Month: October 2011

Today, I start my first day as a professor of public speaking in a hybrid teaching environment. Oh, I’m not new to teaching–just the environment. Granted, it’s been awhile. It is both an exciting and daunting task. I won’t mention any names because it really doesn’t matter what institution it is; they are all relatively the same in how the process works.

This post begins my first hands-on experience with urban students and then it’s on to the suburbs to teach the same class to a different group at a another campus. You know about different audiences so I won’t go there except to say, it is, of course, something I must consider in how I relate my subject to my students. Not that these are necessarily big things–just different. Just like any other audience. You have to know who you are dealing with so you don’t step on your tongue, assuming anything.

Students have a different experience from when I was learning the same, but the parts that need to be in class are in class; those that can be written or discussed can be done in a form–a mandatory thread and posts that meet certain requirements and standards. In my class, communication is the name of the game so we’re talking practice on all levels. Because we are in class a few times, eight to be exact and for three to four hours, the days in class a student can miss are severely limited. Miss two and you can be withdrawn from class completely. gone are the days of showing up and passing (or not) the mid-term and exams in some classes. Here, you have to be present because that is when most of the substantial grading is done. Easy to fail; easy to be withdrawn for lack of attendance.

Let’s face it. This is when I am going to have my students show me they know how to give a speech. In the threads, we’ll talk about about we do things, give examples that we know what we are talking about. And, of course, I am there to guide and instruct.

I’ve written on hybrid education before, and I still feel it is definitely part of our future, not only in education but also in training. In fact, I think trainers got there first, but I find it interesting that we don’t put nearly as much emphasis on it in training; it’s as if we only want to save money, rather than train, making training somewhat less important than education. We could debate the two and I think education wins in the long run because it is training for life; while we are training to do a better job.

We have become a society of too much to do and too little time. We have technology for everything, and we even have technology to manage our technology with voice commands. On our phones. Today it’s the I-Phone 4S. Tomorrow?

I have already had one student request to use her smart phone (at least I’m assuming it’s smart) to do the online portions of her class because her computer is in the shop; life happens. Now, I know smart phones are seducing us in the market as the only electronic product we’ll ever need, but I still have a hard time writing on a laptop, let alone a small phone screen. Different too is the touchscreen. For some, it’s a dream to others a nightmare. But here’s something students won’t let you know they know: libraries have computers and internet access. Teachers know it. Internet cafe’s? Sometimes you have to do what you’ve got to do. I’m a survivalist, remember. Cave Man–that’s me. I just look better on paper, but I’ve been there and I’m a good resource.

I find it interesting that here on the Training and Development site, I have a following of students from another university that I think operates the same way or similarly. In essence I am doing the same job of teaching these students online. I love it. I really do, and I am so glad to see they get why I am saying something. It’s a free education. Even at my age, if someone offered me the chance to go back to school…I’d jump, but life does influence our choices. I waited a long time to do what I love because life was hard and I needed a job and I needed security. Well, I still need the security, but I could only last so long not doing what I love. Eventually I tried to do it all and nearly wore myself out. But it’s worth it. I’m working harder and loving it more.

Had I been born sooner, as a student I like to think I would have used the Internet for the very same reasons and more. I hear something in a movie or read something in a book, it’s so easy to clarify what it is I don’t know. I review plays, too, as some regulars to this blog know. I don’t always know the show. How could I know them all, but I use the Internet to find out what others have said, starting with Wikipedia because it is a good basic place to start. Is it the kind of place I will accept has having authoritative information? No, but there are links found there that are.

My first day. I am not worried about the students–except that I don’t know them yet. I like them without knowing them and I want them to like me. I want them to see the value in what I convey to them and apply it to their lives. They don’t know I had my share of problems growing up; first impressions can be deceiving. We all got to where we are based on where we come from. You can’t help who your parents are or where they came from. I could just as easily been born somewhere else and grew up in a totally different environment, but this is the one I’ve got; this is my reality.

It is the reality of my students as well. This electronic age and how it affects education is what it is. Beats the one-room school house, which I’m sure in it’s day beat the not having a school at all. Of course, you didn’t need some of the sophisticated tools of today, like being able to communicate well. All you needed then was to read and write, and if you did that, you were off to a good start. Many jobs were open to you, but some still required more specialized education. You made choices.

We have choices today. Of course, I feel communication (and public speaking) paves the way for many jobs, and can communicate credibility and leadership traits necessary for success. If you want success, that is. I’d like to say, “Who doesn’t?” It’s always apparent some aren’t willing to work for it. Being “old” I know that it pays off. Guess it’s my job to convince them.

Today I have to figure out how the grade book works. Important. Not just a log book like in the past, but an electronic marvel that provides real time feedback. I always hated waiting for grades. Teacher and student habits. We have to get into the routine. Once there, we won’t need to think about the routine, we’ll just know it and do what we have to do.

My biggest concern is that students (and I know what it’s like) will wonder how to minimize what they do. Efficiency. “What do I need to do to pass?” Not good. “What do I need to do to excel?” Better. “What do I need to do to succeed, not only in this class, but use that information to everything else?” Best.

As for me, don’t wish me luck. I’m doing what I love. I will be challenged. I know my audience (I will know them better shortly), I know my subject, and I know myself.

I will follow from time to time with similar ruminations on life teaching the hybrid education and how it relates to training. Totally off this topic, I am planning to talk about the enrichment programs at sea on the cruise lines. Sounds like a fun thing for a trainer, speaker, actor, author to do. In a couple of weeks I will be doing my first on ship. I’ll pay for the cruise, but I want to be on that stage, working with that audience, and seeing what else is out there to experience. As I keep doing all that do because it is exciting and worthwhile. My passion.

For now, the words here are my own. There’s more on my website, including dramatic criticism and comment. Saw and reviewed three wonderful shows this weekend: THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW, SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER, and PICASSO AT THE LAPIN AGILE. Talk about variety. All did a profesional job communicating life. I had my suspicions of ROCKY since it has a cult following, but in the hands of a professional theatre group, the original theatre came through. PICASSO, if you didn’t know, is Steve Martin’s first play and it is a witty look at how art and science are very similar. Two guys walk into a bar…Picasso and Einstein. I’ll put in the links later, but you can find them on my website under What I Say.

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For more resources about training, see the Training library.

Check out my book, The Cave Man Guide to Training and Development. If you don’t know me, I take a rather non-traditional look at training, reacquainting us with the basics and reminding us what we may have forgotten since the days of the Cave Man. The book is inexpensive and an easy read–a compilation with some modification of related blogs you would find here. End of plug. Happy training.

It is assumed that once we have delivered the information to our students and trainees that they are ready to put them to use. Are students and trainees learning what we want them to and applying that learning when they should? The answer is a resounding, “No!”

I was astounded a few years ago when I taught at the United States Air Force Academy at a seminar on learning that students and trainees don’t really apply the information we convey–no matter how important or life saving it is–for about two years hence. That’s how long experts say it takes for the information to sink in.

I thought it was an interesting fact at the time, but as a trainer and a professor of students in an intense environment now where performance is everything I find I am more concerned. Call it a maturity issue on my part earlier, if you will, but at the time I was more concerned that some instructors at the Academy and other fine institutions thought the study seemed to exclude them.

Quite the contrary, it was exactly the institutions that have a rigid framework found not only in a training environment, but in exclusive private schools, fundamentally religious-based institutions, or any institution or environment that prides itself on imparting values and character. That includes all the service academies, Ivy league and other prestigious institutions, regardless of academic prowess. That is not to say these insitutions do not offer a fantastic, even superior learning experiences. The question is not really academic, but behavioral.

Somehow the less prestigious, less rigid, less fundamental schools did not see the same significance in the study. Their students, in fact, were more practically bent and ready to work. Who could know? But let’s learn from it.

Of course, there are always exceptions, and it may be more important in one field where knowledge is more important than practical application. However, when flying jets split-second decisions must be made on practical application of what is learned and lives are at stake. That’s different. Not all practical application comes to that, but when a company needs someone to apply practical application on its behalf it’s important; it is certainly better than having someone sitting at a desk for two years until it dawns on them what is expected of them–or not. It does not work either.

I don’t have the details of the exact study and I apologize for that, but I can assure it was quite valid and backed up by evidence. It was a long time ago and I don’t think things have changed that much. We certainly aren’t seeing the results in rising productivity levels.

Granted, this is a blog–not an expose of teaching and higher education, but the information is worth pondering about for a solution. Maybe that is reason enough to incorporate practical application and real life scenarios into our training and learning environments. We do that now. Are we doing it enough? Do we monitor education and training throughout the first two years of a job? Not often. It cost too much. Internships help. Especially with a wise interpreter to take student to be the employee the company wants them to be.

Of course, an easier solution would be to wait two years to hire anyone from the those kinds of institutions. I can hear the groans from here. I’m not serious. We can’t do that.

This study, surprisingly enough, did not say this was the case with institutions of lesser prestige, or those that seemed more practically based–filling the education and training void for the immediate workplace. That kind of institution does attract a different kind of student–one looking to change his or her life for the better. a practical view of education and training. On the downside, it is their very background that makes them less productive or dedicated students; however, those that do well seemed to succeed at work. And, education for education sake has its place; I won’t deny it.

Ask yourself why that experience might be different for the students or trainees. We know that it is a maturity issue and can assume a relative carefree attitude of student life can contribute to not having the foresight needed for future success. All students have issues, rich or poor, so we can eliminate that factor; however, focus directed in the right direction matters. Priorities, too. I’m not suggesting students shouldn’t have priorities elsewhere besides leading toward success, but those will be the ones first in line. It’s not a perfect theory.

Yes sir, that education or that training is the ticket. All of my USAF academy students would be engineers and most pilots–some flying fighters and some going into the space program–and a few going on to graduate school to be scientists, lawyers and doctors. They are guaranteed jobs. That senior year is a little lax to say the least.

I was one of the working students all through my undergraduate education at a less than prestigious institution; however, the Air Force paid my way for most of my graduate work. I was paid a salary and the service paid for books and tuition. I found myself, for the first time in my life without survival issues while going to school.

I was essentially in the same situation as students who can pick their schools, have enough money to socialize and enjoy the campus environment, and the result: my grades were better before when I worked full time, lost sleep and social playtime. Perhaps, for me it was a matter of my focus. For others, having that opportunity meant a relief from the stress of having to worry about survival, and the result entirely different. My point is that it makes a difference always, and it is behavioral in nature. The human factor.

However, my concern and yours should be those that are just graduating and going directly into a job. At the time I was teaching at the Academy some students were put on hold in the Reserves, giving them time to process what they learned and apply. Is it critical in today’s society? Probably in some cases, but I suspect the numbers are so small, they are chalked up to training accidents, misfits, personal issues, or some other reason for failure to use what they learned in school.

Understand that I am not singling out the the U.S. Air Force or any other service school, or any other Ivy league or well-known private school. Any service school, and prestigious private and/or any Ivy league school practically guarantee placement through name alone and alums willing to sponsor. That, of course, is part of the appeal. Not to mention the fact having staff and personnel from those schools makes a company look good.

What can we do as trainers and developers? We start doing our job from the hiring process. Maybe even a little before, if we can insinuate our presence into the schools to let them know how a transition to work will take place. Gone should be the quick and dirty introduction, and you start next week. Or, “Here’s your guide,” another employee with time on his hands. Or, “It’s all online, you’ll get it.” Or, as happened to me once, “Here’s your Bible (not a religious reference), your how-to-do the job. Show me what you can do.”

We can’t not care because we can let go those who don’t perform. We stand the risk of losing some potentially valuable employees because they can’t help where they come from. Interns should learn from the best we have. If there ever is a time for working mentors–mentors that lead and teach as we need them to; the time is now. They say you learn best by teaching. Why not bring new employees into training to train others? It’s a wild perspective, I know. But we learn best when we train others what is expected. That interaction can’t be bad.

Well, I guess I awoke on that side of the bed today as I contemplate getting into hybrid teaching–a new job myself and my learning was a long time ago. Fortunately, I have applied that learning since, and consider I am always learning. Some of it will be new. The technology and technique didn’t exist then. That will be new. Exciting, I hope. My goal will be to teach the practical. How to use what we learn and why it is important. Hopefully, I will succeed.

For now, let’s blog about learning and its immediate practical application, talk about it, live it as part of how we train. It may be the Cave Man in me again, looking toward simple changes in the way we operate. I follow the trends of technology as much as the next guy but I think about the non-technical side of us all the time–the people we train and teach. Technology is a tool–a good tool. Paper is a tool. Humans are not.

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For more resources about training, see the Training library.

Enough for now. For a look at the human side of training from my Cave Man perspective, please check out my book, The Cave Man Guide to Training and Development. I don’t have all the answers, but I try to put them in different terms like everyone else. Hopefully, my ideas are worth thinking about, jog your memory, make you think of something else we can do to do our jobs better. By all means, feel free to disagree and let me know about it. Offer yourself as guest blogger. I don’t have the lock on ideas. My website is still there where more ideas await the curious–waiting for you. Happy training.