Do you do things because you have learned how to do them, or have you learned how to do them because you did them?

This, and similar questions about how humans learn, has kept philosophers and professors busy for centuries. I appreciate their desire to understand the details of how we learn. The simple answer to the question, especially when applied to product learning, is probably “Yes.” Think about something you do with relative ease, like riding a bike or heating up a cup of coffee in the microwave. You do it because you learned how to do it, but you also learned how to do it because you did it. It is the continuous tango between thinking and doing, the DNA‐like weave between the possibility and the encountered, and the scissor blades of could‐be and has‐been that create learning in human beings. Both must exist for true learning—the change in one’s knowledge, skills, values, or worldview—to take place. But one—information—tends to get emphasized in the classroom, while the other—experience—gets left to chance. If your training is going to be effective, that must change.

How Does One Develop a Skill?

I challenge you to think about a skill that you can do now without really even needing to think about. Here are a few examples.

As you consider the skill, think about the first time you did it. Did you do it perfectly the first time? Did you know everything there is to know about it before you first did it? I’m quite sure you didn’t! The Cambridge Dictionary defines skill as “an ability to do an activity or job well, especially because you have practiced it.”¹ In other words, if you—or anyone, for that matter—could do it perfectly the first time, it would not be a skill.

Niels Bohr, a Danish physicist, is said to have stated that “an expert is someone who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field.” Indeed, if you have not made mistakes in your field, you are likely not an expert. I’m sure that he made the comment somewhat tongue‐in‐cheek, or perhaps out of an attempt to display humility. Of course, he was not advocating that mistakes alone make an expert. Instead, the pithy statement drives home that all of us—expert or novice—must allow even the negative experiences to change the way we behave. Simply put, we must submit ourselves to a lengthy process of attempts and failures, small incremental improvements, study, feedback, and practice.

Remember How You Became an Expert

Teaching others how to be an expert is much easier if you consider how you became one. I could offer to analyze over a century of adult learning theories, or I could sum it up in one extremely profound statement. You may want to write this deep thought down.

Stunning, I know. But understanding that fact will change the way you teach. Teaching will become less about how much knowledge you can transfer and more about how you can help students relate to the information so well that they construct true understanding for themselves.

Learning a skill has an added dimension—that of aptitude—that must be distinguished from acquiring knowledge. Teaching a skill also has an added dimension. You cannot claim to know how to ride a bike if you have never ridden one. You cannot claim to have taught someone how to ride a bike if they haven’t ridden it yet.

Learning is the thread that sews knowledge and proficiency together. But to teach that effectively, you must get away from the notion that there is a mandated sequence in which your students can learn. You don’t teach anyone—adult or child—how to ride a bike by giving them a lecture on wheels and spokes or balance and brands. Your students might ace that quiz, but if they’ve never gotten on a bicycle and ridden it, they know less about it than my 6‐year‐old neighbor who just flew by. You cannot send your students out of the classroom and claim that they are proficient if they have never actually used the product.

Build on Your Students’ Experiences

Your students have experiences, too. Regardless of the product that you are teaching others about, the learners in your classroom will come with at least some prior learning. They will bring their previous experiences into your classroom. The experience doesn’t even have to be one directly with your product. Chances are there are many parallel areas of study that will affect how quickly or how well your students learn.

As in any teaching environment, it is important to remember that you are teaching individuals. Your students are not robots that can be programmed en masse. Think about what it would be like to teach two people from very different backgrounds how to drive a car. The first individual grew up riding in a car. Her mother would explain certain things to her, even when she was a child. She would ask questions like “Why are you pushing that?” The answer would be at her level, “When I push that it makes a light blink so that people know I’m going to turn here.” On and on the learning goes, until 1 day she is driving you! The second individual, however, has never seen a car. He doesn’t know what it does, much less how to control it. You can imagine that the learning experience would be very different for this individual, as would the teaching experience for the instructor.

Create Experiences in the Classroom

If a student already knows something or has experienced it in the past, it is possible to remind them of that learning simply by lecturing or demonstrating what you want to teach them. However, if the topic is completely new to them, they will need to experience it, or draw from previous experiences or interactions with the topic in order to learn it.

All product specialists know this to be true. The great question is why so few apply it to the event of training. Most will apply this concept by asserting (the truth) that true training is more than just an event. It takes on‐the‐job experience or practice to really become proficient in something. Few will argue with that. But you can speed up the learning process by creating an initial learning event that is experiential by design. Many believe that cognitive learning is learned while sitting and listening to an instructor, while skills are only learned on the job. You can change that.

On‐the‐job training is essential. Practice is important. What I’m advocating here is combining the learning and the doing. I’m suggesting that experiential learning is the only real way to teach a skill, even in the classroom, over a webinar, or in an eLearning module. Later I’ll explore some practical ways to make this happen, but before then, let’s try a little experiment.

Take a pencil and a ruler and connect the “1” dots to each other in the graph in Exercise 2.2.

Exercise 2.2 Numbered graph

Does it look like Figure 2.1?

Good! Now, go back to the first graph and connect the “2” dots in the graph (in Exercise 2.2). Then connect the “3” dots. Do the same for the 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 dots.

Now, does it look like Figure 2.2?

Now, you may know what you just created from previous experience. But even if you don’t, without any explanation, you have created a parabolic curve. You did so without a long explanation or demonstration; you did so on your own. Next time you train on your product, see if you can get the students to do what you are training them to do while you are teaching them. You’ll discover that the excitement of learning will significantly increase. But even more importantly, you will discover that actual learning will increase as well.

Let Them Learn from Negative Experiences

But let’s be honest. Sometimes your students will try to do something and it won’t work. Not all experiences are equal. There are positive experiences and negative ones, and either of those can produce accurate learning or erroneous learning. As you can see from the grid in Figure 2.3, positive learning experiences can still generate erroneous learning outcomes, and negative learning experiences can generate accurate learning outcomes.

Capitalize on Informal Learning

The more experience an adult learner has in a broad field, the more they are going to learn in informal ways. They are going to observe the way others do things and let it influence the way they do it. They are going to pick up the tiniest of influences from the most unlikely sources. Humans are always learning. We are always experiencing new things. Some do a better job of categorizing them and pulling them from their memory, but all are learning new facts or reinforcing old ones.

Informal learning can be even more valuable than formal learning, because so much of it is experiential in nature. On‐the‐job training is usually informal learning. If it is true that it takes on‐the‐job experience or practice to really become proficient in something, then informal learning is extremely important. Learning in small increments is much easier for most of us than trying to learn everything at once. I’ll never forget my father teaching me a valuable lesson when he asked me, “If someone were to offer you the choice between a million dollars now or one penny doubled each day for 30 days, which would you take?” Of course, a million is big number to a child and a penny is a small number, so I chose the larger of the two: one million dollars. Had the offer been real, I would have missed out on more than four million dollars! A penny doubled each day for 30 days equals $5,368,709.12. Apply this simple illustration to learning. Just because your students haven’t been through the formal training (offered a million dollars!), they may have gained equally as much or more in small increments.

Your job as a technical instructor is to capitalize on that learning. Don’t dismiss or marginalize it. If it needs to be corrected, feel free to do so, but always remember that the pennies they have earned are going to amount to more than your single learning event. Correct it respectfully or it will be rejected.

Allow Students to Share Their Experiences

A typical classroom is full of knowledge. With so much expertise (real or assumed) in a classroom, it is unwise for even the smartest of instructors to pretend to be the guru on any subject. One great way to involve students experientially is to let them explain things to other students. This accomplishes two things. First, they learn by explaining. You have probably experienced firsthand that when you teach someone something, you learn it better yourself. Teaching it forced you to articulate your knowledge and helped to solidify it in your own mind. Allow your students to experience that. Second, the other students profit from another source of learning. If you have done much instructing, you have probably had the following occurrence. You made a statement or emphasized a particular fact or thought process. Minutes or hours later a student repeated what you said—either word for word or with their slightly different slant to it. Maybe they didn’t even realize they were repeating you. All of a sudden, the proverbial light bulbs seemed to turn on in the other students’ eyes. What just happened? How did they understand so quickly from a peer but could not learn the idea from you?

What is happening in these circumstances is the principle of learning from multiple sources. This is a good thing. Next time that happens—and it is sure to happen again—you can either try your hardest to make sure that they understand that you’ve been trying to teach that concept, or you can accept it as part of the learning process. My advice? Thank the student that just “taught” the other student and move on. In fact, you can create these scenarios by allowing students to answer questions before you do. A good trainer cares less about what they teach and more about what the students learn.

Give Lecture and Observation Their Rightful Place

Your students can, of course, learn some things by observation. Lectures, and other forms of teaching, can be helpful for your students. General knowledge may be important, or even mandatory, prior to hands‐on application. Learning is not something you can put into a neat pyramid and claim dogmatically how much someone will learn or how much they will retain when taught in different ways. What we do know is that your students will retain more when you let them do what it is you are teaching them. Isn’t that your goal?

A trainer needs to be a good speaker because instruction often includes lecture. Lecture is not the enemy of learning. Lecture and observation are just a couple of several means to the end of learning. What your students observe you perform or listen to you talk about is only an inspiration for them to go out and do something. If you can bring that “do” into the classroom, by all means, do it.

Provide a Structure for Your Hands‐On Training

Hands‐on training is more than just a buzzword in product training. It is essential to experiential learning. However, experiential learning needs a structure to increase its effectiveness and ensure its consistency. There are three main phases to hands‐on training, each with its own varying grades of application. All three stages are important to produce effective proficiency on a technical product.

Conclusion

I have emphasized in this chapter what technical instructors refer to as “hands‐on training.” I’ve demonstrated that not all training events that allow for students to handle the equipment are the same. They are, however, related and each deserves a place in your classroom. Be deliberate. Know which one you are using and why.

Throughout this chapter I have maintained that no one can become proficient in something that they haven’t done. There is a relationship between what you know and what you do, but doing is what creates understanding. The same is true for you, in regard to teaching. You cannot become a great instructor until you start instructing. Seek out opportunities to teach about a product or technology you are knowledgeable about. See if you can get the students to do more and listen less. Watch their eyes light up as they tell you what they’ve learned without a lecture or presentation. When that happens, you will sense that your role has shifted from being a public speaker to being a facilitator. You’ll find that you worry less about how you deliver the content and more about how the students learn it.

And that’s why knowing how adults learn matters to you. Emphasizing experience over knowledge is a skill that requires practice. But when you do, you will find that it leads to an enjoyable, effective learning experience.

Making It Practical

For learning to develop into expertise, there must be experience. Take a moment to consider a technology, product, system, or other technical skill that you are competent in. Think about the role experience played in your learning process.

1. Name a skill you are proficient in.
   1. What is one way you were shown or demonstrated the skill prior to becoming proficient in it?
   2. What is one exercise or guided task you completed as you were learning this skill?
   3. How did you explore this product or technology as you were learning?
2. What will you do differently in your next training session as a result of reading this chapter?

Before you read Chapter 3, “You Know It, Can You Teach It? Overcoming Your Own Intelligence,” answer these two questions:

1. Explain the statement “You can’t teach what you don’t know you know” in your own words.
2. What is an appropriate response when you are asked to teach something, but you are not given enough time to do it?