Our Methods
Times are changing, and with it are the needs and opportunities within the field of professional development. It used to be that employees were able or willing to attend full-day training sessions, sometimes even two-day sessions, but in recent years it has become clear that this is no longer the ideal approach. In fact, we never thought it was. Here’s why:
1. Information overload. It is not possible for humans to retain six hours’ worth of information. The human brain learns iteratively learning, and can only soak up a small amount of knowledge in any one day. Any new information delivered after the first hour of teaching will be lost solely out of a lack of space for it to be retained. Herman Ebbinghaus demonstrated this over a century ago with his famous “Forgetting Curve” that shows how much information is lost in the days following teaching, if it is not practiced.
Multi-hour training sessions are indeed helpful for focused, hands-on repetitive learning of a task or concept, for example, spending hours learning how to use a specific machine, or doing different scenarios on a them such as fighting a house fire. They are also good for round-table brainstorming on a specific issue. But if you have ever tried to learn how to play a musical instrument or to speak a new language, you know it can’t be done in a day. Learning must happen over time.
2. The speed of today’s work. In the analog days when the pace of work and communication was slower, e.g. a piece of postal mail would take a day or more to reach its recipient, a multi-hour training session seemed practical from a time point of view, despite the overload just mentioned. These days, however, employees attending PD sessions remain aware of the messages coming into their numerous devices, and this can drive them to distraction. Requiring participants to turn off their devices during a session is both unfair and stress-inducing, and simply cannot be tolerated. This request might make it easier for the teacher, but the students worry about what they might be missing, and are then under pressure to reply to and handle these messages upon completion of the course or during a lunch break. Either way, this is not conducive to learning.
3. Breakouts can be irrelevant. To make the six-hour session more bearable, many instructors turn to breakout sessions in which exercises supporting the learning are presented. Sometimes these can work, but more often the exercises do not connect with the participants’ real-world scenarios, and furthermore, not everyone enjoys being made to speak and interact with others in a group. As the dynamics of the personal at-work experience change, the concept of forced group exercises is becoming less attractive to a majority of participants.
4. The fear of change. Learning a new skill means that something changes, in habits, approach to work, and in relating to colleagues. Many learners, upon leaving a six-hour session often feel confronted with the challenge of implementing a new habit without any support on how to do this.
5. Personal learning styles. People learn differently. Some ask lots of questions, others prefer to sit at the back and say nothing. Some like to ask the instructor one-on-one during breaks of after class. Some people pick up on concepts quickly, others take longer. Some are visual learners, some kinesthetic, some are enthusiastic, others doubtful of fearful. Many are from elsewhere in the world, and English is not their first language. In every classroom there will be a broad spectrum of personality types and learning styles. For decades, the classroom style has appeal to only a small cross-section of the class population. Personalized service is not only better, it is also becoming more in-demand.
6. Work-life integration. Few people have the energy or the time to invest in a training day. Many would prefer to learn in smaller segments that fit in better with the other priorities of their day. Some students will not enjoy the instructor’s style and will actually turn to online sources like YouTube for a more fitting lesson, or one that can be simultaneously translated.
7. No need for a central classroom. It used to be that the only way to convey a message to a group of people was to collect them together in a room – a classroom, to conduct teaching to many people at the same time. Now, there is no need for a physical meeting room. As we have all seen, meetings, including PowerPoint, whiteboards, and chat can be conducted online, and even though the first generation of online video chat left some people fatigued, there are newer, more immersive environments already available.
8. No need for a scheduled class. Not only do we no longer need a single classroom, we do not even need a single date and time. Collaboration technologies allow people to work iteratively and according to their own schedules. Teaching can also be done this way through a combination of tools that allow each student to learn their own way.
So here's how we do it...
Option 1: We deliver half-day workshops online – ideally three hours maximum. Many organizations have recognized that full-day workshops are impractical on a platform like Zoom, and they have started to notice the same fact about in-real-life workshops: a full day is just too long.
So we deliver half-day group workshops on all of our topics, being careful to take into consideration different learning styles among students.
Option 2: This represents where we feel learning should go: iterative, interactive and intuitive. We offer our courses in smaller modules that teach one concept at a time, in ways that appeal to each individual’s learning styles and needs, and which are followed up with support and mentorship in which they can ask questions individually. This is a concept based on the Flipped Schooling method, in which students are given factual information to take in, and then they get to use the instructor’s attention to ask relevant questions.
Our sessions are recorded videos of about 10 minutes each, with self-assessments and reference material. But they’re not just static videos; the students get access to the instructors by email whenever they want for as long as they want. Emails can be private one-on-one but they can also be part of the group, allowing all participants to learn from each other as time goes on. And we don’t use a complex LMS system that needs a training session to learn how to use. We keep in touch with people individually.
We strongly believe in the iterative method of teaching, and we find this approach captures the best of what professional development is supposed to be: A opportunity to learn new skills and actually retain what was learned.
We also invite participants and stakeholders to provide context regarding their situations to make the course directly relevant to the students' needs.
Common questions (feel free to send your questionss to us)
Q: What if students don’t watch the videos?
A: The same thing as if they don’t pay attention in class. They won’t learn anything. But if that’s the case, the fault is not with the student, it’s with what is being taught or how it’s being taught. A different method may be better for that individual, or maybe a better time in the day or a later date in the year.