My Dad ran a karate school in the back of a church when I was a kid. I loved those years of training.
My Dad holds a black belt in Karate and Judo and he was able to mix those skills (pre-UFC) into an impressive hybrid that left his students, myself among them, well prepared for real life. Part of mixing his skill set was dropping elements of training that he thought were useless, specifically, he abandoned the karate blocking style in favor of the much more efficient boxing defense, instead of focusing on traditional katas we spent time on mitts and, finally, we completely did away with point sparring in favor of continuous sparring.
The reason for the changes was clear in my Dad’s mind- If it doesn’t work in real life why would we waste time training it?
Like a good scientist, my Dad wanted to put his changes to the test- so, he would openly invite other kids to the church to spar. Now, obviously, he couldn’t spar children and, at the time, my older brother’s best technique was a well timed joke, so, it fell on me to represent the school. On the nights when the visitors arrived my brother was jovial and would make his best effort to make them feel welcome. I had a different attitude- I was distant, with a hard look on my face. It was probably a mix of nerves and a bid to gain a psychological edge- I knew what was coming. I played a role those nights. I was the villain, an obstacle.
The scientific process did its job and, years later, the proliferation of the UFC proved many of the theories that my Dad had hypothesized. A major factor in the success of my Dad’s project was the villain- me. He needed other theories placed against a test; he needed a bar for success.
So, here’s a question- Is there a villain in your curriculum?
I’ve heard it said, “We need to remove obstacles in education!” The sentiment behind the statement is noble, but the statement is wrong! Obstacles are EVERYTHING when the results matter.
In education there are tried and true barriers placed in the learners way- specifically tests. But, are your tests villainous enough? Do they really provide a good measure of a learner’s acumen? Do they provide insight to you, as the educator, of the learner’s weak points? Do your tests accomplish both of these tasks efficiently?
Online learning provides solutions to effectively accomplish all of these goals. The Pupil Company tailors testing solutions to include both objective and subjective measures; easily tracking and identifying knowledge gaps with objective tests such as multiple choice and matching questions, while also providing free response sections to gain a fuller picture of a learners thought process.
This breadth of testing modalities provides a fine tuned, efficient model to create obstacles for your learners so that you can be assured, as an educator or business owner, that the staff that make it through your training are prepared for the work that they are expected to complete.
So, what are your thoughts?
What steps have you taken to ensure that your training is sufficiently difficult?
What process do you have in place to measure the success of your training?
Does your training include systems to specifically drill down to and identify knowledge gaps in your learners?
What’s YOUR Vision?
