Class #4 Feb 5, 2009

I was glad to have the class time to devote to a small bit of curiculum development in small groups. I continue to be surprised at how much time is required. As a past learner, recipient, student, trainee... I had no appreciation or understanding at how much preparation was done by the trainers/teachers (or should have been).

In the class exercise, each break out group was tasked with teaching exactly the same material to very different audiences. After my years of marketing training, where I do understand how important the target audience characteristics are to the channel/tone/delivery/crafting of the message, I should not have been surprised by the significant differences in teaching method to these different audiences. The exercise was illuminating to me. The information to be taught to each "target audience" is exactly the same, but the way to grab attention, to get engagement, to inspire integration within each audience group must be addressed differently. I'm quite excited to realize this - that much of what I've done (& my skill set) thus far in my career should feed nicely into some type of training role should I find a way to get there. Transferrable skills.

I am very much enjoying reading the Vella book. Nothing is brain science she writes - its actually quite intuitive, but its nothing I would have thought to do without direction. Good teachers are not simply subject-matter-experts who decide to share their knowledge. In a way that's what I've grown up thinking because that's what Dad did - not intending to become a professor but enjoying school so much that it became his career. But I'm excited to realize how intentional instructional development must be. It's challenging and difficult and time consuming. It's not easy. Realizing this makes me even more upset at our society that doesn't reward this intense effort in public schools financially.