A Little Help from My (Hypno) Friends
By Mark Scher
Howdy folks, or cheerio (haha Ellie). I appreciate the opportunity to talk to “thems” that know and get some useful advice, so when Ellie asked if I would write in as a glogger while she’s on the road, I jumped at the chance.
I noticed when my kids were young, their teachers, the good ones, typically did a lot preparation work. As they got older, they still did a lot work, but it was different. There were lectures to prepare and papers to grade. I noticed that the constant for good teachers was heavy preparation for setting the learning stage, so the kids could actively work hard in higher grades. There were one or two that stuck with lecture, but it was different—instead of just sitting there passively listening, I was actively caught up in the topic. It was like listening to a good story teller. “Going internal,” I would play with the material, do thought experiments, etc.. Other teachers would lecture, but they were only talking at me—no mental involvement. The “cool” teachers could talk about anything and make it involving.
As a trainer and instructional designer, I’ve followed the path of most instructional designers and given clients what they expected. Very focused learning objectives with observable criteria (after all if you can’t measure it, how do you know learning took place?), scripts for e-learning instructors, plenty of interactions to involve learners, feedback, etc. Some of my more adventurous clients even let me pose scenarios, simulations, and ask applied questions rather than the usual recall and recognition-level queries.
Could anyone suggest techniques for trainers teaching adults for developing mentally captivating and memorable lesson content? How can we talk directly to the subconscious to improve assimilation and accommodation of useful content?
