In Scouting, they’re taught the EDGE method, Explain, Demonstrate, Guide, Enable. Most of our conferences are nothing but the ED part of that process. More G will lead to E.

Russ,

Thanks for the comment! I’ve heard about the TELL-SHOW-DO method before, and I think that sums it up quite nicely.

Like the book title says, telling ain’t training. Until the student puts their hands on something, it is only a lecture. Even with mathematics we all needed to put pencil on paper in order to truly understand the most abstract concepts.

Best,

Tom

Before I started focusing on IT full time – I was a training Sergeant in law enforcement. I taught a variety of things – emergency driving, mock scenes, a lot of IT based courses – how to use the crash investigation software – how to use the patrol car computers etc.

ANYWAY – to be a certified CJTC (criminal justice training commission) instructor you had to take a lengthy train the trainer course that identified all the ways people learn. It pounded home that an effective trainer hits them all.

We regularly used an approach to training that encompassed the TELL-SHOW-DO method. You lecture briefly on a topic for the audio learners. You then show them how it’s done for the visual learners. You then wrap it all up by providing them the opportunity to do it themselves. This gets the majority of folks. The Kinesthetic learners. It also hits all those folks who are a combination of all three.