Monday, July 9, 2012
Let the books do the talking
As I have moved further on in this book I hear more and more that I find interesting and useful. However, one issue that is just not practical for me in my profession and that is Finkel's mention of "letting books do the talking." I can certainly see how a book can be extremely useful and without saying a word, the facilitator/teacher can help someone learn. In my profession however, when I teach short (commonly 1-2 hours in duration) workshops, it is impractical for me to use a book. Assigning even a short reading for a group I think would be challenging and typically unread. Depending on the group, a short reading may be useful however for a group I recently worked with, I am extremely positive that 90% of the group would absolutely despise any outside "homework" before the class. I have discussed "workshops" a great deal over the past 3 years and much of the things that I have found in the traditional textbooks that we utilize, do not focus on shorter duration workshops, especially those which are mandatory which I personally find extremely challenging. I haven't finished this book yet and perhaps there is more mention of this but we'll see. One book which I have really wanted to take a look at and have not had a chance yet is Telling Ain't Training 2nd Edition. I heard of this book several years ago from one of my classmates. Maybe time will allow for me to review this one soon.
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I give my students weekly quizzes over what they were suppose to have read. It's been both good and bad. Good because they use to get a test and midterm over the same information and with the weekly quizzes the overall scores have gone up. Bad because 90% (rough guess) can't take the quiz without the help of the book. That being the case, the books need to SPEAK UP!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy Telling Aint Training and Training Aint Performance. I've also taken a workshop from the authors ... did not enjoy that as much.
ReplyDeleteFrank - you mention that letting the book do the talking is not practical in your teaching situation. What about your learning situation? One of the things I've appreciated about the AET program is the opportunities (OK requirement) to read outside texts. I learned a lot from Tuesday's With Morrie even though I had read it before and I absolutely loved Vella's Learning to Teach, Learning to Listen.