Posted by Pat Parrish on April 22, 1999 at 14:43:51:
In Reply to: Presentation of Training posted by George Wilken on April 22, 1999 at 08:10:17:
George writes:
: I find at our office that training is received best
: when it is followed up and there is a variety of
: platforms to offer. No one form/session of training
: should be the cause of information overload, but perhaps be
: followed with relevant reinforcing and supplemental
: information.
...
Within a reasonable amount
: of time, say over the next month or so, provide a
: web-based or module-supplement to the seminar, primarily
: showing other cases on how the overall concept works
: (BUT KEEP IT INTERESTING AND RELEVANT). This reinforcing
: further "cements" the concept in that person's mind.
...
: It has often been said that repetition in education is
: often the best way for learning to be retained, BUT if
: the repetition is not relevant and not in a palatable form
: then even that method becomes somewhat boring to the
: trainee.
Your right on target here George. One of the things that all learning theories have in common is the prescription for lots of practice. It sounds like common sense, but psychologists have lots of technical terms for it. Behaviorists call it "conditioning." Cognitive psychologists call it "rehearsing." Proponents of situated cognition or case-based learning call it building up a repertoire of cases to draw from. Whatever you call it, it's nearly impossible for one training module to provide adequate practice to consider the job done. COMET tries very hard to incorporate case-based practice in everything they produce, but this is time consuming and difficult to do well. (Especially given regional differences) It would be great if we could work together with SOOs to develop a richer set of case-based practice exercises.
I'm glad to hear that you not only provide follow-on training for centrally produced materials but use centrally produced materials as follow on training for your own training efforts. What's important is that there is a system of efforts that add up to a rich learning experience over time. The SOO is the best person to facilitate these kinds of activities, and they need to suggest how the training facilities can help them in this task as well.