1. The act of teaching by the teacher with the responsibility of making sure your student has learned what you taught.
2. The act of learning by the student with the responsibility of putting your hand up if you have any confusion to get clarity from your teacher.
Below is a step by step breakdown of this process:
1. Make sure your student has their notebook out before you start: The student may be so focused, nervous, apprehensive, or overwhelmed that they will not be thinking of that amazing tool right off the bat. It is in your best interest to help them start strong at the beginning of every lesson or teachable moment.
2. Carefully explain every detail of the operation. When in doubt, go with the who, what, when, where, and most importantly, why: Keep in mind that seemingly minor things that feel like second nature to you because you have been doing them for 3+ years are likely to be mystifying to the person you are training...cut no corners.
3. Ask them to explain the lesson in their own words: This is the only way to know that they truly understand what you have explained. "Do you understand?" followed by "Yeah" tells you nothing. We will not accept "they said yeah" as an answer when I ask if the person you trained really understood what you were trying to explain. NEVER assume! Make sure they get the entire lesson correct. If they’re almost there, do not assume they are all the way there.
4. Set a scheduled time in your Google calendar the following week to ask the trainee about it again: Spending 3 minutes a week later to have them explain the lesson again will help them lock it in their lexicon. This will ALWAYS save you time and trouble in the future.
1. Notes are to be taken on everything you learn and they are always to be handwritten. This is non-negotiable and I will not explain in my own words why...this guy does it better:
2. Don't be afraid to ask someone to repeat or slow down if they are going too fast for you. I have no problem spending extra time while I am teaching a lesson to make sure it has truly sunk in. I don't know a teacher who has the patience for finding out 3 weeks later that someone doesn't understand something because the student did not have the comfort to say...SLOW DOWN!
3. No one knows what you don't know but you. NEVER just knee jerk respond that you understand something. Take a second to think about it and thoughtfully respond. If you say you understand when you don't, it will eventually bite you in the ass.
4. You have not really learned it until you can repeat it back (or teach it). If you are not beyond 100% ridiculously confident that you have a full, strong grasp on what you are being taught, and don't know what questions to ask to figure out where your understanding gap is; ask this one simple question: "Can I please explain that back to you?" Your trainer will immediately know where your gap is when you miss a critical point and then they can then figure out how to fix it.
These teaching and learning methods are non-negotiable. You probably noticed that there are a lot of mirrored points above; this is not an accident. At Barmetrix, we fully believe that the split in responsibility between trainer and trainee is 100% / 100%. The ultimate impact of this is below:
Trainees: If you don't understand something and someone has spent the time to teach it to you, it will be unacceptable to answer "no" when I ask if you covered all of the points under On Learning.