Skip to main content

Less yakking, more skiing

According to PSIA people learn 10% of what they hear, 40% of what they see and 80% of what they do. So why do instructors spend so much time doing something that doesn’t really stick?

Instructors complain frequently about trainers talking too much and then we turn around talk too much to our students. The cycle of too much yakking must cease!

I don’t need to know the when, why, how, where and what of the whole lesson at the beginning. Only tell me what I need to know right now. “Try this” is one of the best ways to start a lesson. Then add in the why, pepper in some how and keep the show moving with when.

Keep tweaking your script to make it tighter and punchier, especially when you’re teaching something new. If you spend less time rambling, you can spend more time practicing.

If you spend less time explaining, you’ll have can spend time giving individual coaching. You can have a more lasting and beneficial effect on your students and give way better customer service.

You will find people who want lots of explanation, get them to ride the chair with you. You will have people who zone out, engage them by asking questions and doing static activities during your explanations.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

VAK - Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic

Visual learners These students learn best by watching and imitating others. The following guidelines are helpful when teaching visual learners. • Ski well-executed demonstrations that illustrate the point. Be careful not to exaggerate and destroy the picture of good skiing. • Target the students’ attention to a certain part of your body or to particular movements.

Learning Styles – Doers, Feelers, Thinkers, Watchers

A learning style is the way a person’s sensory, perceptual, memorial, decision-making, and feedback mechanisms operate. Or more simply, the preferred technique to approach learning. Some students have a dominant style and others are comfortable in more than one. PSIA references different theories on learning styles, this is a classic one. Doers Values active experimentation Pragmatic, practical, functional Good problem solvers, work well with others Constantly active, doesn’t like being idle and gets frustrated with too much talking Learn by experimenting, trial and error Instructor should provide experiences that will guide the child Experiential learning is an effective method for all students

Ski good or eat wood

Ski good or eat wood. That’s only one of two mottos for White Grizzly Adventures , a cat skiing operation based in tiny Meadow Creek, British Columbia.  The other motto is considerably less family-friendly. I was a little excited to see the lodge sign... I should say, this was my first time ever cat skiing – it’s quite the splurge but can truly make a ski vacation a vacation – no worries, just lotsa skiing and eating (yes, we had sushi for lunch in the snowcat one day!). Appetizers.  Seriously.  The first question Carole asked when I called to give them my credit card - I’d already filled out about 3 pages of forms online! - was whether I’m an expert skier.  Did I know they ski steep, tight trees most of the time?  Did that sound fun?  Am I fit enough to ski a whole day without getting exhausted and increasing my chance of injury?  Um, yeah!!!  Epitome of a 'tree bomb'. Without a lot of wind, snow piles at the top of trees can be a problem. These stumps were more p