“The presentation was riveting.  No one dared blink so as to not miss what was going on.”If this was a comment about a training session, it sounds like it went very well, very well indeed.  Training courses normally don’t elicit such high praise, especially computer training courses.  So, it went well, everyone stayed awake and liked what they saw.But was the training successful?Now what kind of question is that?  Didn’t you read the responses of the students?  They loved the training.  It was great.  Of course it was successful.O.K. then, what were the objectives of the training course?Objectives?  Uh, I’m not sure.Unfortunately, we don’t seem to ask the right questions before we put ‘effective’ training in place.  The reason the training session occurred at all (hopefully) is to meet a need or deficiency.  So, was the training set up to meet the need or just set up because there was a need?  Asking the right questions before the session begins can greatly improve the outcome.Now keeping the audience awake is a good thing.  Most students don’t learn nearly as well when their head is on their notebook (either paper or electronic).  So keeping them awake and attentive is vital for learning to occur.  Entertainment is a realistic way to keep the eyeballs open.  But is the objective to keep them awake and attentive, or to give them information they need?  So the million (OK, thousand) dollar question; can you teach students technology by entertaining them?  I believe the answer is a resounding YES.  In fact, the more entertaining the training, the better chance the student has at retaining the question.  So why all the questions at the beginning of this paper?  It all has to do with objectives.  The objective is to train the student.  The method can be anything effective.  It just turns out humor/entertainment is a very effective tool for training.  It ranks just above shock therapy.  The entertainment is not the problem in the training alluded to at the beginning of this article.  The issue is the purpose of the entertainment.Are the students being entertained for attention or retention?  That’s the fundamental question needing to be asked in any training session where humor is a major part of training.  Why does the humor exist?  The very nature of training is to create an atmosphere where the transfer of learning is at its most efficient.  People go to training to learn something they didn’t know.  And the effectiveness of the training is measured by what they learned that they didn’t know.And this gets to the most important part of any training class, measurement.  The only way to be sure learning took place is to have a measurable objective to see if the learning transfer happened.  Hopefully there will be a number of objectives to be met by the class.  These objectives are the whole reason to have the training.  The objectives should speak directly to the problem or need that prompted the training to be scheduled.  So first the need is assessed, then objectives are created to meet the need.  After that, a training course is selected or developed to deliver the objectives, then the students learning is measured to see if the objectives are met.It all sounds pretty dry, which is why humor and entertainment are vital for a positive learning experience.  Learning is tied to emotions.  The more emotional the student is about a subject, the more solidly it will be imprinted on their mind.  So rather than scare the information into them, humor is a less litigationally intensive training method.  In other words, people are less likely to sue you for having fun while they learn.Is entertainment necessary in training?  No, it doesn’t have to be entertaining at all.  Is training more effective when entertainment is appropriately used?  Yes, considerably so.  And now the final question.  Does training work better when it’s funny?  It would be nice to be able to say ‘Yes’, but the real question again needs to speak to why the class existed.  Does properly defined training with clearly stated and measurable objectives work better with humor?  Yes, if the humor is tied to the objectives.  That’s what you pay for in quality training.  Know how to use entertainment to meet measurable objectives.Remember, just because they laughed and stayed awake doesn’t mean they’re smarter.  But if the class is built correctly, they’ll learn and laugh and retain what they learned.

by Ron Mohr / Compute Made Easy