From Passive to Active: Helping Subject Matter Experts Understand Today’s Adult Learners
As learning business professionals, we plan and create offerings to enable learners to connect, find meaning and relevance, and move on to practical application. But how our learning plans get translated in the classroom or online depends largely on the skills and attitudes of the instructors and facilitators. In this session two organizations will share their experience working to improve subject matter experts’ understanding and—more importantly—application of adult learning theory.
Tracey Steiner will share how the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) is using training and coaching to move its staff SMEs from lecture or presentation mode to a facilitation-of-learning approach. She’ll cover overcoming resistance to change and the need to “share all I know,” as well as how to make the case with the brain science behind instructional design.
In 2013, the Illinois State Bar Association (ISBA) adopted a Free On-Demand CLE program, shifting ISBA’s focus to online programming, and today over 80 percent of ISBA credit hours are delivered online. Jeanne Heaton will offer a look at ISBA’s efforts over the intervening years to bring volunteer faculty members into the new reality of and demand for engaging on-camera presentations. In the legal profession, which is historically slow to change, ISBA has encountered ups and downs, and Jeanne will share some of both the successes and challenges of working with faculty, including video training, coaching opportunities, and website resources they’ve developed at ISBA.
Read Tracey’s full bio and Jeanne’s full bio.