Adult Learning: Objectives, Activities and Transfer

This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.

Training for adults is judged on one thing: whether behaviour changed at work. Not on the feedback form, not on the test score, not on whether the day was enjoyable.

Almost nothing in a typical training design is aimed at that

The objectives are written as topics — "communication skills", "time management" — which describe a subject rather than an action anybody could observe. The activities are chosen so participants do not get bored, which is a legitimate concern and a completely different one. And whatever happens after the last slide is not designed at all, despite the fact that by the 70-20-10 estimate roughly ninety per cent of the learning occurs there. So the effort concentrates in the ten per cent that is easiest to control, and the result is a room full of satisfied people whose Monday is identical to the Friday before.

What this course covers

Forty-one lessons, built backwards from the change rather than forwards from the syllabus. The objective first, written as behaviour: what a competency is and how observable behaviour differs from a personal quality, the competency pyramid, where the content comes from, describing one through interviews and the critical incident method, building a profile for a role, rating scales that mean something, assessment validity, ready-made libraries and how to use one without copying blindly. Then designing the function around it: audit, strategy and budget, the competencies of a trainer and how to assess one, analysing need at three levels and justifying the cost, instructional design with the results-based model, blended learning, transfer into practice, support afterwards, development programmes, coaching and facilitation, talent pools, internal assessment centres, external providers, and distance learning. Then activities where the group does the work: the single most important facilitator skill, formulating a goal precisely enough to be reached, selecting who is in the room, keeping focus, gathering information and generating ideas, choosing priorities, assigning owners for every action, force majeure and the participant who will not cooperate, timing, online sessions and international groups. Then the ninety per cent outside the room: why development plans fail in most companies, the 70-20-10 model, a plan with barriers, budget and measures of success, turning a vague goal into a measurable one, the conversation script, and the rollout with its metrics. Then reinforcement: why feedback is avoided, what gets in the way, the six-step model, loops at scale, adapting to personality, and recognition without prizes. Finally proof: the performance agreement, cascaded goals, assessment centres, the difficult conversation, the improvement plan, coaching afterwards, and the annual rating with its nine boxes and its mistakes.

Every block was recorded inside organisations, and that is deliberate

Designing learning for adults happens inside organisations, because that is where somebody pays for the outcome and demands proof that behaviour changed. The facilitation block was recorded about working sessions rather than training groups, and that is the valuable part of it: a session where the group solves a real problem rather than a practice one transfers into work by construction, because the work is what happened. The competency and assessment blocks give you the language of objectives and the evidence of results. The development plan block is the only one about what happens between training events, which by the 70-20-10 estimate is most of the learning. There is one genuine limitation to state: if you teach outside an organisation, you will have to build the transfer measurement yourself, because there is no client who will demand it of you.

Who is teaching this

I am Mike. I built the people system at Preply as it became a unicorn, and I have worked at Wargaming, iDeals and Alfa-Bank. More than 1.6 million students have enrolled in my courses across 185 countries, and over 150,000 specialists have gone through my programmes. I hold PHRi and SHRM-CP certifications and represent HRCI in more than ten countries.

What is included

• Lifetime access to all 41 lessons

• Active instructor support in the Q&A section

• A Udemy Certificate of Completion

• Working material: the critical incident method, the competency profile, rating scale design, the results-based learning model, the facilitation preparation and closing structure, the 70-20-10 development plan with barriers and measures, the six-step feedback model, and the nine boxes

• The design of what happens after the training, which is where the learning is

Where to start

Take a course you have delivered and rewrite one objective as a sentence beginning "after this, the person will be able to be observed doing…". If the sentence resists being finished, that objective was a topic. Enrol now and start today.