Before coming to TrainerTainment full time, I had the privilege of being a teacher trainer of English as a Foreign Language. Oh it was a thrilling life of travel and excitement, but more than that I learned so much about different cultures and perspectives.
During my teacher training courses, we always discussed individual learning styles and different ways to teach to learners of each style. There are those that are visual and learn best by watching, by reading or looking at charts and pictures. Some folks are auditory learners and prefer to receive new information orally by listening to stories and instructions. And there are kinesthetic and tactile learners who learn best by moving and/or doing. What a colorful and beautiful world we live in!
The most important lesson for a new teacher to learn was that a great teacher must understand her own learning style AND those of everyone else. We, naturally, want to teach in the way we learn the best but that can really limit your impact for other learner styles? This sort of thing can show up in the following example that may happen daily at your center. If you love to get your information from listening, you may find yourself thinking “I JUST told you how to do that-in response to an employee who just never seems to get it”? Have you ever sent instructions via email to someone who responded, “gosh I wish you would just pick up the phone and call me”? That person is probably more auditory than visual and could have received the message more effectively in a conversation. It’s tricky!
As managers and supervisors, we have to be teachers (and sometimes it feels like we have to be coaches or even parents!). Are you taking the time to think or even ask about your employees’ different learning styles and needs?
As they say, variety is the spice of life, and a good training session, like a good teaching lesson has something that appeals to all styles. You’ve got to have a good blend of simple visual components, clear-easy-to-follow instruction, and learners should get the chance to get up and moving and even try to do it themselves wherever possible. It’s hard to think outside our comfort zones to provide all that in a single training, but magic happens when we do.
That’s part of the reason why I am so impressed with what my colleague, Dave Patton, and his team create every day. Dave is the head of our Virtual Operations department and the creative genius behind TrainerTainment Interactive Online Learning. Dave has been a teacher and trainer for the last 10 years and, like me, Dave spent time abroad teaching English and has learned the same lessons I have regarding the importance learning styles have on training design and delivery.
Here’s Dave’s input on the subject:
When I became an Instructional Designer for TrainerTainment, my goal was to create fun online courses, each of which would present information in a way that captures the interest of all learners, regardless of their learning style. As it turns out, online learning, or elearning, is the perfect medium for delivering information in all three styles.
Visual Learning:
Elearning, by definition, has a visual element to it, since Interactive Online Learners will be sitting in front of a computer screen and looking at the course. But visual learners need more than to just be able to look at a course that has text, audio, pictures that are relevant to the message, or any combination of the three. A well designed elearning course will have meaningful graphic representations of the material being presented. This can be a chart or graph, a picture or graphic that exemplifies the information, or an entire virtual environment that mimics the real world. Adding one or more of these visual elements really helps cement the presented information in the visual learner’s head.
Audio Learning:
Elearning can also be designed to suit the needs of the audio learner. A well designed course will be narrated instead of presenting the information in a text format only. The combination of text and audio, in fact, is most effective if all of the information is presented through narration while only showing key words or phrases in text format. In the case of virtual environments, adding subtle sound effects will add an element of realism to the course, aiding in information recall, especially for audio learners.
Kinesthetic Learning:
Lastly, elearning courses can include a vast variety of interactive elements that are beneficial to the kinesthetic learner, who learns better with hands on methods such as object and environment manipulation. Elearning satisfies the needs of these learners with interactions as simple as dragging and dropping or rearranging information or as complex as a virtual environment where your actions will be as similar as possible to your actions in the real world.
There is a lot of disagreement in scholarly circles about the validity of the theory that teaching a certain style of learner only in their preferred style of learning is better, but one point has almost universal acceptance: all learners will achieve better information recall and/or skill transfer in a learning environment where a mix of all the styles are used. Keeping this in mind, we’ve designed all of TrainerTainment’s elearning courses to deliver a mix of all pertinent information in all three styles.
Are your learners demonstrating a lack of information recall from their training? Are the skills you’re training not being transferred to the job? Why not look, listen, and interact with TrainerTainment’s Interactive Online Learning courses to see, hear, and feel how they can benefit your organization. Take it from us, we’ve been there! You’ll be glad you did.
