Sarah Cordiner

“Often, educational programs and educators themselves can be the cause of educational disengagement”. 

Learner and employee motivation is shaped by many different factors – and one thing that you cannot always count on, are your learners coming to you highly motivated to engage in your training.

Not all adult education is voluntarily, and good trainers and educators understand that they play a significant part in their learners and employees motivation towards the training. 

However, faced with disengaged learners, too many adult educators consider the source of the disconnection a behavioural, attitudinal or mis-enrolment issue; rather than seeing re-engagement as a fundamental part of their role. 

In this mini course, Sarah Cordiner, qualified educator and best-selling author of ‘The Theory and Principles of Creating Effective Training Courses’, will provide you with some insights and simple strategies that trainers and educators can use to re-engage learners whose motivation and engagement is waning in their training programs. 

Sarah has taught in Prisons, in the welfare sector, Governments and in numerous organisations; and as such has worked with every type of disengaged learner out there.

This quick course will provide you with some simple, immediately implementable concepts to start getting your learners 'motivated to learn'.

Find The Root of Disengagement:

When it comes to learner and employee training motivation, how they feel about their ability to be successful in the given topic often reflects how they perform -  particularly those who are less motivated - I call this ‘educational efficacy’.

If you were being forced to play a game that you felt you couldn’t possibly win, how would you feel about having to play the game? Even if you were highly cooperative and did what was asked, you would feel drained, despondent and that your time was being wasted.

Often, educational programs and educators themselves can be the cause of educational disengagement. They use activities, tests and language that actually highlight the learners’ and employees’ weaknesses rather than celebrating and building upon their strengths. This further crushes any ounce of self-efficacy an employee or learner may have had in that topic as the very act of failing the test, or not knowing the answer when they were put on the spot, or getting the demo wrong reinforces their existing sense of “I can't do this.”

There are methods that you should consider if you are working with those who are disengaged in the learning process. Training and developing people is supposed to facilitate change and provide a positive experience, a successful outcome and better lives for the participants. Yet change is a phenomenon that often generates fear, resistance and heel dragging. Let’s face it. The very essence of education is change. We are attempting to change thoughts, knowledge, skills, perceptions, as well as attitudes, behaviours, and much more. This can generate resistance, often from our learners’ and employees’ fear of the unknown. If we are to design and deliver effective training programs, we need to make sure that we are aware of all of the ways that training can affect our learners’ and employees’ motivations and put into place various strategies for keeping them invested in the learning process. You should factor in how you will embed such strategies throughout the training design process.

To ensure a successful learning and development program, it is vital that change-makers, leaders and educators of all kinds know how to apply the top three techniques for engaging reluctant participants.

Click 'enroll' to get these tips for engaging the disengaged today.