Accelerated Learning

As part of my own professional development, I was in a training session this past weekend. It used accelerated learning methodologies (this description from Wikipedia offers a variety of definitions and background) and I must admit it has been quite a while since I have been in that kind of a learning environment. It was an excellent reminder of how effective that kind of training is when you have a short time frame to transmit a ton of information that will be remembered and acted upon. I love going away thinking "wow, that was amazing".

It reminded me of the question I posted earlier while I was reflecting on making learning stick when we only have our students for three to six hours. While we already strive to support different learning styles in our classes, we also constantly evaluate with an eye on improvement. We want our students to go away with the "wow" feeling and know they have learned something they can and will really use.

Our goal is to give students the best learning experience possible so they gain and retain the most they possibly can from their time with us, which often means helping people past their comfort zone into new learning. That's why we are so careful selecting instructors, why I'm so proud of the ones we have, and why we receive so much great feedback from our students verbally and in writing. Are we perfect? Nope. But when we come in less than perfect, my job is to find out how we can improve. Whether it's through professional development conferences, seminars, or even comments from our students, learning and growing is what Inet-Toolbox is all about.
Cynthia