Lerner Centered, Performance Based

"Learner Centered, Performance Based" is the theme of the book Telling Ain't Training. The book is written by Harold D. Stolovitch and Erica J. Keeps and published by the American Society for Training and Development. The book is about why training fails, what makes training successful and how you and your learners can achieve astonishing results.

A few weeks ago I encouraged you to look into developing your platform skills to make yourself a better speaker and presenter. The concepts in this book address another critical area trainers need to explore to better serve our officers and that is the area of adult education. There is a wealth of knowledge available regarding the field of adult learning and some key aspects are address in this book.

There are some very good instructor development programs such as the California POST Master Instructor program developed by Jim Fraser that do an excellent job of educating law enforcement trainers about the world of providing training to adults in a manner most likely to actually result in learning.

I would recommend you get a copy of Telling Ain't Training and take your time in digesting the material inside. It is easy to write it off and say "that won't work with cops". It will if it is thought out and delivered properly. We all need to find ways to make classroom training especially, more interactive.

Another great resource is Richard H. Neil Sr.'s book Police Instructor: Deliver Dynamic Presentations, Create Engaging Slides and Increase Active Learning. Neil suffered an extremely serious career ending injury during an arrest and has chosen to continue to serve the law enforcement profession through his role as a trainer. Neil's book is full of practical ideas and exercises on interactive learning activities that Neil has used with law enforcement officers. While many are targeted at the recruit level they can be easily adapted for in-service training. There are a lot of great take aways from this book. For a limited time you can take advantage of a 25% discount off the price of the book. Use Discount Code:ZL5A5762 at their CreateSpace store (powered by Amazon). The code will be active until February.

This is just a starting point but if you combine these two books with Garr Reynolds Presentation Zen you will be well on your way.

Take care.

Brian Willis

If you are interested in booking Brian Willis for a Harnessing the Winning Mind and Warrior Spirit or Pursuit of Personal Excellence Seminar or an Excellence in Training Course contact him at winningmind@mac.com. You can visit his website at www.winningmindtraining.com for a list of presentations and courses Brian can offer your organization, staff training function or conference.

Registration is now available for the 2012 Legacy of Excellence Conference. 

W.I.N. 1: Critical Issues in Training and Leading Warriors, W.I.N. 2: Insights Into Training and leading Warriors, If I Knew Then: Life Lessons From Cops on the Street and W.I.N. 2: Warrior Reflections are now all available in e-book format for your iPad and your favorite e-book reader. For print versions go to www.warriorspiritbooks.com.   

 

Comments

[Mitch Weinzetl]

Brian,

You are right in your statement that law enforcement training needs to be more learner-focused; however, there are a few problems with this philosophy. The first is that most trainer development programs do not teach adult learning concepts or approaches. Virtually all of the train-the-trainer programs I have been through (and there have been many), focus on teacher-centered delivery of material. In all fairness, skills-based training programs are designed around visible outcomes, and as a result, we spend very little time considering whether our people have actually retained anything from what they have been “taught.” Also, because we are victims of habit, we tend to teach in the way we were taught. We know now, however, that adult educational methods vary greatly from how children are educated. Unfortunately, these adult methods have not become prevalent in our police training and education programs.

This brings up point number two; in many cases, there is no real transfer of learning that occurs, or at a minimum, our programs are not designed in a way that we can measure this. According to Caffarella, “transfer of learning is the effective application by program participants of what they learned as a result of attending an education or training program (2010, p. 216). The sad reality is that we (law enforcement trainers, supervisors, and executives) have created a training culture in which we give officers credit for showing up, not for participating or meeting a particular standard (with a few exceptions, e.g., firearms qualification).

The final point is that our training culture has not involved any accountability for attendees actually doing anything with the information they have been provided. Officers are routinely sent to training, and upon their return, they do absolutely nothing (overtly) with what was provided to them. As an example, I recently attended a training session with an officer from my department, and after the training, I asked him to review the material, our policies, and our training program, and to get back to me with suggestions on areas where we could improve or make revisions. After asking this of the officer (a six-year veteran who recently jointed our organization and who has been a trainer with another organization), I then asked him if previously, he had ever been given any direction or guidance on what to do with the information he was provided at a training course. The answer was no.

We need to change the educational paradigm for in-service training. We need to engage adult learning methods for this training, but moreover, we must start to shift the training culture to one in which those who attend the training are expected to take what they have learned and put it into practice. Although the responsibility for these changes rests with law enforcement trainers and executives, the officers attending must understand these expectations, and they must adjust their mental framework, and their outputs.

Mitch Weinzetl

Caffarella, R. (2010). Planning programs for adult learners: A practical guide for educators, trainers and staff developers. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass