Tenet 4 Learner-Centered Talkabouts

Okay, so let’s chat about our last Core Tenet – Learner-Centered Talkabouts. Now, it’s kind of difficult to pick just one of these Core Tenets as a favorite or the most important. So I won’t say this is more important than the others. BUT – this Core Tenet is about what we present to the learner…this is what they see and how they feel when they listen to us or watch a video. It has to be all about them. If you pick out the filet mignon, you present the Why Behind the What, and you find those linchpins and connections – but you talk to them like they’re beneath you or like you’re some high-and-mighty professor, it will completely shut down their willingness to learn.

So, where did this term “talkabouts” come from? It’s inspired by the idea of walkabouts in Australia – just wandering the wilderness. But for us, it’s this idea of just walking with someone and chatting. Imagine if you were to go for a walk in the woods with a friend. You would be talking, right? But, you wouldn’t be lecturing them, or talking down to them. You wouldn’t be giving a 3-point message on a topic important to you. Right? You’d just be casually chatting. It’s a back and forth, it’s down-to-earth, it’s human! So for us, the idea of learner-centered talkabouts means that we teach as though the learner was right there with us and we’re just explaining the concept to a friend. We talk them through the concept just like they may walk their way through the woods. In the woods we may say “wow, look at that beautiful bird!”. In teaching, we say “this part is super important, make sure you get this part!” – we tell them what to focus on!

It’s so important to us that our teaching is done by a human. I mean…seriously. How many times have you had a professor that felt more like a robot? Reading directly from the slides, canned answers about how everything is important, or how you need to read the 932 page textbook. Or, you ask them a question and they can’t even answer – or scoff at you for even asking! We don’t want to be like that. We talked in the video about our goals that we practice intellectual humility. That’s all part of being human. So have fun with it! Show your personality! Let your passion and excitement come through because that excitement is contagious. Keep it conversational, again – just have a chat. My only word of warning is avoid rambling or rabbit trails – we don’t want to be SO conversational that we end up talking about things that don’t matter! Also – it’s SO important to us that you don’t talk over their heads or talk down to them. Remember – not even a 6 year old likes to be talked to like a 6 year old.

In order to make it learner-centered and more personable, we also like to keep things super visual. We use image-rich slides whenever possible and beneficial, we hand-draw things and hand-write words, arrows, circles, whatever helps bring the concepts to life. I like the 6×6 rule for powerpoints, which says you use a max of 6 lines, and a max of 6 words per line. But even that that might be too much. SOMETIMES it’s unavoidable when you’re listing symptoms or treatments or something like that – BUT… if you find yourself listing a dozen symptoms or treatments – go back to core tenet #1 and consider whether the information is buffet or filet! When we talk about practical application, we’ll talk more about how we want to keep things visual!

The other thing we focus on when we’re talking about being learner-centered is that we want you to prepare carefully. Take the time up front to be fully prepared. That way, when you are presenting the material, you can speak naturally and from your heart. One concept we love is the idea of productive meditation from Cal Newport’s book Deep Work – if you haven’t read it, we highly recommend it! The idea is that you go for a long walk while you’re thinking about a concept and visualizing how to best present it. It removes distractions and helps you focus on one thing. Once you’ve got everything on paper – read and reread the outline, read and reread the transcript. If it doesn’t feel natural or sound like you – rewrite it! That’s okay.

The last thing that’s so important to being learner-centered and just having talkabouts is that you HAVE to know your stuff!! You just have to! You should know the topic well enough to have a casual conversation about it and to answer any questions. It’s not about us proving that we’re super smart – it’s about us making sure we can give the learners what they need! So – if you don’t feel like you can explain something well – take the time to look it up, understand it better, and be able to explain it with YOUR personality. We are all human after all, right?

So, let’s recap – we are entirely focused on the learner and giving them what they need. We want to be human, have fun, show our personality and bring excitement to the topic. We keep it conversational, like we’re just chatting with a friend, and we make sure things stay visual, image-heavy, with only brief bullet points and a small amount of text. And finally, we make sure to prepare carefully and intentionally for our lessons so that it is presented in a way that feels natural to you – and can be received well by the learners. Again, it’s not about us showing off what we know – it’s about making sure we’re giving them what they need!

So those are the 4 Core Tenets of the Core Content Mastery Method. Go back and review them if you need to. Make sure that these philosophies and theories make sense to you and are fully internalized before you move on to the practical application of the method. When you’re comfortable, confident, and passionate about our methods – jump into the next module to see how to put it into practice! Now, go out and be your best self today. And, as always – happy nursing!!!