From Telling to Teaching

A Dialogue Approach to Adult Learning

Karen Sherbondy, MEd, RD, LD

Different teaching method

• Learner-centered education• Hands-on activities• Participants actively engaged in learning

Discussion

• Describe what you know about facilitated dialogue or learner-centered education

• Describe what you want to learn about using a dialogue approach in teaching

• What concerns do you have about teaching this way?

Sharing

Learner-centered education (LCE)

• Teaching that involves active participation of the leader and the learner

• Gets all involved and centered on the learning• Sharing and comparing experiences of the

learners• Creates a safe environment for learners to

consider changing behaviors

LCE IS

• About the learner• About what the learner needs to do to remain

engaged and excited• Structure within the flow of discussion and

exchange of ideas

LCE is NOT

• About the educator• Lectures with activities added• Based on a pre-written script

Laying the foundation

Setting the learning environment

Learning style preferences

Activate prior learning

Partner interactions

Open questions

Reinforce learning

Adult learning principles

• Environment– Safe– Respectful– Work in small groups

• Information– Personally relevant– Immediately useful

• Style– Engaging– Open-ended questions– Remember learning styles

Activate prior learning and experience

• Why do we activate prior learning?– Link new information to what already know

Which describes how you learn best?

____I learn best when I read and take notes. ____I learn best when I am part of a group

and can discuss information. ____I learn best when I am part of a group and listen to the speaker. ____I learn best when I use a combination of the above.

Learning style preferences

Visual Auditory

Kinesthetic

Do it all

• Incorporate all learning styles into your teaching

• Hear it• Write it• Do it• Say it

Open-ended questions

• Allow for conversation• Let learner reflect and make personal meaning

of new information• Involve thinking • Require active listening by the facilitator

Reinforce the learning

• How can your learners review information in fun, yet meaningful ways?

• How can you improve the odds that they will use the information or skill after they leave you?

Learner-centered approach

• Balance between meeting learner’s need while providing valuable information

Who’s the expert?

• Educator is the expert in information and the experiences of others

• Client is the expert in his/her behavior and life

Dialogue approach

• The delivery of new information combined with opportunities for learners to do something with it– Open question and responses– Conversation– Learners decide the meaning of new information

and importance to them

What

• What is to be taught?• What do participants need to know or know

how to do?

What

• Decide what to leave in and what to leave out!

• We should be teaching half as much in twice the time

• Let go of content!

What will the learners do with the content?

• Link content to an achievement objective– Information they need– What they will do with information– How it will happen

How

• How will the session be designed so that the learners will achieve the objectives?

Learning Tasks

• Anchor

• Add

• Apply

• Away

Anchor

• Ground the topic in the learners’ lives

Add

• Provide new information

Apply

• Have learners do something with the information

Away

• Allow learners to move the information into the future

Comparing teaching approaches – youth vs. adult

Youth Adult Experiential approach Dialogue approach

Do……………………………… Anchor Add Reflect……………………….. Apply Apply…………………………. Apply/Away

Strategies to use

• Open-ended questions• Pros and cons grid• Tell a story• Scale of 0 to 10• Menus and list of choices• Trade-off analysis

Open-ended questions

• What do open-ended questions sound like?

Scenario

• Learners have asked you how to get children to eat more vegetables

• Traditional closed-ended questions– Do you worry about your child not eating

vegetables?– Are you interested in getting your child to eat

more vegetables?

Open-ended questions• Find out if learner recognizes there is a problem

– What might be the benefits of eating the vegetables you are serving your child?

• Find out if learner has any concerns about the issue– What do you worry about when your child doesn’t eat

vegetables?

• Find out learner’s level of intention of changing behaviors– What do you want to know about how to get your child to eat

more vegetables?

• Find out learner’s level of confidence in making changes– We have discussed several ideas to get your child to eat more

vegetables. Which ideas would work for you, and why do you think they would work better than other ideas presented?

Pros and cons grid• Helps learners to consider both sides of

changing behavior • Provides information to facilitator about

obstacles learners face

If I do changeIf I don’t

change?

Pros and cons

• Any change brings positive and negative consequences

• See both sides and determine if pros outweigh cons

• See what will make change work and what will interfere with change

• Always a cost to not changing– Immediate or delayed

Pros and cons scenario

• Pros– If I change

• My child will see me eat vegetables and will try them

– If I don’t change• My child may get sick

more often

• Cons– If I change

• I don’t like vegetables and will gag in front of my child

– If I don’t change• My child won’t learn to

like vegetables

Learners ask how to get children to eat more vegetables.

Proposed change-be a role model and eat vegetable yourself.

Tell a story

• Creates a safe situation to get responses• Use open-ended questions to get discussion

started• Make questions specific to learners’ needs

Tell a story

• Mrs. Smith serves soda pop with lunch and dinner. Both she and her children have cavities, are overweight and don’t drink enough milk.

Suggested open-ended questions– What else could she serve as a drink with meals?– What might happen if she continues not to serve

milk with meals?

Scale of 0 to 10

• Can use to get learners to react to an idea or suggestion that doesn’t reveal personal information

• Not appropriate with all cultures• Alternate-offer 3 points-the ends and one

middle point• Always • Sometimes• Never

Scale of 0 to 10

• Present a situation or suggest a behavior to the group• Ask group to think about how they would rate their

response on a scale of 0 (least) to 10 (most)– Responses provide answers that support change or describe

barriers• Explore why someone may have answered a lower or

higher number– On a scale of 0 to 10, someone could have answered a

lower/higher number. – Why do you think she may not give a lower/higher number?

Menus and list of choices

• Provide list of possible suggestions • Learners look at list and select one or more

choices to consider• Encourages learners to work as a team

– Here are some ideas about healthy drinks to offer children. Which one would you choose? How much would you give?

Trade-off analysis

• Ask questions that allow for dialogue about what are the trade-offs to change

• Use open-ended questions – What might happen if _______?– What other reasons________?– What will you do if________?– How will you handle the situation if______?

Let’s practice

The power of the visual

• Why use visuals?– Help learners by adding graphic organizers

Facilitation skills

• Waiting

• Affirming

• Weaving

Our goal

Invite learners to make meaning and form new ideas, skills and behaviors to fit into their own context

Our role

To teach, not to tell

Concerns

• Keeping dialogue on track• Handling misinformation

* Be sure to create an environment of acceptance and respect

Keeping dialogue on track

• Frequent summarization of the learners’ comments can assure dialogue continues to closure

• Summarization statements– Let’s review what has been mentioned so far.– In summary, we can say that most of you think…– I think I have heard you agree to the following…– Many of you have different opinions. Let’s take a

moment to review these.

What else?

• What are some other statements that can be used to begin a discussion summary?

Be sure to create an environment of acceptance and respect

Handling misinformation-Affirm, add, and move on

• Affirm person that made erroneous comment – Thank you for bringing that up since lots of people

think that.

• Give concise response – New research has shown that…

• Move on by reaffirming the learner and getting back to the discussion

Handling misinformation

• Traditionally we used to teach that_______• Now we know more about________• Other research has found________• We can discuss that later because the rest of

the group wants to move on

Let’s reflect…

Discussion questions

• Describe the experience of teaching using the dialogue approach.

• What goals do you have?

• What concerns do you have?

• What are your questions?

Putting it together

• What other information do you need to allow you to implement facilitated dialogue?

• What additional information that you would like to have?

Sharing

References

• Norris, Joye (2003). From Telling to Teaching: A Dialogue Approach to Adult Learning. North Myrtle Beach, SC: Learning by Dialogue.

• Sigman-Grant, M. (2004). Let’s Dance. Facilitated Dialogue Basics; A Self-Study Guide for Nutrition Educators. University of Nevada Cooperative Extension.