The training of children:  They want to be entertained.  You can put substance in a training session as long as they don’t recognize it and it doesn’t interfere with the fun.  The main idea IS fun.  But they will gladly learn while they laugh, and when they laugh, their retention level rises.  The harder they laugh, the longer they remember.

The training of adults:  They want to be educated (or at least they say that) but they learn more and retain more when it is tied to an enjoyable experience (entertainment).  They know when they are being entertained, and when they understand the objectives, they more willingly participate for their own enjoyment.

Curriculum for children:  It must be focused on a single objective.  Teach them one thing at a time.  Reinforce, repeat, change modes, reinforce, repeat.  Now make that stimulating and fun, and you have a winning curriculum.  (You DID choose the right objective, didn’t you?)

Curriculum for adults:  We often forget that adults, just like children, have a particular learning style in which they best capture new information.  If the adult doesn’t get the information in their learning style, it doesn’t mean the information is lost, but it certainly doesn’t have a solid foot hold yet.  The tricky part of adult training is to repeat the information in multiple learning styles without making the information sound repetitive.  So the pace, presentation, and position of the data needs to be varied.  Using entertaining training makes the repetition more enjoyable, and promotes better retention of the information.

by Ron Mohr / Compute Made Easy