From Telling to Teaching
A Dialogue Approach to Adult Learning
Karen Sherbondy, RD., LD.
Different teaching method
• Learner-centered education
• Hands-on activities
• Participants actively engaged
in learning
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
Reinforce learning
Partner interactions
Open questions
Learning style preferences
Activate prior learning
Setting the learning environment
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
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 questions
• Allow for conversation
• Let learner reflect and make personal meaning
of new information
• What do open-ended questions sound like?
Scenario
• You are presenting a lesson about
sweetened beverages to a group of new
mothers
• Traditional closed-ended question:
– Is there any problem with your child drinking soda
pop when he/she asks for one?
Open-ended questions
• Find out if learner recognizes there is a problem
– What are some of the problems in giving your child soda
pop whenever he/she asks for it?
• Find out if learner has any concerns about the issue
– What concerns you about your child drinking sweetened
drinks?
• Find out learner’s level of confidence in making
changes
– Which ideas make you believe you could give your child
water instead of soda pop?
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 learner 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
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
An interactive
adult curriculum
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Let’s put it all together
Here we go!!