The Hints for Choosing Learning Methods and Media

Remember the last time you went traveling for vacation? Maybe the first thing you did was picking a destination. Then you would find the best way to get to that place, whether it’s by plane, bus, or driving. When you had figured it out, all you need to do next would be planning and preparing your schedule and activities before you go.

If you didn’t pick a destination first, obviously you wouldn’t know where to go, let alone choosing the best transportation mode or preparing your activities. Just like that, when you’re choosing learning methods and media for training, you also need to know where to go first.

That’s why, first and foremost, you need to determine your training objective before you can choose the appropriate methods and media for your session. Bloom’s Taxonomy divided educational learning objectives into three levels, that is affective, cognitive and psychomotor. With that in mind, now you can ask yourself, “what is the goal of the training?”.

If you have established your goal according to Bloom’s Taxonomy, you can choose an appropriate method or mix some methods to achieve it. For example, when you’re trying to achieve lower-cognitive level objective like the ability to name office’s departments, you can use lecture and some sort of individualised-learning method. Meanwhile, if you’re aiming for psychomotor level, like ability to operate computer or making Powerpoint presentation, you should involve your trainees more in practices and performances.

At the same time, you should also consider the right media to deliver your training. With today’s technology, you might want to choose only online media to do your training more efficiently. However, not every objective can be achieved with online means, because some activities need to involve face-to-face interaction and real life training.

For example, you need to go with the real deal when you’re learning how to drive or to operate heavy machinery. As stated before, when you’re trying to achieve psychomotor level objectives, you need to use offline media because you should involve your participants in practices and performances. Meanwhile, when you’re learning how to play guitar, you can use online materials and do it yourself at home in addition to an offline course.

In conclusion, you should first determine your training objective in order to choose your learning methods. After that, you need to also consider online or offline media to deliver your training. Actually, it is heavily recommended to mix both medium in training.

While finding the most effective learning methods and media for you, you may also want to learn more about the world of training from flip.co.id, and don’t forget to also scroll over to the PLAYbyFLIP contents!

Sources:

1. Arkansas State University. (2019). Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy: Cognitive, Affective,
   and Psychomotor. Link: https://www.astate.edu/dotAsset/7a3b152c-b73a-45d6-b8a3-
   7ecf7f786f6a.pdf
2. Robert Gordon University Aberdeen. (1998). Tertiary-Level Teaching. Link:
   http://www2.rgu.ac.uk/celt/pgcerttlt/selecting/select24.htm