MAKING THE PENNY DROP

By David Dehaas

You are delivering training and you come to a unit or a section that consists of a concept that you need your group to understand. Not a fact they need to know, not a skill or a technique they need to master, but a concept -- an idea -- you need them to grasp firmly. That's where you'll make it or break it as a teacher -- or a facilitator of learning, depending on how you look at it. Facts, they can look up anytime. Skills, they can practice when they need them. But first they have to understand the key concepts that underlie whatever it is you're teaching.

How can you lead people to understanding? How can you light that spark of sudden inspiration that means they have put the facts and ideas together into a coherent working model that they will be able to apply to make sense of the subject?

You could try lecture -- telling them, explaining it, giving a few examples. Some people in the group will understand, some will not understand, and you won't be sure who does and who doesn't. Or you could project an overhead with the material in point form, stand beside it with a pointer and explain it. This will really confuse them. If you're a very modern trainer, you could divide them into groups, encourage them to discuss the issue and hope they figure it out for themselves.

Or you could use the Socratic method. Consider the following example (a possible first unit for an accident investigation course). The introductions have been made, the fire exits pointed out, the name cards in front of participants filled out and you're ready to start. Look at the back of the room and ask, "What is an accident?" Then look around and make eye contact here and there. You'll see 15 people sitting very still, with puzzled expressions on their faces. They're thinking, "I thought he was going to tell us," or "Doesn't he have any overheads?" or "His kids must have bought him that tie."

Then pick out a not-too-shy looking victim. "Pamela, what is an accident?" The 14 other people in the room will instantly sit even straighter, pay attention, and think, "Oh no! He could ask me something next!" Pamela, caught completely off guard, says something like what most of us would say: "Uh, an accident, is, well, you know, when somebody gets hurt."

"Right," you answer. "When somebody gets hurt, it's usually an accident." (There are a few tentative snickers. Members of the group are starting to think, "Hey, maybe this training isn't going to be incredibly boring after all...")

"Okay," you ask, "Does somebody have to be hurt for there to be an accident? Fred?"

Fred says, "Well, no, it could be just damage to equipment."

"Right. Damage to equipment, or... anything else? Kevin?"

"Maybe damage to, you know, the product. Or just downtime. Or you don't even really need damage."

"What do you mean?" you ask, grasping the opportunity to keep Kevin talking. He's on a roll, and he's headed someplace you want to go anyway.

"Well, it could be a near miss. Something falls, but it doesn't hit anybody or break anything." At this point, you notice the fellow with the green sweater in the second row leaning forward and looking like he wants to say something. You prompt him with an encouraging, "Rashid?"

"That is what we call an incident," he tells you. "When there is no loss, but the potential exists for a loss in the future should there be a recurrence, we call that an incident."

"Okay," you say, "We've got to keep the terminology straight. Some people call them all incidents. Here, I take it, it's an accident if there is a loss, and an incident if there is not." Note that Rashid and Kevin have saved you from a minor disaster -- imposing terminology from the outside on a workplace that uses different terms.

"So," you continue, reviewing quickly and steering the discussion back to where you want to go, "An accident produces a loss, an injury, downtime or damage. What else does it have to be in order to be considered an accident? Susan?"

"Uh, unexpected? It's got to be, you know, not on purpose. Unplanned."

"Sure," you say. "Unplanned, unexpected, and...?" You look around the room. Everyone seems puzzled. Give 'em another hint: "Did anyone think it could happen?"

"Unforeseen!" bursts out the quiet lady in the back row who had been trying to avoid making eye contact.

"Ah, unforeseen," you say. "Exactly. Precisely. It was unexpected and unforeseen. Nobody thought it would happen. But what does the fact that it did happen prove?"

There's a moment of silence, while members of the group wonder what on earth you could be driving at. Then Rashid pipes up: "It proves it can happen!"

Most of the group is still puzzled. "So now that we know it can happen, it shouldn't really be unexpected next time, should it?" you ask. "We can't really claim it's unforeseen anymore, can we?" Everyone in the group (with the exception of Rashid, who's figured it out) is thinking "No-o-o, but what's your point?"

"Now that we know it can happen," you ask quietly, "what should we do?"

There is a slight pause. Then the penny drops and someone practically yells out, "Make sure it doesn't happen again!"

"And in order to do that, what do we need to know?"

"We must find out exactly what happened," says Rashid, "and exactly how it happened so that we will know how to stop it from happening again."

"Welcome to accident investigation," you reply.

Suddenly everyone in the room understands what accident investigation should be all about. Suddenly everyone feels that burst of elation -- Aha! Now I see it! -- that comes from inspiration. Suddenly, everyone is on side. And the basic concept that accidents are investigated in order to find and fix the flaws in the system has been mastered.

This kind of training has been called "two-way communication" and it's been called "interactive training". It's also called the Socratic method, after the classical Athenian philosopher. It consists of making trainees think, of drawing out their collective knowledge, of letting them assemble the pieces of the puzzle, and of asking the right questions at the right time to lead them to solve the problem for themselves.

Socratic method has several very significant advantages over "presentation" style training. (It should be noted that presentation, or "one-way", communication has its place in many situations: A just-the-facts briefing is one good example.) However, for learning new concepts, putting ideas together in new ways, understanding complex ideas, Socratic method has no equal. Consider some of the following advantages.

* Socratic method is more fun. Opportunities for banter, jokes and illustrative stories, from the session leader and from the group, come up time and again. The sessions tend to be lively and enjoyable.

* It keeps everyone on their toes. The fact that the group leader may pounce on anyone at any time with a question becomes clear right from the start. The fear of appearing foolish before one's peers is a tremendous motivator. Every time you ask a question, everyone in the room will be paying attention, thinking it over and formulating an answer -- just in case you ask them.

* It allows group members to interact with one another. It's not just "leader" and "group"; it's 15 or 20 people in a room together, engaged in a common pursuit. Group members react to each other's questions, build on each other's ideas and so on. The leader keeps the session headed in the right direction, fills in the gaps and asks the right questions at the right time; but the interaction of questions, answers and comments from the group add a richness that makes the experience stimulating for everyone (including the leader).

* It keeps the session leader firmly in touch with what the group knows and understands; he or she can't help but know which concepts need more time and which ones have been (or already were) understood. The session paces itself, or perhaps the group paces the session. The leader is constantly receiving feedback on what the group members know, understand, need to know more on -- or are just plain interested in.

* A Socratic session is self-adapting. The questions, answers and comments steer the leader and the session into those areas of the topic in which the group is interested. The leader makes sure the vital points are covered, but the session takes on a focus and a flavour that is unique to the needs of the people in the group.

But the biggest single advantage of Socratic method lies in the fact that trainees learn by deducing key concepts for themselves. The instructor, through carefully chosen questions, leads the group to lay all the pieces of the puzzle on the table. Then, when all the pieces are there, he or she asks the questions that lead trainees to put it all together. One by one, trainees will "figure it out" for themselves. And that's when true learning takes place. A concept that has been explained may or may not sink in; but one that we have puzzled over and finally solved is one that we tend to retain forever.

Of course, there are some limiting factors to this approach as well. Would you be able to lead a session like this if you hadn't carefully worked out all of the concepts you need to develop? Do you think this would work if you didn't have all of those concepts in just the right order? Would it be easy to "package" a course like this and hand it over to a trainer the night before the course? You, Ma'am -- sorry, I can't see your name card from here -- what do you think?

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