we cannot assume that learning takes place just because instruction and learning materials are made available.  In addition to content accuracy and completeness, today’s video-based learning culture must be addressed.  Never forget that, in addition to reading, that learning culture also includes smartphones, tablets and computers where visual learning is embedded in the learning process.

Yes, the tools for effective communication are evolving while teachers and trainers wrestle with a search for “best ways.”  The time-pressures on them only continue to grow.

For many reasons, teachers and trainers need our understanding and our support — maybe more so than in any previous time.  Their task is monumental!

More on Wednesday  –  –  –

  — Bill Walton, co-Founder, ITC Learning

 March 27, 2017

          www.itclearning.com/blog/  (Mondays & Wednesdays)

 “THE WORLD RELIES ON THE HANDS OF ITS MEN AND WOMEN”

 (This is a personal blog.  Any views or opinions represented in this blog are personal and belong solely to the blog owner, jhbillwalton@gmail.com, an independent consultant.  They do not represent those of people, institutions or organizations that the owner may or may not be associated with in a professional or personal capacity.)