Trainers Training - 5 Steps In Teaching And Learning A Skill - Part 1 of 2
Five steps can be identified in the teaching and learning of a skill.
These are:
1.
Analyse the Skill The first step involves a detailed analysis so that it is broken down into its constituent parts, the sequence of operation is identified, and the key abilities are noted.
For example, if you assume that you are teaching "sharpening a pencil with a knife" the skills analysis will involve for a right handed person: To cut wood:
Assess the Entry Behaviour The skills analysis results in a chain of activities in the form of a sequence of component skills.
You must make sure that the students have learned all of the pre-requisite skills.
For example, in the sharpening of a pencil you must make sure that the student can cut with a knife, hold the knife at 30 and 90 degrees and so on.
3.
Arrange for Training of Component Skills This provides opportunity for the student to:
Describe and Demonstrate the Skill to the Student Describing and demonstrating is a very important and skilled part of your job.
It is necessary to show students the chain involved in the task and the links in the chain.
This part of the learning of the skill is, for the students, the cognitive part; they must learn to verbalise the task so that they know what is required and, secondly, the demonstration provides a clear visual picture of what is required in completing the task, what the task will look like after each stage.
The demonstration method is described in Chapter 3 and will not be discussed here.
Sufficient to say that it is an important part of your job.
5.
Arrange for the Three Basic Learning Conditions The first condition for efficient and effective learning iscontiguity, that is the almost simultaneous occurrence of the links in the chain so that each part of the chain is linked.
Once the links are contiguously formed, they occur almost simultaneously.
Thus, you must teach students the correct sequence, co-ordination and timing.
To achieve this you can teach students (a) the whole method involving all of the links being learned at one time, or (b) the part method involving sub-dividing the skill into sections and learning a section at a time.
For a complex skill, the part method has the advantage that the simple skills can be mastered before the more complex ones.
It does, however, have the disadvantage that the sections have then to be joined.
The other conditions are practice and feedback.
Practice should be given directly after the demonstration so that students do not have chance to forget what is required.
Feedback is the information to the students about their performance.
Feedback can be intrinsic (which comes from within the student by, for example, noting the finish produced or by the kinaesthetic or sensory feel of doing the job right) or extrinsic (which is provided by someone else like you as the teacher).
The best type of feedback is intrinsic because you will not always be available to provide information to the student.
In consequence, any form of extrinsic information should always lead to the provision of intrinsic feedback.
For this reason feedback should be immediate or given as soon as possible after the event.
These are:
- Analyse the skills.
- Assess the entry behaviour of the student.
- Arrange for training in the component parts.
- Describe and demonstrate the skill.
- Arrange for the three basic learning conditions of contiguity, practice and feed-back.
1.
Analyse the Skill The first step involves a detailed analysis so that it is broken down into its constituent parts, the sequence of operation is identified, and the key abilities are noted.
For example, if you assume that you are teaching "sharpening a pencil with a knife" the skills analysis will involve for a right handed person: To cut wood:
- Hold pencil in left hand about 2.
5cm from the end. - Hold knife in right hand and rest blade with blunt edge uppermost at an angle of about 30 degrees to the centre line of the pencil.
- Cut off wood with slow, sure cuts removing pressure at the end of the stroke.
- Rotate pencil in left hand to take equal cuts around it.
- Cut until about 5mm of lead is exposed from the wood, equally around the cirÂcumference.
- Position knife so that it makes an angle of approximately 90 degrees with the centre line of the pencil.
- Sharpen lead with swift sure strokes rotating pencil in left hand.
From this analysis the key abilities can be identified as:
- Ability to keep the angle of the knife around the pencil constant.
- Ability to judge angle of knife for correct depth of wood.
- Ability to remove pressure towards the end of the stroke of the knife.
- Ability to sharpen exposed lead to a point without breaking the lead.
Assess the Entry Behaviour The skills analysis results in a chain of activities in the form of a sequence of component skills.
You must make sure that the students have learned all of the pre-requisite skills.
For example, in the sharpening of a pencil you must make sure that the student can cut with a knife, hold the knife at 30 and 90 degrees and so on.
3.
Arrange for Training of Component Skills This provides opportunity for the student to:
- learn any missing links in the chain and to develop the required abilities; and
- learn the skill components (or some of them) so well that they can focus attenÂtion on new aspects of the more complex task that is being learned.
Describe and Demonstrate the Skill to the Student Describing and demonstrating is a very important and skilled part of your job.
It is necessary to show students the chain involved in the task and the links in the chain.
This part of the learning of the skill is, for the students, the cognitive part; they must learn to verbalise the task so that they know what is required and, secondly, the demonstration provides a clear visual picture of what is required in completing the task, what the task will look like after each stage.
The demonstration method is described in Chapter 3 and will not be discussed here.
Sufficient to say that it is an important part of your job.
5.
Arrange for the Three Basic Learning Conditions The first condition for efficient and effective learning iscontiguity, that is the almost simultaneous occurrence of the links in the chain so that each part of the chain is linked.
Once the links are contiguously formed, they occur almost simultaneously.
Thus, you must teach students the correct sequence, co-ordination and timing.
To achieve this you can teach students (a) the whole method involving all of the links being learned at one time, or (b) the part method involving sub-dividing the skill into sections and learning a section at a time.
For a complex skill, the part method has the advantage that the simple skills can be mastered before the more complex ones.
It does, however, have the disadvantage that the sections have then to be joined.
The other conditions are practice and feedback.
Practice should be given directly after the demonstration so that students do not have chance to forget what is required.
Feedback is the information to the students about their performance.
Feedback can be intrinsic (which comes from within the student by, for example, noting the finish produced or by the kinaesthetic or sensory feel of doing the job right) or extrinsic (which is provided by someone else like you as the teacher).
The best type of feedback is intrinsic because you will not always be available to provide information to the student.
In consequence, any form of extrinsic information should always lead to the provision of intrinsic feedback.
For this reason feedback should be immediate or given as soon as possible after the event.