Helping People Learn

Whether you are a corporate trainer, a continuing education provider, a community college teacher or a presenter at your group or library, I know that you do it because you want to share what you know and help people learn from your knowledge and experiences.  You see the satisfaction when a light bulb goes off in someone’s mind and you know they “got it”. You are disappointed when someone doesn’t understand or isn’t interested in learning from you. You are here because you have a passion for helping the folks you teach learn what you teach. 

My first teaching job was a disaster.

I was a physical therapist practicing at a local hospital when I was offered a position teaching physical therapist assistant students at a local community college. I had no teaching experience. I’d stand up and talk, and demonstrate a technique, and have them practice for a few minutes and I thought that was all there was to teaching. But when it came time to test their knowledge and abilities it was disastrous. They hadn’t learned!

Why hadn’t they Learned?

Why hadn’t they learned? I told them. I showed them. My first thought was that they must not be as bright as I thought they were. My second thought is that I needed to teach “harder”. So I began teaching with a stronger voice, with more authority.  I’d hit them with knowledge and make them learn! One day a brave student came up to me and said, you know Miss Jill (that’s they way you are addressed in the south), we like you as a person, but you are so hard and demeaning as a teacher that it’s diffiult to learn anything from you. And a lightbulb clicked inside my head. They were not learning because of me, not them.

Being Authentic

What I could do is be authentic with my students. I stopped pretending to know what I was doing. I told them that this was my first teaching job (they already knew) and that I was frustrated with myself, not them. That right now I didn’t know a better way to teach them. I asked for their forgiveness and for their help and suggestions in how they could learn better. I asked them be a team with me as leader but not as this teacher-student role I was trying to maintain. And miracles happened.

Teaching Adults

The community college students in my class ranged from 20 to 55 years old. We sat down together and looked at what they needed to learn in this course. And then together we planned out how they were going to learn it. Their suggestions were amazing once I let them in on teaching. For example, rather than me talking about what an orthopedic surgeon did, could I arrange for one to come in to talk with them, or better yet a field trip to watch the surgery? I said yes, even though I had to go through some hoops because this was considered too advanced for community college students. They asked if we as a class could get to know each other better and they arranged a party! Hand in hand I relaxed from having to teach to watching them learn. I discovered how to facilitate adult learning.

Certified Facilitator of Adult Learning (CFAL)

I went on from two years teaching at the community college back into clinical practice, then into college teaching and studying adult learning theory with Malcolm Knowles, the Father of Adult Education, then back into practice, then studying Total Quality Management with Edward Deming, it’s creator, then into corporate training and consulting. Along the way I received my Doctorate in Adult Education. You can read the whole journey in the about us section of this website.

In CFAL I have collected the wisdom and techniques I have gained over the years into a series of steps to help you design the environment for anyone to learn what you teach, even if you are teaching an online course.  Teaching can be joyous, interactive, confidence building experience for the learner and result in the development of new skills and positive attitudes about whatever you teach. It is my greatest joy to share with you how to help people learn by becoming a Certified Facilitator of Adult Learning