CSU Wk 6 Active Listening Electronic Training & Learning Experience Discussion Part 1
Answer stated question and respond to two classmates post.
Stated question
Think back to what you consider your best and worst classroom-based learning experiences either on the job or in school. Explain the factors that made the experiences the worst and best learning environments with references to what you have learned in the textbook.
Please include the name of the person or question to which you are replying in the subject line. For example, “Tom’s response to Susan’s comment.”
Classmate 1Michael
We have learned about vast amount of ways to present information to a trainee demographic, in the hopes that the training will be effectively retained and applied to the various needs and purposes of an organization.
To discuss a negative experience, I would like to describe a defensive tactics course that I attended a few years ago. Every year, members of our department would attend a mandatory defensive tactics course. The course would include case law updates, refreshers on tactics and defensive movements, as well as practical scenarios and applications in the training environment. One particular year, several people were injured. Not because of the course training, but because many had training in other defensive tactics fields, and attempted to use techniques not being taught.
As a result, several people obtained injuries that required claims to Human Resources and light duty requests. As a result, the next years class was incredibly different. The course was almost completely a computer presentation, with very minimal physical activity, because if there is no physical activity, you can’t get injured. This was an absolutely hasty and horrible implementation and the purpose of defensive tactics was now reduced to a watch and learn presentation environment. Thankfully, it was only the pilot course students that had to experience this. The feedback from the course was extensive and was changed to include the physical hands-on activity that is required of learning and retaining defensive tactics knowledge and application.
To highlight a great course, I attend a yearly symposium that is a week long related to my craft in the tactical field. The training environment is hosting in varying cities every year, which allows for an off site training environment as well as networking with experts in the field from across the country. The first day is a media presentation, but is chock full of applicable debriefs (good and bad) from students within the course. The course also has legal updates and industry standard changes, but are done so with varying media and engaging methods.
The next four days are spent in the training environment, with extensive hands on training. The course is broken up into daily modules, typically 2-3 hours long each. This allows for a student to get hands on training in many different areas, while keeping the time frames manageable and allowing for attention spans to be focused on the task at hand. By the end of the week, the student has had engaging hands on scenario training in typically 10-15 different focused blocks on instruction.
Being a police officer, I have learned which methods and techniques work best for me in the learning environment. Thankfully many of the men and women I work with have similar learning methods, and most of the instructors are open and knowing of the learning methods many police officers prefer. Scenario based, hands on training is key to success and retention. This allows for the creation of mental markers for application in the field when time is of the essence. Feedback on courses is crucial to make necessary changes to a training program for the betterment and future of the programs success.
Classmate 2 Nicole
Hello,
Some of my best and worst classroom-based learning experiences happened while I was first training for my job. To start, the instructor used a good display of visuals that helped demonstrate how the equipment worked and also physically handed each of us, trainees, a copy of how each piece of equipment is supposed to be used and taken care of, which provided us with a chance to learn from the instructor and then go and try to set up and take care of the equipment by ourselves. After we were given the chance to try it, it was very effective and helped us when we had to be on our own after that week. Another good learning experience was how our instructor encouraged us to participate and respond to the information she was presenting to us. She wanted to make sure we were retaining what she was saying, so she asked open-ended questions that allowed us to respond without fear of being right or wrong but instead gave us the chance to reiterate what she was teaching in our own words and ask her a question if we were unclear about anything. I found this to be extremely helpful because it made it feel more relaxed and friendly which made us be more engaged and ask questions when we needed to.
That being said, there were some negatives in the learning environment. One negative was the lecture layout. It wasn’t a straight lecture type, where you have organization and lays out the purpose of the lecture and the order in which each topic will be discussed, instead, we were given a packet that had visuals on how to maintain a good work environment in the gym that consisted of taking care of equipment. When we were being taught the material, the instructor kept getting sidetracked with random conversations with people who would walk by the staff room and didn’t have a structure on what she wanted to accomplish at that session. It was a go with the flow type of environment which led people to give off a careless attitude.
After a year when I became in charge of holding training sessions for the new employees, I provided printouts of the keynotes and of the powerpoints that were used in that session so the employees could follow along on their own and if they had question could right them down and we could go over them. Once I had taken over, I felt the information was being retained better and employees were using these sessions to expand their knowledge and capabilities for the gym.
Part 2 complete 2 essay questions (200 word minimum)
1.What type of training can be undertaken by electronic training (ET)? Discuss the effectiveness of ET in terms of the learning processes related to Social Learning Theory (attention, retention, and behavioral reproduction).
Your essay response must be a minimum of 200 words in length.
2.What is active listening and why is it necessary?
Your essay response must be a minimum of 200 words in length.