“Learner Centered, Performance Based” is the theme of the book Telling Ain’t Training. The book is written by Harold D. Stolovitch and Erica J. Keeps and published by the American Society for Training and Development. The book is about why training fails, what makes training successful and how you and your learners can achieve astonishing results.
A few weeks ago I encouraged you to look into developing your platform skills to make yourself a better speaker and presenter. The concepts in this book address another critical area trainers need to explore to better serve our officers and that is the area of adult education. There is a wealth of knowledge available regarding the field of adult learning and some key aspects are address in this book.
There are some very good instructor development programs such as the California POST Master Instructor program developed by Jim Fraser that do an excellent job of educating law enforcement trainers about the world of providing training to adults in a manner most likely to actually result in learning.
I would recommend you get a copy of Telling Ain’t Training and take your time in digesting the material inside. It is easy to write it off and say “that won’t work with cops”. It will if it is thought out and delivered properly. We all need to find ways to make classroom training especially, more interactive.
Another great resource is Richard H. Neil Sr.’s book Police Instructor: Deliver Dynamic Presentations, Create Engaging Slides and Increase Active Learning. Neil suffered an extremely serious career ending injury during an arrest and has chosen to continue to serve the law enforcement profession through his role as a trainer. Neil’s book is full of practical ideas and exercises on interactive learning activities that Neil has used with law enforcement officers. While many are targeted at the recruit level they can be easily adapted for in-service training. There are a lot of great take aways from this book. For a limited time you can take advantage of a 25% discount off the price of the book. Use Discount Code:ZL5A5762 at their CreateSpace store (powered by Amazon). The code will be active until February.
This is just a starting point but if you combine these two books with Garr Reynolds Presentation Zen you will be well on your way.
Take care.
Brian Willis
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