When is Learning Most Effective?
Caution: This is an opinion-based article.
Like a fish who cannot see the entire water body it is
living in, I feel I sometimes become ignorant of the larger aspect of my role in
the training cycle. We sometimes are so lost in developing small pieces of deliverables that the entire purpose of the training remains unconsidered.
Hence, I thought of distancing myself from what I have learned as an Instructional
Designer, focusing my mind on recollecting how I learned the first complex
skill in my life. I believe it's the first complex skill for everyone. Can you guess what it is? It’s our mother tongue. The
language spoken in our native places.
I bet nobody remembers how they learned it. Though I started
learning English in the fourth standard, it was only when I was in the
university, I could start speaking. So, how come I learned one language in the
first three years of my life and took two decades to learn one more language. I
never learned the grammar to speak my mother tongue properly. However, I studied
English grammar to be able to speak and write properly. Why is the difference there?
I bet nobody remembers how they learned it. Though I started
learning English in the fourth standard, it was only when I was in the
university, I could start speaking. So, how come I learned one language in the
first three years of my life and took two decades to learn one more language. I
never learned the grammar to speak my mother tongue properly. However, I studied
English grammar to be able to speak and write properly. Why is the difference there?
I feel the difference is merely the approach. When I spoke
my first language, I didn’t know I was learning. It was fun whatever I was
doing. On the contrary, for the second language, when I spoke, I had a
million thoughts running in my head. I was very conscious while writing,
reading, and speaking. That didn’t work. The more I became subconscious in learning my
second language, the better I could speak and write.
From this personal experience and many others that I am not covering in this write-up, I would like to advocate the belief that learning should be subconscious. The role of a Curriculum Designer, a Training Developer, or an Instructional Designer is to make it subconscious
for the learners. The aim of all the efforts put into developing an effective training program should be to make it effortless for the learners who should achieve it subconsciously. It should quench the thirst of the thirsty without the thirsty even knowing they were thirsty or they were drinking. Hence, I
would say, Learning is most effective when achieved subconsciously.
Though many times, it's not possible because in andragogy or adult learning, the learners' first question is "What's in it for me?"
Comments
Post a Comment