Interactive Lecturing<\/strong><\/p>\n

If your lesson content is important to your students\u2019 performance, there\u2019s no excuse for not allowing them to participate in the learning. Some people will tell you they learn best by listening, as though they have no use for their other senses. Some insist they love lectures, which can\u2019t be criticized. But it doesn\u2019t change the laws of learning. We are made for processing information in holistic fashion. Even our feet take in a tremendous amount of information that lets us read the texture of a forest floor or keeps us from stumbling on uneven surfaces. Our whole being is an information antenna.<\/p>\n

However, because we have memory banks to draw on, we can mentally interact with a lecture (and with pre-recorded instruction) when participation is designed into it. Even an all-verbal presentation can be interactive. Here\u2019s one example:<\/p>\n

Trainer:<\/strong> \u201cUtility poles fall every year because\u2014why?\u201d<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong> \u201cLightning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trainer:<\/strong> \u201cVery occasionally, yes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong> \u201cRotten wood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trainer:<\/strong> \u201cBut how do they fall?\u201d<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong> \u201cThey rot and fall apart.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trainer:<\/strong> \u201cRotten poles can stand for years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong> \u201cA tree falls on them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trainer:<\/strong> \u201cWhat else could a tree fall on?\u201d<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong> \u201cWires.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trainer:<\/strong> \u201cLet our tree crews know when you see a tree that looks ready to fall on wires along a roadway.\u201d<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong> \u201cI\u2019ve seen wind knock a pole down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trainer:<\/strong> \u201cStraight-line wind can snap a pole that is strong everywhere except at the base.<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong> \u201cCars break utility poles on the highway.\u201d<\/p>\n

Teacher:<\/strong> \u201cCorrect. And hopefully you will never allow a pole on the roads to get so bad that it falls for any reason except that a car hit it. Fallen power lines are our company\u2019s worst nightmare. For the 10 ten minutes, I will explain how much weight poles should hold. Then I\u2019ll take your questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Healthy Minds Want to Participate<\/strong><\/p>\n

The above example of interaction is based heavily on people\u2019s memories. Rather than just talking, the trainer invited and imparted critical knowledge. The trainees\u2019 own minds supplied the video screen.<\/p>\n

Instructors who are afraid to allow for interaction have a bad habit of defaulting to lectures. They prefer to throw big wads of information at their classes. Be confident. Healthy minds want to participate in meaningful content. Guide them into it. Participation is where you find the greatest adventures in learning.<\/p>\n

Max T. Russell has specialties in educational media and human learning and memory. His e-book, \u201c<\/em>How to Be an Interesting Teacher: Mastering the Four Factors of Interesting Learning Environments<\/em><\/a>,\u201d is on Amazon. You can contact him at maxtrussell.1@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The post Make Room for Excellent Participation (Part 3)<\/a> appeared first on Training<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How sweet it is when an instructor wonders, \u201cAm I letting my students participate in significant ways?\u201d Participation is the third of the four factors of interesting learning environments. Those factors are: Meaningfulness (covered in the first article in this four-part series: (https:\/\/trainingmag.com\/meaningfulness-the-first-priority-of-interesting-learning-environments-part-1\/) Momentum (covered in the second article in this four-part series: https:\/\/trainingmag.com\/putting-momentum-in-your-instruction-part-2\/) Participation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-training"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/proactivetraining.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/proactivetraining.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/proactivetraining.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proactivetraining.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proactivetraining.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4002"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/proactivetraining.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4003,"href":"https:\/\/proactivetraining.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4002\/revisions\/4003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/proactivetraining.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proactivetraining.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proactivetraining.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}