This page provides information to help trainers apply principles of adult learning in their work with infant/toddler caregivers, home visitors, parents, and staff from community agencies. This area of the Web site is divided into two sections:

1) Strategies - ideas that typically focus on the process or the "how to" of conducting training in a variety of training situations, and

2) Tips - suggestions that are designed to assist trainers with developing workshop sessions on specific content or topics.

The Staff Development section of Resources provides articles and annotations related to training infant/family personnel. This information offers an approach to working with practitioners in infant/family programs that is based on principles of adult learning.

This section also offers a listing of Training Resources on the Web.

Strategies

Networking Activity - A Short Walk in Somebody Else’s Shoes

This activity can be used as a warm-up or ice-breaker at the beginning of a training session:

  • First hand out note cards with the following questions on them (or make up your own questions relevant to your training and the group you are working with):

    1. What is your name?
    2. What agency/organization do you work for?
    3. What community do you work in?
    4. What is your professional title?
    5. What kinds of family concerns, needs, and interests do you encounter in your work?
    6. What is the best thing about your job?
    7. What is the hardest thing about your job?

  • Divide the group into four teams. Each team goes to a different corner of the room. The trainer may need to even out the numbers on each team.

  • Have participants walk across the room diagonally and meet someone that they have not met before.

  • Each participants asks the other the questions on the card.

  • Reassemble as a whole group, and each participant introduces the person they interviewed, giving: name, agency, type of work, and what was learned about their work that was most interesting to the interviewer.

    • Developing a Training Strategy

    Reflecting on the Art of Teaching
    by G. Gordon Williamson

    The role of "trainer" does not always come naturally ­ but it is a skill that can be developed. In this article, Williamson discusses the adult learning literature and describes the four basic models of learning ­ feeling, thinking and analyzing, doing or practicing, and watching or reflecting. Trainers need to be aware of their own preferred learning style and provide their audience with a variety of techniques to appeal to adults with different learning styles. Seven guidelines provide a foundation for preparing effective presentations:

    • Teach to your strengths;
    • Clarify teaching goals;
    • Know the audience;
    • Set the right tone;
    • Develop good handouts;
    • Develop a "tight" presentation structure; and
    • Design a format to support the structure.

    Williamson elaborated on a format to guide presentations including, ice­breakers, previews and recaps, changes of pace and activity, case­studies, visual aids, and audience questions. As a tool for developing effective teaching strategies, this article emphasizes that how we teach is as important as what we teach.

    This article can be found in Educating and Supporting the Infant/Family Work Force: Models, methods, and materials (1995). Zero to Three/National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Families, Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 41­45.

    Using Readings in Training

    Often training participants who come to training sessions work long hours and have to attend to many other responsibilities. They simply do not have time to do a lot of reading in preparation for the training. Yet reading material may help training participants focus on key concepts, especially if followed up by group discussion. One technique for introducing reading material into training is called a jigsaw. This technique involves dividing up the reading material among several small groups of training participants. Each small group is responsible for reading a small portion of the total amount of material, discussing that section, and reporting back to the large group. After every small group reports back, the large group has been exposed to the entire set of reading materials. This type of exposure to reading material often motivates training participants to refer back either to the material they read or to the material they heard about from other members of the large group.

    Tips

    Some Thoughts on Teaching Adults
    The Program for Infant/Toddler Caregivers

    1. Adults learn complex tasks and concepts by doing them, then reflecting and dialoging about them.

    2. Teaching/learning relationships are built in small groups over time.

    3. Teaching/learning partnerships are based on mutual respect.

    4. Adult learners need to take initiative, make choices among possibilities, act and react.

    5. Learners should be doing more talking than their teachers.

    6. Ask questions to which you genuinely do not know the answers.

    7. Acknowledge, respect and allow time for discussion of varied approaches relating to children.

    8. Be clear about your goals and expectations.

    9. Assist your learners to set their own goals.

    10. Pay attention to the needs of learners

    11. Valuing diversity includes not always having the last word.

    12. People need both support and challenge to grow.

    13. Reaction to strong feelings can be handled with reflective writing.

    14. No matter what or how you teach, learners will respond in diverse ways.

    15. Learning is a risky business; the environment needs to feel safe.

     

    Sources:
    Jones, E. (1993). Growing teachers: Partnerships in staff development. Washington, DC: National Association of the Education of Young Children.

    Jones, E. (1986). Teaching adults, an active learning approach. Washington, DC: National Association of the Education of Young Children.

    Small Group Exercise - Responding to the Needs of the Whole Child in Caregiving Routines

    Adapted from Abraham Maslow, Motivation and Personality (New York: Harder and Row) p.72. Contributed by Kate Roper, Child Care Careers Institute, Boston, MA, Member of the Heart Start Network.

    One danger we face in group care setting with infants and toddlers is that routine caregiving activities can become rushed and automatic. When we hurry through caregiving routines we can miss many opportunities to bond with children and to promote learning and self-esteem.

    Abraham Maslow’s work on human motivation describes different levels of human needs from basic/survival needs to needs related to social and emotional growth. We can use Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as a tool to assess how we can respond to the "whole child" in a caregiving environment.

    Each small group of participants (4-5 people) will choose a different caregiving activity (feeding, diapering, napping, toileting, etc.) to work on. Each group will then present highlights of their small group discussion to the whole group.

    Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

    Level 5
    Self-Actualization. Needs that relate to achievement and self-expression, to realize one’s fullest potential

    Level 4
    Acceptance. Need to feel accepted, and appreciated, and to have status

    Level 3
    Love, Belonging. Needs that relate to love, affection, care, attention, and a sense of belonging

    Level 2
    Security. Needs to feel safe and secure

    Level 1
    Basic Needs. Needs that are essential body needs: food, water, air, sleep, bodily functions.

    Give each group a work sheet to record their ideas. List the names of the group members, the age of the children they work with, and identify a particular caregiving activity or routine to discuss. Answer the following:

    How do you meet the needs of individual children in your group when planning for and carrying out this activity/routine?

    Level 1- Physical needs:

    Level 2- Safety and security needs:

    Level 3- Need for love and belonging:

    Level 4- Need for acceptance (respect) and self-esteem:

    Level 5- Need for confidence, challenge, self-expression:

    Select one member of the small group to report back to the large group the key ideas that were discussed.

    A Training Technique for Parenting Education

    A training technique that has been useful in parenting education programs is a technique called "talking through the baby". This practice is when the adult facilitator gives the child a voice by actually speaking as the baby to communicate a need to the parent. "Talking through the baby" is an effective way to communicate to the parent about how they are interacting with the child, without sounding critical or causing the parent to become defensive. It is primarily used to help the parent read the child’s cues and respond in a contingent manner. With this technique, the baby becomes the teacher, and the trainer is able to take a less directive role. Parents develop respect and empathy for their infants as individuals, and are better able to meet their child’s emotional needs.

    This technique has been used when parents and infants are participating together in parent-child activities, and the facilitator is able to interact with individual dyads. Home-visitors might find this technique useful in working with individual families.

    A unique parenting education curriculum, the Partners in Parenting Education (PIPE) program, utilizes this technique with adolescent parents to strengthen the parent-child relationship and foster the social and emotional development of infants. For a detailed description of the PIPE program and curriculum, please visit the Resources section of our web site under Family Development.

    Training Resources on the Web

    The following links offer further resources related to training, adult education, and staff/family development. To recommend additional Web sites for this list, please leave a message in the Guest Book.

    Training Options ( www.trainingoptions.com )
    This site was developed to provide training resources related to all aspects of early childhood development. Located on this site is a national directory of trainers where you can search by topic, individual, and location. Specific training programs and strategies are featured, as well as links to organizations providing training publications and materials.

    Berkeley’s Teaching Tips
    ( gopher://infocal.berkley.edu:70/00.p/otherdepts/ttips/source.nd )
    This site provides over 200 tips to enhance adult teaching strategies submitted by professors at the University of California, Berkeley, who have been recipients of the Distinguished Teaching Award. The tips were created in the context of teaching in the college classroom, but are applicable to a wide variety of learning environments and training goals. For example, there are tips on facilitating a small group process, handling participants who monopolize the conversation, and encouraging more group participation.

    National Parent Information Network ( http://npin.org )
    This site provides resources for parents and for those working with parents. The section for staff working with parents highlights books, general resources, innovative programs, and related organizations.