JKM/ISTD/260805

Training concepts and Transfer Strategies

By, J K M Nair

Director (HRD & Trg)

[This short article is meant to give readers ‘an insight to the field of learning strategies

condensed from an original article of mine]

Training is the platform where core values are built into an individual. The values can be

of technical nature, behavioral, philosophical or psychological. Many still have

reservations to define training as teaching or vice versa. In broader sense, let us accept

the fact that both are so interrelated and in reality both are essential for the transfer of

‘intended’ to the ‘Trainee/ student’.

It integrates instructor’s combined years of experience and knowledge to provide students

with practical, hands-on experience and information. First of all we need to understand

why a person is coming for a learning session.

Can you imagine a dream and get a magic wand to make it real?

Yes, an individual starts with a dream, a dream of his life. To achieve this he starts his

journey to gather necessary tools that will help him achieve what he dreamt. In the initial

stages he looks for accumulating as much as information as possible, from the available

sources. He thinks that it will be useful for him to look for ways and means of nearing

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his goals. Some of the information may be useful readily and in a short time span.

Others he will need to keep in his archives for retrieving at a later time.

In the initial stages even the dreams are hazy and not fully defined. This is a point where

teacher influences much strongly. The teachers’ role is to ensure that they get the right

information, take them to the right focus, make then understand how to use it, and how to

grow along the path. In this modern world there could be an information flood that will

sweep away the student. Here the teacher can help him to avoid the unwanted flood of

information and channel him to the right path. The major transfer strategies for a good

teacher are to ensure that they are capable of;

1. helping the students make the concepts, ideas, theories clear and see the inter-

relations

2. helping the students to find relations between one training and another training

3. helping the students to co-relate what they learn to the real life and work

situations

4. helping the students to see the connection to the future learning process

Each strategy needs to be fully understood by the teacher so that he/she can employ the

right method of imparting the required training. In some of the cases this transfer is very

clear since the matter is directly related to the actual situation. Familiarity makes it easier

for him to assimilate the training more easily and make learning process faster. What he

learned can be directly put into application and is available at arms length. In some of the

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cases one may be wondering about the use of this learning, because of the apparent lack

of a direct link to any life situation. This is common in conceptual mathematical

sessions. Though the students will try to do what the teacher teaches, they keep a

question mark in their mind as to: Why should I learn this da…..m… calculus to get a

job in a bank as high earning executive? Why should I get trained in the modern

computers if I can hire a young one? And so on.

Generally the strategies that can be used are:

A. Pat and tell

B. Tell and recall

C. Recall

D. Check and add the balance

E. Self pace and support

In the initial stages, and at infancy levels, it is always suitable to use the soft skills of

training. A bit of patting will go a long way here, due the rapport being created between

the teacher and the student. At the second level, they will be able to grasp just by telling

and using a bit of repetition. As the student gets graduated through his learning process,

he will start using the ‘recall’ of what he already learned and co relate to what he is

learning now. At this stage the learning process become more and more dynamic. Then

more effective self learning will start taking place making the student to look for the

gaps. By this time he acquires the potent of identifying what is needed and will seek help

from his teacher. At an advanced level, the student reaches to a self learning process,

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which he continues through out his life, unless he looks for a totally new area for

learning.

Remember one comes to the learning platform with a number of variations in their

cognition and structure. Though the platform may look stable, it gets rocked by many

situational impacts. This is one of the reasons for the variations one sees in the product

quality at the end of the learning process, especially in a group learning.

LEARNING PLATFORM

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PERCEPTIONS
Meta-
Factual Expectations
cognition
Knowledge

For those who may wonder about metacognition, let me give you a definition and use it

as a demo for transfer of information.

Metacognition refers to one's knowledge concerning one's own cognitive processes or

anything related to them, e.g., the learning-relevant properties of information or data. For

example, I am engaging in metacognition if I notice that I am having more trouble

learning A than B; if it strikes me that I should double check C before accepting it as

fact." (Source: Psychology.org)

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That is learning…………! If we, the learned cannot get it clear, think about the

challenges you are going to face when dealing with multitude of multiple intelligence in

front of you trying to cohere what you are speaking.

There is also a whole lot of techniques such as accelerated leaning, NLP, action learning,

cooperative learning, group learning, democratic learning, double loop learning, lateral

thinking etc, etc, etc,

What strategy will the teacher choose? Which is the best?

Well, it depends on many variables such as learners profile, teachers profile, resources

available, target size, environment and the transfer time. An experienced teacher can

select a combination of the techniques to achieve optimum. Ideally one should start with

a gap analysis, analysis of target population and clear indication of the goals needed.

The question here is; did you succeed in taking him at least few steps closer to his

dreams? If so your strategy was right.

[Note: The words like training, teaching, instructing are loosely used through out this

article, and all of them means same as transfer of information, knowledge, skills,

competence etc by the trainer/instructor or teacher to the receiver. Similarly is the case of

the word, “trainee” or ‘student’ denotes the person who is the receiver.]

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About the author

The author is a well known HRD and Training Specialist, presently with a Shipping

company at Singapore as their Director (HRD & Trg). A luminary from World Maritime

University, Malmo, he has contributed to the filed of education with a no of books,

papers and other valuable input. He is also member to many institutions and holds high

prestige in the industry. He can be contacted on jkmnair@gmail.com