CompTIA CTT+ TK0-201 – Group Facilitation (Domain 4)

11. Active Listening in the Classroom

Active listening is important as an instructor. So there’s passive listening, like when your friend tries to tell you a story that you’ve heard a hundred times before. And there’s also active listening where you are reflecting what somebody is saying to you. You’re trying to help them process something, and you’re really involved in the conversation. So how to be an active listener as an instructor? Well, you want to observe body language and feedback. Make sure that you are noticing when people are distracted or when they’re looking confused. You can see the expressions on their face. All of these are indicators that can help you adjust the way you’re delivering your instruction. Listen to comments and questions. If somebody has something to say, it may be outside of the order of what you wanted to talk about, but don’t be dismissive of those comments.

If somebody asks a question which is a legitimate question, you may not have been expecting it, but still just acknowledge the fact that your student is interested in what you’re talking about and that they’ve asked an intelligent question and you don’t have to answer it right then and there. You can kind of jot it down for later so that you address the question at another time. But at least acknowledge the fact the students engaged when they make comments that are maybe slightly wrong. Still encourage them and thank them for their comment or recognize that they are invested in the program. And that’s really all that you can ask from a learner.

Minimal encouragers are when you do things like nod when someone’s talking or you say, yeah, okay, or Go on. You actually act like you are listening to the question, which you will be. But maintaining eye contact, using that body language to encourage the student to keep speaking if they offer themselves to the group discussion. Probing is important. So if somebody says something you don’t understand, or they ask a question that you don’t understand, probe a little bit more. Did you mean to say this? Or did you mean to ask this? Perhaps you could say, if I understand you correctly, you’re asking this, this and this. Clarifying the question.

Probing for understanding really gives the impression that you care about what the listener understands and that you want to fill their knowledge gaps. Paraphrasing too, is a great skill to where you restate a question or comment. In other words, that indicates that you definitely heard what was being asked of you. And just in general, attempt to understand thoroughly. So give attention to those students. Value their contributions to the class. And if you don’t understand, understand, keep asking questions. It really fosters an environment of mutual respect in the classroom, and it makes sure to engage all of the students.

12. Assessing & Addressing Needs for Additional Explanation

As an instructor, we all like to think that we are clear and unambiguous in our instruction and that when we explain something, everybody gets it right away. And the truth of the matter is that that’s harder than it seems. There are a lot of factors involved with a student really understanding something, particularly when you’re dealing with technical concepts, which can be quite complex. So a couple of things are involved in assessing need for clarification. Number one, be open to it as an instructor, know that we don’t always deliver things so clearly. The first time, we might have done our best to explain something, but been a little bit confusing in the words that we chose to use. And that’s okay. You can always go back and re explain yourself in different words. Break it down, make sure that everybody understands it. Don’t have a once and done approach.

Like I said it once, you should have caught it the first time, but be willing to go back and repeat things and explain yourself. Second of all, if you identify that the learners really don’t understand what you said, so you might have asked some questions to just review a topic that you just presented. If they didn’t get it, just acknowledge that you will need to go back and review it. You might need to spend some extra time in the review phase at the end of that particular module to address that. You might have to put it on the back burner and come back to it later.

Or you might just choose to stop right there and say something went wrong in the initial discussion of this topic, let’s go back and break it down again and make sure everybody understands it. So the idea is to not take it personally. You’re still a good instructor, but if the students don’t understand something, you need to assess that with questions and then you need to go back and teach it again. Another great tool for this are actual written assessments.

So if you’re doing quizzes here and there throughout the course or written assignments, if you notice that the majority of the class doesn’t understand a specific topic and all of them scored poorly in a specific area, then it gives you an idea that something went wrong when you initially discussed it, that you either didn’t spend enough time or they didn’t get it for one reason or another. Again, don’t blame it on the students, don’t blame yourself. Just recognize that something was a disconnect there and you need to go back and give a little bit more information. So, as instructors, it is our responsibility to meet those learning objectives, and we want to make sure that we do everything we can to assess the fact that they’ve understood it and to go back and give clarification if necessary.

13. Providing Encouragement

You can get some students that really get overwhelmed and frustrated when they’re not understanding something. I mean, this is an example of a young student. But this poor young man, I was trying to teach him something. It was a music class. He wasn’t able to perform it correctly. And he actually started crying right there in my lesson studio. And I felt terrible. But I think what I learned from the experience was that I hadn’t provided enough encouragement to let him know he was doing great, that he could master this. Just give it some time, just be patient.

So you shouldn’t have a problem with adult students crying in front of you. But as adults still, we do show at times signs of frustration. And this can look like giving up. Like I’ll forget it. Whatever. I’m just going to kind of check out for the rest of this course because it’s too complicated or it can look like real sort of anger or disruptive behavior. So as a technical instructor, you are going to do a little bit of mentoring and a little bit of encouragement.

So remember, you got this right here. This man in this picture, he’s clutching his head, he’s frustrated. Just a little bit of encouragement to say, you’re going to get this. Let’s try it again. Let me help you out. Can work wonders. Be enthusiastic in your teaching. So saying things like this is very difficult, has a way of putting the idea in everyone’s minds before you even get started.

So focus on the positive. You guys are professionals, career professionals. This is a complex task and I know you’re going to handle it just fine. You’re going to learn it just fine. So focus on the positive. Make sure you maintain interest. So if somebody is checking out because it’s complicated, remind them of their motivation, bring their attention back in and have them focus on one thing at a time. And you need to be patient because as a teacher, particularly if we know a technical concept and maybe we’ve taught it 100 times before, it is the first time that this individual is seeing it.

So continue to be patient. Don’t expect everybody to get the new concept or the technical skill with the same proficiency, with the same speed. You are going to have some that struggle and those are the ones that need a little extra attention. So dig into your patience and your consideration and help those ones out. Offer them some reassurance. And if some are really lagging behind, you might direct them to some resources outside of class.

So you don’t want to hold up the whole class for somebody who’s struggling, but rather encourage them, make sure they don’t feel embarrassed. And then you might grab them at the breaks and give them some extra resources and say, this was difficult for you. Go ahead and check this out or that out after class. So you might have some backup materials, links to outside resources for people that are really struggling. Don’t hold up the rest of the class. Just be positive and keep moving. Give people the support that they need.

14. Strategies to Motivate Adult Learners

Let’s dig deeper into the psychology of motivation and how you can harness it as a trainer. We’ve talked substantially about focusing on the practical application of the student. Why are they there? What is going to touch them and move them to stay focused? Make sure you identify it. It may be individual to each learner. It may be different for a few learners than it is to the other. Take some time to get in their heads a bit and know that, so you can weave it into your course. But let’s just go over intrinsic and extrinsic motivators. So intrinsic are these real deep personal motivations or like a humanitarian goal, something that really moves somebody at a deep, deep emotional level? This could be their family.

Tying new learning to new job opportunities, to higher income, to providing for one’s family and their children, that’s quite deep. But it also deep in the individual and reminding them, just touching on that can help them to stay in focus. The actual technical skill you may be teaching could be related to some sort of humanitarian work. If you’re teaching for a nonprofit, if you are teaching for some sort of social group, that their work is directly tied to a greater social, political, environmental goal, et cetera.

Even if you’re not really on board on that larger ideology, you can still use it to motivate your learners because it is something that is important to them. Make sure that you touch on that. Then there are the less strong extrinsic motivators. Like you got to do this to get your job or to keep your job or to get that bonus, or because it’s being required by your boss. They’re not as strong, they don’t motivate as successfully because they’re not connected to you as an individual and your deepest emotions. But they are still important. I mean, if this training must be done, it must be done to keep your job, et cetera.

And you can remind these of course you don’t ever want to use fear or a threatening tone, but to just remind that it’s required and that we’ve been asked by management to take care of this. And whatever that reminder is can keep it fresh in the minds of the learners throughout the entire course. And we do want to do this fairly regularly as a reminder, particularly in very difficult concepts. When it comes to motivation too, you want to check yourself. You might be teaching something that is just a technical concept and it doesn’t mean anything particularly to you. It may not be your field of passion, but you do still need to connect to your own motivation as a teacher. Because if you’re not reminded of why you’re there, why you’re doing what you’re doing, then it will show in the way that you teach. So why are you teaching? Is it because you value having a creative job in a technical field? Is it because you enjoy teaching people and helping them in their career journeys or to be successful.

Is it because you just love the technology? I love this software, I love this hardware and it’s my favorite thing in the world to talk about. All of those just work marvelously. And to remember those when you’re having a rough day is really valuable. Restrain your negative attitudes and comments so there are times when we’re not feeling it. Do your best to be mum on those topics that you might be a little bit negative about.

Keep them to a minimum because the rest of the audience is going to model after you. It can be hard to be enthusiastic about something that you’re not particularly tied to, and it can be hard to maintain too high of enthusiasm throughout the length of a course. So be modest with this, but recognize that being positive can really have a good impact. And be contagious so that others in the classroom will connect with their motivation and stay focused and absorbed in the material.

15. Review – Domain 4

All right, you finished domain four. Good job. Let’s do our review. Again, this was all about group facilitation, so the actual conducting of a technical class and communicating with learners and leading them through all those milestones of the educational process. We talked about learner centered education, putting yourself in the perspective of the student to make sure sure that you’re designing a course that meets their needs and that you have your priorities straight there.

We spoke about engaging learners and also using questions to stimulate the thinking and also to give you a good pulse on whether or not people understand what you’re talking about and then changing or making adjustments in your training accordingly. We spoke a little bit about performing a task analysis, what it’s like to sit with a subject matter expert and break a complex task into individual subtasks and then create that hierarchical design that can be used for a handout for your students.

And that’s important that we know how to do a task analysis. And we did a little bit more educational psychology with Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Goals and also the Social Learning Theory, how we can weave those into fun and stimulating group activities. We talked a bit about how to listen well, active listening when students have something to say or a question, how to assess their understanding by means of the comments that they make, encourage them to talk, and use that information as you move yourself through your course material.

And finally, we wrapped up with student motivation, tapping into their intrinsic and extrinsic motivators, reminding them, and making sure as a technical trainer, that we are motivated to do our best too. So, good job getting through Domain Four. This is one you want to be very familiar with. Make sure you’re you review it quite a bit before the test, and go ahead and move on to the quiz now, and I’ll see you in the next section.