Setting the Scene for Success - Video Transcript
This segment is about setting the scene for learners in the environment. It’s very important that when a learner enters the environment that you actually understand who is the learner, and why are they there. It’s as simple as having a conversation with your student or the client on the first day to understand what is it they want from you and also what do you want from them. My advice would be to lay it on the table – what are the expectations? So, for example if you work within a particular health care environment, you could say to the student - the expectations in this environment of you on any given day is that we expect you to be polite, we expect you to be punctual, we expect you to ask questions, we expect you to demonstrate particular types of behaviours and then to provide the rational for that. Often our healthcare environments are quite specific and we have these unwritten rules or these unwritten behaviours that we expect of anybody new coming into the environment will have an understanding of and often that’s not the case. So, please be very specific, and very honest about - what do you really want from the learner in this environment? Then in return, you can have a conversation with the student or the learner about – what do they want from you? They may want you to ask them questions in a particular way. They may want you to provide them with a particular type of environment. They may want you to become more familiar with their learning styles. So again, laying on the table or putting it out there – what are your expectations? What are the expectations of learners? It will make it much easier for you to flow into learning and teaching conversations.
Another point or other points to consider are – have a think about – what does learning mean to you? But, also – what does teaching mean to you? Often these learners turn up into the workplace and were expected or automatically engage in these learning and teaching behaviours without really having an understanding about what it is that’s going on. So, I guess it’s now time to think about – what is learning and what is teaching, and what is your philosophy? Then you can almost set the scene, I guess, for any learner to enter your environment.