Teaching your staff

jherman · Feb 15, 2001

OK Dolfin, you owe me big as this is the second time I'm typing this in.

My favorite analogy for adult learning involves Coca Cola. Easily 80% of the people in the world know about Coke and can recognize the red and white waves, yet Coke spends HUGE amounts of time and money on advertising. This for a simple product that tastes good and has a little caffiene kick to boot. They use SIGHT (red and white waves) ACTION (people enjoying Coke), SOUND ( jingles, slogans, the hissing sound of a can opening), TACTILE (showing a cold can of Coke "sweating" do you can actually imagine what it feels like in your hand.

So why does nursing expect nurses to learn complex policies and procedures from one meeting shown just one way?

Most Important--Be Redundant-- The rule of thumb in advertising is that your message must be seen/heard at least 6 times before it sticks. (Becomes sticky)

Send your message using as many channels as possible. ie. face to face, posters, interactive software. If you can get taste, touch and smell in there all the better.

Repetition is NOT redundancy. Redundancy restates the message in different ways until every one "gets it" ie. Read a poster, Watch a Video, Listen to a tape, give a return demonstration.

Redundancy improves memorability and enhances enjoyment.

Organize your message for impact-- Know the goal and purpose of your message.

Eliminate extraneous information. Put your most important points first and last (Primacy, recentcy). Group information into catagories. Don't mix topics in the same session.

Make your audience participants--use games, who wants to be a millionaire, scavenger hunts, etc. Have influential members of your staff prepare and teach sessions.

Break information into approx. 7 bits. That's all most people can absorb at one time ie. phone numbers.

The message has to make sense, otherwise people won't stop to figure it out.

Answer the question WIIFM-What's in it for me? If you can figure this out the message will become sticky.

Hope this helps

dolfinwind · Feb 16, 2001

Originally posted by jherman:
OK Dolfin, you owe me big as this is the second time I'm typing this in.

My favorite analogy for adult learning involves Coca Cola. Easily 80% of the people in the world know about Coke and can recognize the red and white waves, yet Coke spends HUGE amounts of time and money on advertising. This for a simple product that tastes good and has a little caffiene kick to boot. They use SIGHT (red and white waves) ACTION (people enjoying Coke), SOUND ( jingles, slogans, the hissing sound of a can opening), TACTILE (showing a cold can of Coke "sweating" do you can actually imagine what it feels like in your hand.

So why does nursing expect nurses to learn complex policies and procedures from one meeting shown just one way?

Most Important--Be Redundant-- The rule of thumb in advertising is that your message must be seen/heard at least 6 times before it sticks. (Becomes sticky)
Send your message using as many channels as possible. ie. face to face, posters, interactive software. If you can get taste, touch and smell in there all the better.

Repetition is NOT redundancy. Redundancy restates the message in different ways until every one "gets it" ie. Read a poster, Watch a Video, Listen to a tape, give a return demonstration.

Redundancy improves memorability and enhances enjoyment.

Organize your message for impact-- Know the goal and purpose of your message.
Eliminate extraneous information. Put your most important points first and last (Primacy, recentcy). Group information into catagories. Don't mix topics in the same session.

Make your audience participants--use games, who wants to be a millionaire, scavenger hunts, etc. Have influential members of your staff prepare and teach sessions.

Break information into approx. 7 bits. That's all most people can absorb at one time ie. phone numbers.
The message has to make sense, otherwise people won't stop to figure it out.

Answer the question WIIFM-What's in it for me? If you can figure this out the message will become sticky.

Hope this helps

Thank YOU very much jherman!

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