Last week I talked about the shift to experiential learning and the vast benefits "learning by doing" has to participant-facing training. Now let's discuss a concept called empowered skills.
Notice that I often include education when we are talking about training. You might think these two words are synonymous, but not exactly. So, why do organizations need to consider these two words as separate elements in a caregiver training program?
As we defined earlier, training is teaching a particular skill. In our steps for an effective program, we encouraged you to think beyond skill-building. To educate is to bring forth what is already within.
What if we first focus on supporting people in realizing the strengths and knowledge they already hold within? This is the definition of empowerment. Once a person feels empowered in their role or in the ability to complete a task, continued learning and skill-building becomes more digestible.
One might say that to think about this is to ask if your training program allows caregivers to understand the why behind tasks or a specific action.
In reviewing the benefits of experiential learning, it's safe to say that adding elements of this style supports a shift to ensuring an organization's training program includes a critical piece that is often the missing core element to effectiveness: empowerment.
When we add the education component, or "the why" of experiential learning, we reframe quality measures to evaluate effectiveness.
Here's an easy-to-digest checklist that will help you evaluate your training program's effectiveness and quality:
In my next blog, I'll review how to evaluate best practices to assess the impact of your education and training program routinely.