they look synonyms, but I tend to interpret them as,
Teach:- more of hand-on and hand-holding exercise of walking through examples/case-studies.
Lecture :- more of an exposition or ways/means to approach, interpret, handle a particular subject (more of directive, guidance)
and answer could also be "it depends"!!!
i keep receiving this feedback...some one says faster-pace; more case studies!
etc.,
apart from demographic spread of experience, & interact on topic; I was wondering if that is to with my style of facilitating the sessions...
my query, is how to handle a training session on new topic for on-the-job training on new concepts and training for scientific community.
any guidance.
I've been helping folks LEARN for more years than most of our Cove readers have been alive. In my experience, folks who want to be successful at helping folks learn try to avoid using terms which reinforce the difference in demographics and culture between instructor and student. Smart business folks have learned to be "customer-centric" to increase acceptability of goods and services by their target prospects.
Similarly, would-be teachers MUST consider the students as customers and work toward becoming more customer-centric and individualized in dealing with students rather than treating them as some "great unwashed mob of semi-literates."
Over the last 50 years, I've dealt with students ranging from those who could not read or write ANY language to those who have even more advanced degrees than I, literate and fluent in three or four languages. I find the most critical factor in helping these students achieve competency in the particular topic under consideration is helping them find a reason (emotional or logical) to WANT TO LEARN. Each student may have a different reason; without that reason, there is little motive to accept the knowledge placed at the student's disposal. Without acceptance, the teacher may as well be dealing with a room full of cardboard cutouts with the same resultant penetration of knowledge.
Especially when dealing with folks who are already highly educated, the surest turnoff is to go over ground most of the students may have more academic and practical knowledge about than the instructor. Yet, time after time, I have monitored so-called "training sessions" where, for example, the facilitator, reading from a text and mispronouncing many of the words, was trying to teach basic kitchen hygiene to a conference of registered dieticians. It demonstrated two major errors:
- an unnecessary course
- an ill-trained, ill-prepared instructor.
Needless to say, it was a complete debacle, with the "facilitator" being booed off the platform after ten minutes of a scheduled forty minute program.
