Make it multisensory

(heavy metal music) - As humans, our input mechanism are our senses. It's how we experience the world. As learners it's not much different, but it really breaks out into three things, hearing, seeing and doing. And each one has individual properties. You know, when when you hear someone tell you how to do something, you create imaginary images in your head that correspond to what it is that you're hearing. When you see someone show you something, there's actually an imaginary haptic sense that happens. You can start to feel yourself doing the thing that they're showing you how to do. But when somebody instructs you, when you're doing the thing that they're doing, you're actually mimicking the same actions that you would have in real life when you don't have instruction. Let me show you what I mean. Lights off. (light switch clicking) I'm going to teach you how to make a paper airplane. All right, take an eight and a half by 11 piece of paper and fold it in half, lengthwise. Hold the paper airplane in the center of that main crease. Crank it back and let it fly. Now, let me show you how to do it. Okay, so I take a piece of paper, and we're going to start to fold a paper airplane. You know the nature of a paper airplane is the same as a regular plane, right. It still uses the laws of aerodynamics, but from a wing standpoint, the more aerodynamic and sleek, it is, the faster that plane will go. (paper crinkling) So now let me show you how to do it and have you do it with me. Okay, I want you to grab an eight and a half by 11 piece of paper. Okay, so what you're going to do is you're going to fold it along that crease long ways, so that you created in essence, a center line. And you're going to fold it right down, so it lines up with that center crease. So you have that nice folded crease. And you're going to do the exact same to the other side. It's okay if you're a little bit off. The plane doesn't matter, right. So you've got a nice triangle that you've created at the top. Then you're going to take this piece here, the piece that's right there and you're going to fold that down to line up with that center line. It's going to look like this. We're creating a really strong point at the very, very top. You see that. The one thing about a paper airplane is that it's symmetrical, so you're going to do the exact same thing to the other side. You're going to take this point, and you're going to fold it down to that center line. So we take that point, and we fold it down. You'll notice that the points line up. The stronger the crease, the sharper and clearer it's going to fly. So now we have a nice straight piece. We fold it in half, and now we're going to create the wings. We fold the top line right along that bottom crease. So, give it a nice sharp point, flip it over and do the exact same thing. A nice sharp crease. Then holding it by the middle, you can bring up these wings, and you've got your plane. So that's the difference between hearing, seeing and doing. When you heard, you had to follow along with those instructions. While it was there, you had to pay attention and really create the right images in your head. When you could see it, it made much more sense, right. You've got a visual response that you can work towards. But there really wasn't as much instruction there. When you're doing, you're not only getting the benefit of hearing and seeing, but you're practicing those actions. So as you're putting together your learning content, recognize the areas with which you're just providing learning in a hearing environment, and even in the seeing environment and push your training towards a doing environment. The more your adult trainers learn, the more that they do, the stronger the retention will be.