Maybe I have too much time on my hands, but I recently tooka birding course. Exciting, huh? The four-hour course, offered by the Rookery Bay Reserve in Naples, Florida, wasterrific. I learned a lot about birds, but not in the way you might think.
Class time: Focus on tools
The first 90 minutes took place in a classroom. During thefirst hour, our instructor, Randy, said very little about the birds we mightsee. There was no slide presentation of the birds of southwest Florida. Instead,he talked about tools.
First, he demonstrated different types of binoculars—whatworks and what doesn’t, what to look for when buying, and how to operate them. Afterall, said Randy, “if you can’t see the birds, what’s the point?”
After about 30 minutes, Randy shifted to another tool, thebirding field guide. These are books that provide information on birds and helpyou identify them. There were several field guides, and while each was designedto fit in your pocket, they were markedly different. Some were text-heavy, somehad photos, while others had line drawings. A few of the guides had extensiveindices and others had extensive maps. We learned how to use the guides andunderstood that each of them had pluses and minuses. We selected a guide topractice with that initially seemed right for us.
Only after we were comfortable with these two essentialtools did Randy show us some pictures of birds. But his purpose here was also relatedto the tools. He highlighted different features to look for (e.g., characteristics,habits, size). He specifically told us not to be concerned with their namesjust yet.
So almost half the class was gone and I hadn’t identified asingle bird. What was going on here? Actually, quite a lot. Whether he knew itor not, Randy was leveraging performance support within a training program. Italked about this in a prior column; Randy was putting it all into practice. Why was this so important?
First, without a fundamental understanding of the tools ofbirding, how could we be expected to see or identify anything later? Sure,through trial and error we might have figured it all out, if we didn’t give upout of frustration. Randy, both an SME and an outstanding instructor,recognized this.
Field work: More focus on tools
Figure 1: Your humble columnist spiesa blue heron. Or is it a great egret? Time to check my field guide.
But we were not done. The rest of the course was in thefield, at a bird sanctuary (Figure 1). If you were in the course and thoughtRandy was going to point out birds to us and tell us what they were, you would havebeen very disappointed.
The first thing Randy told us to do was find a bird. When wefound one, he then asked us what it was. “Don’t ask me; use your field guides,”he told us. “Narrow down your possibilities by characteristics, habits, andsize. What bird do you think it is?” Pure deductive teaching. We sharedbinoculars and field guides to find the best tools for each of us. Within ahalf-hour, we were identifying birds all over the place, with increasingaccuracy.
Randy gave us a checklist of birds common to the area andasked us to check off as many as we could identify with reasonable certainty. Hehelped us, but only if we asked. By the end of the course I had identified morethan a dozen.
I began to think about whether I needed an instructor at all.A little eLearning, a good set of binoculars, and a well-designed field guidemight be all that’s needed. But I quickly realized Randy had another purpose,one that he was uniquely suited to provide. Throughout the four hours, in theclassroom and in the field, Randy encouraged us with his love of birding andthe joy of finding a new bird all by ourselves. He motivated us more thantaught us, and, combined with a focus on tools and self-discovery learning, myfirst birding course was truly exciting. No one was more surprised about thisthan me.
At the end of our course, I asked Randy if he had anyspecial training in performance support or instructional design. “Huh?” hesaid. I explained what I did for a living, and his response was classic. Heappreciated that I noticed his technique but said that it all came fromexperience, peer mentoring, and common sense. He told me that he’s sat throughhis fair share of lectures and never-ending PowerPoint slides, and figured outquickly what not to do.
Sometimes, the right way to teach is not to teach in thetraditional sense, but to provide guidance in using the right tools(performance support) and then help learners to succeed on their own. Sequenceis important; get the tools right and the rest is a whole lot easier. Randyknew this. We all know this. But are we doingit?
Afinal note: Like this birding course, sometimes we find extraordinary“training” in the places we least expect it, like a bartending course that was a true delight. Try looking outside the (corporate) box!
