Articles from MOHR

Mind The Gap: 7 causes of knowledge gaps and what you can do to close them 

This is an article from MOHR. Good read for trainers to pick up their loose ends and revisit ares that they may have forgotten.

http://www.mohrretail.com/Uploads/file/17muscles_7CausesofKnowledgeGaps_VR1R7.pdf

Reinforcement: Making Great Training Pay Off

Article on reinforcement

http://www.mohrretail.com/Uploads/file/Making%20Great%20Training%20Pay%20Off.pdf

Peer Instruction

To all my educator friends out there. This video is a MUST SEE. You will be a transformed after watching this video.

Lecture style of delivery is not effective as pointed out by this video. Real data is being used to show this.



Check out his website for more information and articles:
http://mazur.harvard.edu/education/educationmenu.php

Students read my Blog !!

There other day when I meet some of the students at the lift, I was surprise when they started asking me if it was very hard to teach the class. Then they went on to say things like felix the cat and tricks from the bag. That's when I realized that they found this blog.

Anyway, this reminds me that we have to be careful not to incriminate ourselves online or have anything that will do that to us. Michael Felps almost lost his reputation from one photo (click here to see the news).

Obama also advised teenagers on using Facebook. Cause the information posted on-line does not get deleted. What seems like pure fun in your younger days may come back to haunt you one day should you take office.

Instead of going so far abroad, why not try looking at Singapore where PAP politician like Tin Pei Ling got a lot of bad media and negative comments from what she had posted earlier before she decided to go into politics.

So to the students who are reading this, I dare you to look for anything that I have posted that will incriminate myself. 

Facilitating the FdEng 4 student on HF (week1)

Over the pass few days, I have learnt that lecturing don't work on them. 15mins into the lecture, these students will start to fall asleep. Activities is the only way to keep them awake thru out the day.

However, facilitating for 5 whole days is hard work when I have to "fire fight" and come out with activities instantly to engage them. Thus, I have learnt that planning does go a long way for times like this.

It does help to have a "bag of tricks" available and attending the DACE program does help lot. All the activities that we have gone thru suddenly comes back to live again.
Now I have to dig deeper into the bag to look for new things to do to engage them for another 5 more days.

The following is an account of some of the activities I have done in class:

• Discussion
  I did this by asking them about the subject and why we are studying it. And this helps me to bring them into the topic and the slides.
  
• Crossword puzzle
  Instead of giving them tutorials. I made Crossword puzzles for some of the chapters and used it to make them READ the notes and look for the words. This makes learning fun and they actually enjoyed it so much that they asked for more. And I did. With a few trying, I was able to stumble upon this site which is very good at making Jigsaw.
   http://www.armoredpenguin.com/crossword/
  
• Jigsaw
  This is a form of cooperative learning which has been used on us a few times during the DACE program and I thought this is a Great way to learn. However,when I tried it out on the class, they are not used to this way of learning. The students said that they are not sure of the things they learn. I stopped using it and switched to the normal group presentation instead.
  
• Group presentation
  I divided the class into 5 although I initially planned for 4. Things worked out fine as most of the chapters could be split very nicely into 5. Each group will learn and discuss over the topic given before they put everything on the chart for presentation to the class later. However, I was kind of stuck to this mode as I ran short of ideas on what else to do with them.
  
• Constructive Controversy (something like that)
  I gave each group a question to work on and they are to present them to the class later. Each group is given a score board to score the ans given base on the content. During the presentation, I started to throw questions to make the groups defend for their points. I also encouraged the other groups to question them before they give score.
  The questioning and defending is where the leaning happens.They are forced to think about the points when they asked questions and defend.
  
• Whirlwind
  This is one that I have picked up from Tommy in class. He first used it for Brain storming. Each team is suppose to write their ideas on the chart. Halfway thru the brainstorming, the chart is switched between teams. This give each team a fresh new look  at a problem and a chance to come out with new and creative ideas.
  I adapted this activity and used it at the end of the day where I give them a question to think about. Ask they are coming out with the points, I will stop them and get them to switch the chart with the neighboring team. This will give each team a go at the each of the question. Thru this exercise, they get to revise the things covered in class that day.
  
• Post-it pads for Evaluation
  I first used the post-it notes as a form of commenting for the class. Everyone is given a chance to put a comment on the charts for the them that has presented.
  I later got the class to each think thru about the lesson and what they like and did not like and writ them down. The likes will be posted on the right door while the dislikes are posted on the left door. This was done on the first day and it gave me a constant reminder of my actions and the activities the class liked. It later help me in crafting out the rest of the activities for the next 4 days.

Games from the Lessons

I have been delivering Human Factors training for a while and now after attending the DACE program, suddenly I felt that I have been stagnant for some time. As in have been doing the same presentation for so many time that I am getting bored.

Looks like its time to up the game level and go for something that it totally different.

I have been getting some inspirations while attending my part-time course. The games the trainers used in class is a good reference point for us to use in our class. So in the few blogs, I will try to record down some of these game sand see how I can use them in my class.

I am not an inventor, I just know how to adapt real well, real fast.

Anyway, here are some the games I can recall:

1. Inner and Outer Circle

• The class forms 2 circles (inner and outer) when every one in the inner circle will have one from the outer circle facing him. The trainer starts by asking a question about what happened in the last lesson and we will have to talk it out to each other. Once done, we will rotate and the questions will comes again.
• This kind of peer learning is very good especially in the start or end of the session. Cause that is the time where we can retain more.

2. Game show

• Each team is given papers to write down a respond. The trainer will ask questions and we will raise the corresponding respond for our team's ans. The trainer will subsequently records the points on the chart.
• What I like about this is when the train ask us to explain our ans. Why this respond ? This makes us think and talk it out.

A Prezi on using Web 2.0 in classroom

Web 2.0 in the classroom on Prezi

Keeping a Journal

I can still remember my school days where my friends likes to keep diaries. I kind of picked up the habit from them. But After I started working, the habit kind of died somewhere in the middle. Over the years, I did try to keep one again, on-line even, but yet I still could not keep it up.

Looking for a reason to keep a journal may sound very stupid. You just have to do it, right ? Sometimes we just don't know why we are keeping a diary, may be its just fun. No reason is required for you to start. But when you cannot find the reason to do it, the energy to keep it going will die sooner or later.

Reflective practice is very interesting, as it brings me back to my school days again. By keeping a journal, I can see how my thoughts grow over time. And with a systematic way to record, follow-thru and follow-up, we can see ourselves and direct our path of thought to learn and develop into a better learner, a better trainer, a better person.