2-1

At the conclusion of this module the participant will be able to:

• Explain the five characteristics of adult learners.

• Discuss three of the five barriers to learning from instructors.

• Diagram or discuss the learning cycle including the impact of including activities or

exercises in a presentation.

• Discuss how an audience analysis can assist in the development and execution

of a training workshop.

• Discuss methods a trainer can include in the post-training process.

Objectives:

What is Training?

2-2

What is Training?

Adult Learners

Unlike teaching in a more traditional academic setting, your audience will be composed of adult learners. Adult learners tend to exhibit certain characteristics that separate them from a traditional college or high school student. These characteristics include:

• Life experiences – Adult learners have had more ‘time in life’ as

it were, and these experiences will dictate how they

approach new material. These life experiences also

dictate a participant’s attitudes and values, which form

the emotional framework they operate under. Be aware

that these attitudes and values may differ from yours.

Take caution to avoid offending anyone, especially if

they speak out with a different opinion of the topic at

hand. Acknowledge their opinion, but do not berate

them for it.

• Learn by doing – Adults tend to prefer to learn through hands-on

activities. While you will have to have a certain amount

of lecture material, don’t forget to break it up with

activities that will give participants the opportunity

to put into action what they have just learned.

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What is Training?

• Application to reality – Your participants are busy folks, and therefore want training that applies to real situations. Time spent on non-relevant topics could cause you to lose the attention of some participants, and reduce your credibility as an instructor.

• Guidance, not grades – Adult learners are not interested in getting a ‘grade.’ Instead, they want guidance on how best to address this new skill they are learning. Don’t be inflexible with your class. Allow them to explore, within reason, aspects of the topic at hand that they feel are relevant.

• Adults are self-directed – Overall, your participants will be self-motivated and as such, will not need much

encouragement. Some will work faster than others. Your challenge will be to recognize when your pace is either too fast or too slow, and adjust accordingly.

How is this relevant?

Adult Learners

Unlike teaching in a more traditional academic setting, your audience will be composed of adult learners. Adult learners tend to exhibit certain characteristics that separate them from a traditional college or high school student. These characteristics include:

2-4

Barriers to Learning – The Instructor

As with any teaching situation, there may be several barriers to learning that need to be addressed in order to provide effective instruction. As an instructor, some barriers that you have control over include:

What is Training?

• Communication – The ability of the instructor to effectively communicate with the participants is critical. Not only is clear and proper speaking important, but the visual aids used must be simple and effective. We’ll address the issue of visual aids a bit later.

• Instructional Pace – New trainers tend to be nervous, and that nervousness often leads to a pace that is too fast for effective learning. On the flip side, a slow pace will lead to a drop in a participant’s attention level. Take heart. It takes time to get a feel for the proper pace. Practice your timing on colleagues.

• Connecting with the Participant – It is vital that you find a way to connect with your participants. Talking with each participant during breaks and other down time can help establish this connection. A lack of connectivity could lead to a loss in educational opportunity.

• Poor Presentation Skills – We have all been there, that workshop or presentation by a person who has no business standing in front of a group of people. Practice, and mentoring by others, such as through your local Toastmasters club, can help you overcome any deficiencies in your

presentation skills.

• Lack of Confidence – Like a predator can smell fear, your participants can detect your lack of confidence. Once again, know your material, and practice, practice, practice.

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While you can control some of these barriers to learning, others you cannot. The participants of your workshop have to take responsibility for their own learning. The items listed here can be discussed at the beginning of the workshop if you feel it necessary, but be careful how you approach them. Keep a positive spin on your presentation.

What is Training?

• Attendance – If the participant is not there physically, it’s impossible to learn. Stress the importance of showing up on time, both at the start of the workshop and at the end of breaks.

• Commitment to Learn – As we mentioned earlier, the participants at your workshop usually come because of their own interests. They tend to have a greater commitment to learning the material, but it might help to mention the benefits of completing the assignments in the workshop, as well as participating in the workshop through asking questions where appropriate, and engaging in discussion with others in the class.

• Distractions and Concentration – Depending on the setup for your training, there may be various distractions that will fight for the attention and concentration of you participants. Some of these you can control, some you cannot. At the beginning of the workshop, discuss some of these distractions, such as use of cell phones and checking email during class. Ask that participants turn off the ringer on their phones, and wait until the break to check and reply to email. Nothing is more distracting than trying to lecture on a particular topic only to have someone pecking away at a keyboard in the back of the room.

Barriers to Learning – The Participant

2-6

Analyzing your audience - Benefits

One of the most powerful tools you can use when designing your workshop is a pre-workshop audience analysis. This analysis is used to identify certain characteristics of potential participants such as interest, skill level, behaviors, and subject knowledge. The results of an analysis such as this will provide you with information that you can use to design the workshop content to meet the learning goals of the workshop by identifying the primary goals of the learner.

What is Training?

Why analyze your audience? Here are some reasons this can be beneficial:

• Ensures appropriate course goals and objectives are accomplished – Looking at who will be coming to

your workshop can help you develop good workshop objectives that will address any specific

needs of the participants. Plus, a well-developed list of objectives can be used as a guide

to ensure you cover the material required to meet those objectives.

• Allows for adjustments – Analyzing your audience can help you identify areas in your training that can be

adapted to meet particular needs of the participants. If your workshop participants have some

experience with metadata, you might be able to adjust your workshop content to cut out some

introductory material and use that additional time for more appropriate topics, or to give more

time to hands-on exercises.

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What is in an audience analysis?

If you have never conducted an audience analysis, here are some questions to consider:

What is Training?

• Demographics – Are your workshop participants manager-types (team leaders, middle or top level managers)? Are they field personnel, technicians, analysts, or students? Are they the ones that are going to be creating the metadata, or are they just responsible for managing others in the creation of metadata?

• Previous knowledge / experience – What level of subject knowledge are they bringing to the workshop? Are they familiar with the background information? Have they written metadata? Do they write metadata on a regular basis? Do they teach others about metadata? Or have they never even heard of metadata?

• Relevance – How relevant will the training be to their particular job? Are they attending because of their interest, or were they told to attend? Will they be writing metadata as soon as they get back in the office, or will there be lag time? How much detail to they need? Upper level managers generally only need an overview, project managers need to know what good metadata looks like and what resources are involved in the creation and publication, and technicians might need to know the inner workings of the metadata standard and related creation tools.

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Where does this information come from?

There are several sources of potential information on your participants that can be used in your analysis. These include, but are not limited, to:

What is Training?

• Registration forms / pre-workshop surveys – These forms offer the most direct way to ask pertinent

questions. Make sure you get the appropriate approval from your organization beforehand. Also,

make sure to review your form thoroughly to ensure that the questions you are asking will

provide you with the information you need.

• Other instructors – Often times, other, more experienced instructors have familiarity with various

organizations who might be sending participants to your workshop. In addition, networking with other

instructors is a great way to get new material, and to have your material reviewed.

• Previous participants – It is not unusual to have participants from organizations that you have worked with

in the past. In those cases, rely on your network to contact the co-workers of the participants that

will be attending your workshop to gain some added insight into skill level, job duties, etc.

• Personal experience – Once you have conducted several workshops, you will have gained significant

personal experience that will help you customize your surveys and interpret the results to adjust

your workshop content.

• Common sense – Enough said.

2-9

Learning Preferences and Styles

Learning is an individual and personal journey. A

successful journey requires the participant to identify the

learning style and method that suits them. No learning

style is incorrect. Your challenge as an instructor is to be

able to address various learning styles that your

participants will bring to the workshop.

We perceive reality via our senses. The four modes of

our perception are visual, auditory, reading/writing and

kinesthetic. To be effective with your instruction, you

must recognize that different people learn in different

ways, and you should try to adapt your material to

address these various styles.

What is Training?

This stuff is great!

If you will be active in training, it might be beneficial to

research these and other learning preferences and styles

to aid in preparation for your workshops.

2-10

The Kolb Experiential Learning Theory

What is Training?

Based on David Kolb’s Learning Styles, 1984© 1995-2005 Alan Chapman

www.businessballs.com

In 1984, David Kolb, Professor of Organizational Development at Case Western University in Cleveland, Ohio,

published the model of his learning styles. Referred to as Kolb’s experiential learning theory (ELT) and Kolb’s learning

styles inventory (LSI), this model defines four distinct learning styles, or preferences. These styles are in turn based

on a four-stage learning cycle. Taken together, they provide an understanding of an individual’s different learning

styles as well as an explanation of a four-stage experiential learning cycle that can be applied across the board.

In Kolb’s learning cycle, immediate or

concrete experiences provide a basis for

observation and reflection. These

observations can then be assimilated

and distilled into abstract concepts which

form the basis for new actionable items

that can be actively tested. The results of

this testing lead to new experiences, and

the cycle continues.

AbstractConceptualization

ReflectiveObservation

ActiveExperimentation

Concrete Experience

The Kolbfour-stage

experientiallearning

cycle

2-11

What is Training?

Based on David Kolb’s Learning Styles, 1984© 1995-2005 Alan Chapman

www.businessballs.com

Kolb describes the development of personal learning

styles, which have been influenced by life

experiences. The learning style preference is a

product of two pairs of choices an individual makes.

Kolb envisioned these choices as lines of axis. One

axis describes an approach to a task (the Processing

Continuum), while the other describes an emotional

response (the Perception Continuum). At the end of

each continuum are conflicting modes.

• Doing (active experimentation, or AE)• Watching (reflective observation, or RO)• Feeling (concrete experience, or CE)• Thinking (abstract conceptualization, or AC)

With each new learning situation, one must decide

whether to ‘do’ or ‘watch’ while simultaneously

deciding whether to ‘think’ or ‘feel.’ The result of these

decisions defines the preferred learning style.

The Kolb Learning Preferences

AbstractConceptualization

“Thinking”

ReflectiveObservation

“Watching”

ActiveExperimentation

“Doing”

Concrete Experience

“Feeling”

Pe

rce

pti

on

Co

nti

nu

um

Processing Continuum

2-12

The Kolb Learning Styles

What is Training?

Based on David Kolb’s Learning Styles, 1984© 1995-2005 Alan Chapman

www.businessballs.com

The combination of where an individual’s

learning preference lies on each continuum will

produce four possible learning styles, according

to Kolb. These styles are:

• Accommodating - Doing and feeling

preferences, or concrete-active

(CE/AE).

• Diverging - Watching and feeling

preferences, or concrete-reflective

(CE/RO).

• Assimilating - Watching and thinking

preferences, or abstract-reflective

(AC/RO).

• Converging - Thinking and doing

preferences, or abstract-active

(AC/AE).

Thinking

WatchingDoing

Feeling

AssimilatingConverging

DivergingAccommodating

2-13

What is Training?

Knowing your participants learning preferences will enable you to tailor your instruction to a preferred

method or methods. However, it is almost impossible to determine learning preferences and styles

ahead of time. The four learning styles as identified by Kolb are described below. Think about how you

could plan your workshop materials to best address styles such as these. Don’t forget, there are other

learning styles as well, but these are a good representation of how most adults approach learning.

• Accommodating – These folks are pro-active learners that combine thinking and doing during their

learning, using their intuition more than logic. People with this learning style primarily learn from

hands-on experiences.

• Diverging – Able to look at things from different perspectives, Reflectors tend to be creative learners. They

enjoy situations that call for generating new ideas and brainstorming, and they learn through

discovery and experiment.

• Assimilating – These individuals are concise and prefer a logical approach to problems. Theoretical

learners tend to be objective and impersonal, and rely on facts and information to solve problems

and make decisions.

• Converging – Similar to theorists in that they prefer technical tasks more than people and interpersonal

aspects of problem solving, Pragmatists are practical and systematic, approaching problem

solving by using their ability to find solutions to questions, and make decisions based on those

solutions. They like rules and step by step learning. Based on David Kolb’s Learning Styles, 1984

© 1995-2005 Alan Chapmanwww.businessballs.com

Learning Styles

2-14

What is Training?

The Kolb model is just one example of learning

preferences and styles. Other learning models

include classifying learners as visual, auditory,

kinesthetic, or tactile learners; as left-brained vs.

right-brained learners; and as innovative, analytic,

common sense, or dynamic learners.

As an instructor, your task is to make yourself

aware of various learning preferences and styles,

and then to consider these various styles as you

develop your workshop materials.

Time dedicated to this task on the front end during

the planning and development stage will be

rewarded on the back end when you deliver your

workshop and are successful in helping your

workshop participants gain the knowledge and

skills your are teaching.

Visual

Dynamic

Tactile

Kinesthetic

Innovative

Analytic

Auditory Comm

on S

ense

Other Learning Styles

2-15

The Learning Cycle

What is Training?

Presented with new information, your

workshop participants will go through a

process to assimilate this new

information. This process, or learning

cycle, will be controlled for the most

part by you as the instructor, but some

aspects of the training may be more

unmanaged.

Let’s look at what a typical participant

might experience in the course of your

workshop through the four stages of the

learning cycle.

Peter Honey and Alan Mumford, “The Manual of Learning Styles”, 1992

Reviews theexperience

and information

Draws conclusionsfrom experienceand information

Plans next steps based on experience

and information

Experiences new information

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What is Training?

Let’s take a closer look at each stage:

Experiencing new information – Here the concepts of metadata are

presented. This new material is accompanied by activities to reinforce the concepts.

Reviewing the experience and information – At the end of each segment of

your training, review what has been presented in context of the learning objectives. Allow

your participants to reflect and discuss the topic and the activities to share what they have learned with others. Often

times, you will find you as an instructor will learn just as much from your participants during these times of discussion.

Drawing conclusions from experience and information – At the end of each segment and at the end of the

workshop, the participants will begin drawing conclusions about the relative importance of the information presented and

skills learned to the work they do.

Plan next steps based on experience and information – If the participant decides the information and skills

are relative to their job, then they can begin planning on how best to incorporate these new skills and this new

information into their workflow. This is the point that you can help them by maintaining an active follow-up network.

Reviewing theexperience

and information

Drawing conclusionsfrom experienceand information

Plan next steps basedon experience and information

Experiencing new information

The Learning Cycle

Peter Honey and Alan Mumford, “The Manual of Learning Styles”, 1992

2-17

Learning Levels

What is Training?

Take a look at the various levels of

learning as put forth by Benjamin

Bloom in 1956. These levels, referred

to as the cognitive domain, are not

absolutes, but rather estimates

of an individual’s level

of learning. These

six levels are arranged

on a scale of difficulty,

whereby a learner

able to perform at the

higher levels is

demonstrating a more

complex level of

cognitive thinking. KnowledgeYou can recall data.

ApplicationYou can apply

knowledge to a new situation.

EvaluationYou can make a judgment as to the value

of the information.

SynthesisYou can build a pattern from

diverse elements.

AnalysisYou can separate information into

parts for better understanding.

ComprehensionYou understandthe information.

Bloom’s Taxonomy

Com

ple

xit

y o

f C

og

nit

ive T

hin

kin

g

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Activities, activities, activities!

What is Training?

At each stage of your training, plan activities to reinforce what has just been presented, and to

gauge the level of learning by the participants. Activities that engage your participants will help

cement new skills and knowledge. The amount of time you can spend on activities will vary with

the type of workshop you are presenting.

For example, if you are giving a

one-hour introduction to metadata

presentation to mid-level and upper-level

managers, you may choose an activity

that is as simple as a group discussion.

More in-depth workshops allow for

more involved activities. Whatever the

level of training, make sure your activities

support your stated learning objectives.

Don’t leave your participants wondering

what relevance an activity had on their

learning experience.

• Discussions

• Question and answer

• Exercises

• Hands-on applications

• Games (where appropriate)

Activity Examples

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Thoughts on breaking through and improving retention

What is Training?

Throughout your workshop, you will have several ‘make or break’ opportunities where you will

either drive home your message or lose the interest of your participants. Here are some thoughts

to help make sure you are successful in leaving a lasting impression.

• Communicate – Your workshop will be delivered using multiple forms of communication, including your voice,

written material, visuals, expressions, and gestures. In all of these, take care to avoid mannerisms or

styles that will detract the attention of your participants.

• Flexibility - Become familiar with the various learning styles, and be ready to adapt if need be.

• Goals – State and restate goals and major concepts throughout the workshop.

• Positive reinforcement – Acknowledge your participants’ accomplishments. When correcting someone, do it

in a positive manner.

• Information transference – Whenever possible, work from the knowledge base of your participants.

Pre-workshop surveys can help establish what this knowledge base is, and you can ask informal

questions at the start of the workshop and each section. Listen carefully to what your participants are

saying, and use their experiences to apply new knowledge.

• Acknowledge your mistakes – Rectify any miscommunication early. Also, if there is a question asked that you

do not know the answer to, say so. If possible, tell them you will work on finding out the answer

and get back with them. Park those questions on the “parking lot” for future reference.

• Breaks – Make sure to give the participants adequate mental and physical breaks.

Remember, recall falls rapidly after 24 hours. Highly stressed items are easily remembered!Remember, recall falls rapidly after 24 hours. Highly stressed items are easily remembered!

2-20

Post training tips

What is Training?

Depending on the nature of your training relationship with your participants, you may have the

opportunity to maintain good contact with them through a follow-up network. At the very least, you

should maintain email contact with all of the participants. Here are some ideas to consider for

after the workshop.

• Applying new skills soon after training – Discuss with the participants the importance of putting into

action the new skills and knowledge they have gained in your workshop. Stress how much easier it

will be for them in the long run if they try to incorporate what they have learned into their daily

workflow.

• Provide assistance – If possible, maintain an active follow-up network with the participants. Offer them

assistance whenever they need it. Some will take advantage of your offer, others won’t. That’s

simple human nature. Some folks are comforted knowing they aren’t walking into this new adventure alone.

• Encourage management support – If you have the opportunity to interact with the management staff,

stress the importance of support from their level. To be effective and to garner the most benefit from

your training, participants need time, tools, and training. You provide the training, but they will need

management to understand that it will take time to master the new tools and other skills learned in

the workshop.

• Rewards after proof of learning – Reward successful completion of the workshop with a certificate stating

the name and date of the course. Some organizations require this proof from their employees.

Regardless, it’s a nice, easy way to acknowledge their efforts.

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Instructional Objectives

Let’s review what we’ve covered in this module:

• We discussed the 5 characteristics of adult learners.

• We examined some barriers to learning, some you have

control over, some you don’t.

• We discovered the power of an audience analysis.

• We discussed learning preferences and styles,

as defined by Kolb.

• We examined the learning cycle as it relates to

metadata instruction.

• We looked at the various levels of learning according to Bloom.

• We discussed the importance of activities

throughout your workshop.

• We looked at ways to increase retention,

and we discussed some things

you can do after your workshop

to help your participants.

What is Training - Summary and Review