Note to Trainers: You can't "deliver" learning!

If I had a dollar for every time I've heard someone talk about "delivering" a training, I'd be.....well, let's just say that I could buy a lot of pizza!

As in any field, language matters, and enthusiasts in dialogue education circles are no exception. We can have long debates over the relative merits of "teacher-centred vs. learner-centred vs. learning-centred", never quite agree with each other, but walk away richer for having had a respectful dialogue. 

But when it comes to "delivering training", I draw the line. "Delivering" is a term that we use for: 

• flowers (good),  
• pizza (mmmm!)
• books from Amazon or Chapters (convenient, if bad for independent bookstores)
• parcels by UPS (handy, but I'm not sure about all that brown in one place...)
• ordinance (Military Orewellian newspeak for "bombs")

But good or bad, using the term "delivery" to describe training or teaching really bugs me for 4 reasons:

1. "Deliver" implies that the learners are passive.

Sure they might have dialed a 1-800 number or surfed to a website, and chosen their toppings, but then all they have to do is sit there with their mouth open and receive the new knowledge and skills that we impart. Delivery, to me, implies passivity: they have no agency, they don't need to make decisions and we certainly don't expect them to engage in any critical reflection on the learning (e.g. What is the significance of anchovies in your community?).

The delivery mindset reflects the old paradigm in which because the authority figure says something, it must be true. Because I taught it, you must have received, understood and accepted it. But it has never worked that way. Sure students may have dutifully "absorbed" what the teacher said and regurgitated back on the exam, but if it stuck more than three days after the end of term, it was probably because they made some meaning of it because they wanted to. Learning is an act of the will; I cannot "learn" anyone; it is up to them to be actively involved in the process. 

In reality, learners ARE the active Subjects (Decision makers) of their own learning. They make thousands of almost unconscious decisions in every learning situation to "triage" the barrage of information that is firing at them by criteria like: how does that make me feel? what is useful here? what new insights does that provide me? how is the teacher acting towards me? what of this resonates with what I've heard before? what sounds or looks preposterous? 

Like or not, learners are always engaging in this "internal" dialogue whenever they are in a class or workshop or reading a book. (In fact, you're doing it right now as you read this: "Hey, good point, Dwayne! No! That's a load of ....!).  So why not celebrate their agency and make it an explicit part of their learning process? 

2. "Deliver" commodifies the learning as a product

Just like a book that can be sent in the mail, "delivering" learning suggests that the new Knowledge, Skills or Attitudes is a pre-fabricated, complete, generic package of facts, images and PowerPoint slides that you can just pull off the shelf and send to someone. No customization is required; just sign here and take it with lots of water. 

But in my experience, the best learning occurs in groups -- whether online or in person -- where people can wrestle with a topic, debate with one another and engage in some sort of hands-on interaction with the content that engages all their senses. This kind of dynamic learning is never the same no matter how often you teach it because it draws on the life experiences, energy and expertise of the learners. 

3. "Deliver" diminishes your role as the teacher or trainer

If all you have to do as a teacher or trainer is "deliver" a course, you might as well hire any robot to stand there, click through the PowerPoint slides and mumble the words out loud. 

But training and teaching can be -- should be -- so much more than that. As a learning facilitator, I see my role as providing a safe yet flexible structure of time, space and tasks in which learners can bring out their voices, actively engage in the process and create something new. But this requires extensive preparation, building relationships and being responsive throughout the event. It takes far more work than pressing "next slide". 

And in most cases, I'm not the only "expert" in the room. In fact, I see my role as being a co-learner who helps draw out the expertise, experience and energy of all the participants, while offering my own perspectives for their consideration. 

4. "Deliver" is only 1-part of the learning process

As Jane Vella and others have pointed out, conveying new knowledge, skills and attitudes works best when it is supported by other steps of the learning cycle. 

Anchor: Look backward to activate and affirm your learners' prior experience with the topic.
(e.g. With a partner, share an example of when your child has struggled with reading. We'll hear a sample. )

Add: Provide new information, or concepts or demonstrate a new skill
(e.g. Listen to this theory on how children read. What resonates with your experience?)

Apply: Invite them to use this new learning in a hands-on way
(e.g. In groups of 4, analyze this case study of a child who is learning to read. What can she, her teacher and her parents do better in light of the theory we reviewed?)

Away: Look forward and ask them to name how this new learning will be significant or challenging to apply and what supports they may need.
(e.g.  What did you learn today that will help you work with your child to improve her / his reading? What new questions do you want to explore?

(See Jane's book, Taking Learning to Task for more details). Of course, you don't need to follow this template rigidly, and there are other experiential learning cycles that can work equally as well. But the main point here is that conveying data is only a small (but important) step of the process. We also need to help the learners connect that new information to their lives -- past, present and future.

To Sum Up: 

Our challenge as teachers, trainers and facilitators of learning is to move from delivery....

 to Engagement!

Tell Me a Story

The Power of Storytelling/Making in Learning

"Max and Ruby* were playing in the backyard one day, when suddenly they heard a loud noise...."

This has been the first line of nearly every bedtime story that I have told in the past six years. But no matter how bedtimes we've shared, my kids never seem to tire of hearing about the adventures of the two bunnies who live next door,  the magical and mischievious gifts that their Uncle Bob sends (e.g. rocket-powered pogo sticks, invisibility pills), and their clueless but goodhearted parents, Lloyd and Louise Lapinette. (In fact, I had to interrupt writing this blog post to tell yet another Max & Ruby story in which Max runs for Parliament...)

But I'd argue that stories aren't just for children anymore. In fact, they can also be a powerful means of building dialogue and supporting learning with adutls. 

Why Do Stories Work? 

People are hard-wired to tell and enjoy stories, and we tend to remember stories far better than any simple recitation of facts.

Don't believe me? 

Think back to a speaker you listened to a few weeks ago -- a professor's lecture, a sermon at church, a radio interview.... What do you recall? I bet that 8 times out of 10 you remember a story or joke that they told far better than anything else the speaker said. 

But why do the stories work?  Some argue that listening to a story evokes both sides of our brains and helps us engage at different levels of consciousness. Others suggest that stories stimulate an emphatic response (i.e. they speak to our affective domain, to our emotions, heart and feelings).

Or maybe, as my kids would say, stories work simply because they're fun. 

My Stories, Their Stories

In facilitating any workshop, I make an effort to weave in stories of my experiences with the topic into the dialogue. I'm always amazed to see the change in body language and to feel energy level ramp up when I switch from sharing theories and statistics to telling a story. 

But it's also really important to provide opportunities for the learners to share their stories. Storytelling can be a great way to break down barriers, to discover commonalities, activate prior learning and prepare the learners to explore new ideas together.

In one workshop with international relief workers, I included a warm-up task in which I invited them to form groups of four and share a story of a fond memory of their time overseas. After 15 minutes, I asked them to "widen the circle" and come back to the large group. No response. "Let's wrap up now and hear a few highlights....". They ignored me. I finally had to resort to banging two water jugs together to get their attention. "Engagement!" Jane would say with a smile. 

So in your next workshop, consider how you can build in opportunities for your learners to share topic-related stories (Relevance!). But again, be sure to design for Safety:

• don't put people on the spot (voice by choice); 
• invite them to share their stories in pairs or trios first to "test" them out; and 
• stay clear of topics that might be too difficult, controversial or embarassing. 

Is it a True Story? 

"Is it a true story, Dad?" my daughter often asks me after I spin a yarn. 

"Ah...true as only a story can be!"  I laugh.

A great work of fiction can help us dig deeper into the complexity of a topic, to consider multiple viewpoints and to relate on a visceral level to the character's experience. In the same way, inviting learners to engage with a case study, even a fictional one, can help them deepen their engagement and understanding. 

In the Learning to Listen, Learning to Teach workshop, we often included a case study of "Tony Olsen", an "expert" trainer who leads a community workshop and somehow manages to do everything wrong. It was a great way to invite the learners to apply what they had learned about dialogue education as they analyzed the story and suggested how "Tony" might do better next time. 

And although we told everyone up front that this was a fictional composite, I was often surprised how irate people would get with "Tony". I actually started to feel bad for him. It was a great illustration of the power of story telling and the complexity of learning that it can enable. 

NB: Using composite or case studies can work well provided that a) you tell people up front that it's not factual; b) it isn't too simplistic or stereotypical and c) the stories are relevant AND safe for everyone. 

"Tell Me a Story and Put Me In It" 

One of my Dialogue Education teachers, Joye Norris, once shared a Family Circle cartoon in which a child says, "Tell me a story, Mommy, and put me in it".

The fact that the fictional characters in our bedtime stories bear a curious resemblance to my children is no accident. We all love to be part of the story. 

I wonder if that simple, child-like quote really captures the essence of what learning is all about: the process of exploring new Knowledge, Skills and Attitudes, making meaning of them in light of your own experience, context and community, and weaving the new learning into the fabric of your life. 

Or as a great article on Adult Learning by the NYC Leadership Academy puts it:

Adults learn by creating and revising stories in order to make meaning. Through a largely unconscious process, human beings make meaning by experiencing and observing their environment, by selecting particular data from that environment, and by constructing a narrative or story that explains the relationship between otherwise disparate pieces of data. Adults view the world as material out of which to make meaning stories. They filter and select particular data, the building-blocks of their narratives, based on unique experiences, personalities, and evolving mental models of how the world works. Usually, adults perceive data and construct stories that confirm existing mental models.
 

What are Your Stories? 

How do you use story telling in your teaching and learning designs? Please share your ideas and stories in the comments box below. 

And if you're interested in subscribing to my blog or learning more about What I Do, please follow the links on the right. 

And They All Lived, Happily Ever After....The End.

* My stories were initially based on the characters in the children's TV show by the same name, but have since have gone waaaayy beyond. 

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