Exploring Vocational Education Design: Session Plans

Webinar Recording

The human brain has limitations. For example, learners may forget around 70% of what was learnt within 24 hours without practice. In this session we explored some of these basic principles, then looked at how Gagne’s Nine Events of instruction can be applied to planning a lesson in Vocational Education and Training (VET).

Webinar Recording

How We Learn

Learning is about storing information in long-term memory. Psychologists think this is done with three types of memory:

• Sensory Memory. We must have our learner’s attention. The learning must be recognised as important. Attention is easily lost, or hijacked by other things.
• Working Memory. Like RAM on a computer, it’s a limited, temporary holding space for only a few chunks of information for up to 20 seconds. Overloading it is a common training mistake (distracting environments, too much on slides, too much information at once).
• Long-Term Memory. This is the goal. Information stored here is properly learned, covering both knowledge (declarative memory) and skills (procedural memory).

The problem is, things don’t just get automatically ‘uploaded’ to long term memory. They must be practiced and retrieved over time to strengthen the memory.

The Forgetting Curve

Long-term memory fades without use. This is known as the Forgetting Curve. Hermann Ebbinghaus first described this phenomenon in the 1880s but scientists have repeated experiments a number of times since confirming his theory.

The solution is spaced practice. By recalling and using information, we interrupt the forgetting process. This can include quizzes for knowledge and hands-on activities for skills. Spacing out practice sessions over time makes learning more durable.

Structuring VET Training Sessions

Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction give us a framework for planning Vocational Education and Training (VET) sessions.

1. Gain Attention: Do something to get learner’s attention.
2. State the Objective: Tell them what they will be able to do by the end.
3. Recall Prior Knowledge: Connect the new information and skills to what they already know and can do.
4. Present, demonstrate, instruct. Teach the new content clearly.
5. Provide guidance and scaffolding using examples, analogies and other supports to help them understand.
6. Elicit Performance (Practice). Let them apply what they’ve learned.
7. Provide Feedback. Give specific, constructive feedback on their performance.
8. Assess Performance. Check if they have met the learning objective.
9. Enhance Retention and Transfer. Provide opportunities to use the skill in new or real-world situations.

This shouldn’t be used as a strict and rigid step-by-step model. Trainers may find themselves cycling and repeating several steps of the nine events to eventually reach the intended objective.

For an example of these steps in action, please watch the webinar recording above.

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