In part 1 last January, we learned about the laws of adult learning that can help us to plan and conduct impactful sessions with our adult learners. Today, let us explore some more adult learning laws to help us become a better trainer.
1. The Law of Experience
Adults learn best if we can relate and tap their experience in the learning process. Adults bring vast and rich experience into the class and we as trainers need to capitalize on this.
2. The Law of Whole Brain Communication
When presenting adult learning sessions, we need to tap on both the left brain and the right one. Left brain which focuses on logic and right brain on feelings, intuition and creativity can help adults learn better if trainers are able to tap on them.
3. The Law of Whole Senses
There are 3 main ways adults receive information when learning namely, via visual, auditory and kinesthetic. Trainer need to use all these senses to create rich learning experience for adults.
4. The Law of Forgetting
After 30 days, adult will forget 90% of what they have learned (based on Prof Ebbinghaus's research). As trainers, we need to take this into consideration when designing training material and activities.
5. The Laws of Familiarity
In presenting adult learning, trainers need to relate the content to things that learners are familiar of. As such, it is important for trainers to know the background of learners such as education, socio-economy, language and others.
6. The Laws of Safety
Activities designed by trainers need to be comfortable and 'safe' for adult learners to perform. Issues such as learners' readiness, suitability of activities against gender and religious background need to be considered as well.
7. The Law of Recall
Trainers need to design and deliver training materials that are easy for adult learners to understand and remember. Several tools can be used to achieve this.
In our next discussion, we will discuss how to apply these rules to make our session an impactful ones.
