Andrew L. Van Slaars

When I first started working as a technical trainer, I was 22 years old. I did my training at a community college and taught continuing education classes to adult professionals. My average student was at least 10 years older than me and most of them had been working longer than I had been out of high school. Needless to say, I had to work pretty hard just to convince my students that I was worth listening to.

My initial approach was to teach all of the course material as quickly as possible. Once they got the point that I actually knew what I was talking about, I started over and went at a slower pace.

As it turns out, this approach helped the students retain more information. While it didn’t seem that anybody retained or understood the material on the first pass, almost nothing was new on the second pass. The inherent repetition in this approach helped students learn more than they would have otherwise.
Looking back on my time in the military, I realized that they do the same thing. The military is known for relatively fast training. They do this very well and with a lot more people than I could ever teach in person. That being said, there must be something to this.

Obviously, teaching ALL of the material twice isn’t always realistic, so the first “quick pass” through the information should hit the high points without going as far as to turn it into a summary. The nitty-gritty details should be saved for the slower paced run through the material. This is something that will vary greatly from class to class and based on the material.

NOTE: If this post sounds familiar, it’s because this is a re-post of an entry from my previous blog

Teaching presentation, training