Seven qualities of highly effective technology trainers
Monday, April 12, 2010 at 09:12PM I was tickled to read The 15 Essentials of Bad Professional Development in Technology by Jacob Gutnicki (via a very good Miguel Guhlin post). Mostly, I suppose, since it reminded me of how little things have changed in technology training over the past 15-20 years. Below is a section from my book The Indispensable Teacher's Guide to Computer Skills (1st ed) that came out in 1997.
Seven qualities of highly effective technology trainers
1.) WIIFM
Anything you say or do as a technology trainer when teaching specific technology skills will fall on deaf ears unless the people being trained understand and believe what they are learning will in some way be of personal benefit. It’s just that simple. Effective technology trainers know that they need to preface any class with a very clear What’s In It For Me message. If you can’t convince your teachers that the skill you are about to teach will in someway make them more productive (or improve the learning experience of their students), save your breath. The workshop participants will all just be checking their email while you’re talking.
2. The problem is on the desk, not in the chair.
When a problem arises, the best trainers assume that it is a result of a hardware or software flaw - whether an actual bug or a design in the user interface that makes the technology confusing for normal people to use. It’s tough to help people increase their knowledge without making them feel stupid or incompetent, but good teachers do. Phrases like, “My third graders can do that.” “You know it works better when you plug it in.” and “No, the other right arrow.” are not recommended.
Teachers also need to be reassured that if something breaks, it can be fixed. Kids catch on to technology with amazing rapidity for a very good reason. They aren’t afraid to push buttons. They know if they mess something up, it’s an adult’s job to fix it. That’s one nice thing about being a kid. However we need to instill in most of our adult learners the courage to experiment. Rather than always answering direct questions about technology, good trainers will often say, “Try it and see what happens. If you mess something up, I’ll help you fix it.” We tell our new technology learners that we can repair or replace anything but their original creations. The only real worry they should have is about backing up personal files.
3. No mouse touching.
Good trainers are patient. One sure sign of this saintly virtue in teachers is that they never touch a learner’s mouse or keyboard. No matter how exasperating it becomes to watch that ill-coordinated teacher find and click on the correct button, good instructors' hands stay well behind their backs, no matter how white knuckled they become.
4. Great analogies.
There is a theory that the only way we can think about a new thing is if we have some way to relate it to what we already know. Good trainers can do that by creating analogies. “Your email account is like a post office box. Your password is like your combination to get into it. Your email address is like your mailing address – it tells the electronic postmaster where to send your email.” Now here’s the catch: truly great analogists know when the comparisons break down, too. “Unlike a human postmaster, the electronic postmaster can’t make intelligent guesses about an address. The extra dot, the L instead of a 1, or a single juxtaposition of letters will keep your mail from being delivered.”
5. Clear support materials and advanced planning.
Few things are more comforting to teachers than being able to take home a “cheat sheet” that covers much of the same material that was taught in class. Until multi-step tasks are repeated several times, most of us need reminders that are more descriptive than just notes taken in class. A short menu of task steps illustrated with screen shots is a gift for most technology learners. (Learn to use a screen capture program to create the graphics for these handouts.) [As Ken notes in the comment below, online "handouts" should be supplanting paper ones!]
Just as they take time to prepare good handouts, savvy technology teachers check out the lab or teaching area well in advance (a week is best) for potential problems with workstations, software version, need for browser plug-ins, projection units, security systems, and network connections. Good instructors leave little to chance. They even have backup plans if the network decides to die.
6. Knowing what is essential and what is only confusing.
A good trainer will have a list of the skills the learners should have mastered by the end of the training. As instruction proceeds, that list will be the basis for frequent checks for understanding. As an often-random thinker, I find such a list keeps me as an instructor on track and provides a class roadmap for the learner. Now here’s the catch with this one: truly great technology teachers know what things beginning learners really need to know to make them productive and what things might be conveyed that only serve to impress a captive audience with the technologist’s superior intellect. (“The email address is comprised of the username, the domain name, the subdomain name, the computer name, all referenced in a lookup table at the NIC.” Like that.) It’s an alpha wolf thing, especially common with males. Be aware of it, and strive as an instructor to use charm and a caring demeanor with the pack to achieve dominance instead.
7. Perspective.
Many of us who work with technology do so because we love it. We play with new software on the weekends, surf the Internet deep into the evening, and show off our new gadgets like other folks show off prize winning zinnias, new powerboats, or successful children. I hesitate to use the term “abnormal,” but we are in the minority. Most teachers see technology as a sometimes helpful thing that should occupy about 1% of one’s conscious thinking time. It’s easy to lose the perspective that teachers are teachers first and technology users second – or third or fourth. Good trainers who can remember what it was like before there were computers – the green grass, the singing birds, the books to read, the parties to attend, the fishing trips, the face-to-face human communication– tend to be more empathetic. Think back, think back…
Reader Comments (22)
Yes yes and more yes. Thank you for this succinct reminder. I will print and read before PD sessions and I know my teachers/audience will appreciate it!
-- Pamela
Doug, this week I have been working with teachers from a new girls school in Kenya. It has been such a pleasure to have attentive adults so willing to learn. They think I am doing them a favor and in fact it is the other way around.
sigh.
I've been working hard on keeping hands off the mice. There was a post about that a few months back and I've been trying hard to do that. Its interesting how quickly teachers, especially 45 up group, back away and say, "you do it." Tough to break that...I always tell them, "it doesn't help for me to do it, I already know how."
I think the WIIFM message would be a strong way to start a class. I think I get caught up in all the things neat things I want to show and forget the basics.
This is exactly what I needed to read today! I'm putting together a presentation right now on using Google Reader to share with my fellow teachers, and I will be keeping these great tips in mind. #3 is particularly difficult for me, so I'm going to really focus on that one.
hey think I am doing them a favor and in fact it is the other way around. so I'm going to really focus on that one.
3. No mouse touching.
Good trainers are patient. One sure sign of this saintly virtue in teachers is that they never touch a learner’s mouse or keyboard. No matter how exasperating it becomes to watch that ill-coordinated teacher find and click on the correct button, good instructors' hands stay well behind their backs, no matter how white knuckled they become.
I will have to remember this one
This is a post that is right on target!
Thank you, I am glad I am not alone in my thinking and my frustration! I almost always master the "no mouse" rule, but there are moments that the entire group could be detoured to PowerPointless and I touch the mouse anyway. I fight hard, but it has happened!
Each group is so unique, just like a group of students we need to meet them where they are!
Thanks!
Great advice - although I'd amend point number 3 to include 'no fingers on the trackpad'.
#3 is the hardest for me. I still sometimes jump in, but only when the user is becoming frustrated.
I'd also say that a good trainer explains the thinking process on how they figure out how to do something in a program . It usually helps to have a participant ask a question I don't know the answer to. We can then learn together as a class.
Great tips! Makes me feel better too since I actually try to do a lot of these things already. Like Meg and Chris posted, sometimes it seems that taking control for a particular user is unavoidable. I've had folks who will simply freeze up and refuse to participate if you don't give them the "help" they think they need to move on. Often if I'm working with a larger group, I'll make arrangements to work one-on-one with one or two the folks who need the most support at a later time if it's at all possible. Many teachers get frustrated really quickly if they feel like they are holding up the larger group. Also, you can't always count on the other members of your audience to follow these tips. I've seen a lot of more tech-savy teachers enable (or is that DISable) their techno-phobe peers by constantly doing things for them. And I've heard some pretty thoughtless comments directed at teachers who struggle with technology.
Thanks for the short and timely reminders. Like many other commenters, I struggle with the compulsion to grab a student's mouse. And it was reassuring to read that I am already incorporating these other good training behaviors.
Superb reminder of key elements to consider!
Re: mouse touching--I must admit there have been times with certain students where the only way I could seem to get the desired result for them was to show them slowly the movements they needed to take (in other words, demonstrate). I did realize, however, that they had to do it to master it. So I always "undo'd" it and then had them do it for themselves. Their look of dismay at the undo, well--you can imagine. Their look at then doing it and mastering it--priceless!
Hi Doug, Great reminder for all of us. I appreciate your comments in no. 2 about encouraging our adult learners to experiment. I personally know that I have acquired a lot of my tech skills because I'm not afraid to click on a link, lurk on Twitter, try something out, even take the cover off the computer and see if I can "fix it myself." It seems so important not to let new tech learners give up because they haven't even tried something. We need to inspire them! Good reminder about hands off the mouse, too.
A good technique is to demonstrate all of the steps with the learners only watching (their screens are off, hands off their mice). Then go through the steps with the learners following along. By seeing the whole process once you can help get the important content across to all learners. Then when you go step by step, faster learners can jump ahead while slower learners won't miss too much if they are looking at their screens.
These are all great ideas, might I add another? I try to get my students, (whether they are students or my peers I am instructing), to use RATS -- Read All The Screen. Quite often the answer to going forward in right in front of them. Teachers need to know that as they are the ones that will be having students using the technology in their classes.
Hi Dorothy,
We in the West have lost our appreciation for so many things of value - a good education especially. Thanks for the insight.
Doug
Hi Nathan,
For what it's worth, I break the "no mouse touching" rule myself now and then. Hey, I've never claimed to be a saint!
Doug
I think it is a tough one for all of us, Anthony. But I've always said that you never learn to drive when you are always a passenger.
Doug
Or no fingers on the touch screen either! Thanks, Paul.
Doug
Hi Chris,
Explaining the thinking process (I think that is called metacognition) is a great teaching tool. Thanks for reminding me.
Doug
Thanks, Janet. Too much of education is about learning to follow rules instead of learning how to evaluate the outcomes of one's own experimentation. Maybe that comes from trying to cram too much content into too short a time.
Doug
Carl, you can get people to read all the screen? I wish I could!
Doug
Good points. I would include (and I’ve not always done this) send an e-mail to the class immediately after the training to solicit the learners for feedback via follow-up survey, provide links to training & documentation, and to thank them for participating. Some have suggested a certificate of completion is a good idea as well. I think it could be in some cases, particularly cases where providing that to a supervisor could show effort towards achieving a needed skill.
Shawn
I have bookmarked your valuable post, 'Seven qualities of highly effective technology trainers" in my Delicious account and I refer to your 7 points often, especially before my presentations to teachers. My next presentation will be for a group of computer teachers. This is definitely where I can demonstrate effective technology trainer practice.
Hi Doug,
I loved your thoughts and thank you for having the courage to share your insight. Sometimes I feel like teachers are ruder than the students they themselves complain about. However, you smile and deal with it as best you can and fight the urge to say "Would you accept this attitude from your students?"
Grrrr
Re: #5
Must we continue to provide 'handouts'? How about a link to a well-organized wiki, replete with yummy pdf's? What about embedding tutorial videos that already exist on aforementioned wiki?
Paper, paper, paper. Or am I too two point oh-eee?