What modern teaching looks like

- Okay, quiz time. I know it's a surprise, but don't worry, it's not graded. Here is the question. What is the best way to teach someone? On-demand learning like this? Live in-person sessions? Live virtual sessions? On-the-job training? Or mentorship? What do you think? That's right. You got it. It's a trick question. The answer is actually all of them. As you get ready to teach, it is important for you to understand all of the different teaching methods available to you. The right one will depend on your situation, but as you increase your understanding of adult learning theory, you will see the importance of using multiple methods to teach effectively. In this lesson, I will show you the primary methods available for teaching today and talk about some of the reasons you might choose one method over another. Live training can be broken into two subcategories. In-person or virtual. Live in-person training is great when you want to have a lot of interaction between people. If you are going to be doing role playing or problem solving. Being together in a room is a great way to make experiential learning moments. The challenge is that it isn't always practical to have everyone together in one place. For this reason, live virtual training is another great way to accomplish many of the same objectives, but in a much more flexible way. With many of the modern tools available to you in virtual meetings like quizzes and breakout rooms, you can actually create a really interactive experience. You just have to take the time to translate your live experience into the virtual world. One common mistake most people make with live training, whether it is in-person or virtual, is to use it as an information dump. Think of your traditional lecture. When it comes to just knowledge transfer, the best method is to often use on-demand training, like what you are taking right now. On-demand teaching might also be known as e-learning or computer-based training. But ultimately, I'm talking about something that can be accessed at any time by an employee on their computer or phone. The on-demand nature makes it incredibly convenient and allows people to take charge of their own learning journey. It is also a great way to get important information across, prior to live sessions, so that in the live training, they practice applying that knowledge. On-the-job training, often called OJT, is an essential part of effectively teaching adults because the relevancy of the information is immediately apparent. Well-designed OJT involves taking the scope of work in a given job, bringing it up into a series of milestones that can be tackled one at a time, until a person achieves competency over their entire scope. Typically less formalized than other forms of teaching, mentorship involves having a highly experienced person, the mentor, assist a less experienced person, the mentee, through a series of meetings or discussions. They're often asking questions, or giving key pieces of advice to help the learner think critically about a situation and transform their way of thinking. These are by no means all of the methods available to you, but they're some of the most common. The best teaching will often involve multiple modes of teaching, and which modes you should choose depends on your situation. So what do you think? For what you are trying to teach, what would be the best method?