Difference between Teaching and Training

Do those teachers amongst you see any difference ?
A "trainer" doesn't earn as much respect as a teacher does in the wide world ! Why ? A good trainer gets trainees learning by doing and facilitates their learning.
Teachers tend to deliver information, experience and wisdom but there is usually not much chance of it being received successfully, especially in today's rapid world.

Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.
--Benjamin Franklin

[ August 21, 2003: Message edited by: HS Thomas ]

To elaborate, if the student is allowed a lap-top into the class-room,
and thus has access to all kinds of information at their finger-tips,
which aspects of "teach" should a teacher cultivate further?
How does a teacher's experience and wisdom best be transfered to the student?
Should a teacher be daunted by a student typing away quietly at their notebook ( just taking notes/bookmarking sites) or even using a recording
tool to record the lesson ? The student is taking some responsibility at organising their learning process to fit in with their life-style.
Getting feedback rapidly may be a necessity to keep everyone on their toes. I think this is especially important with Distance Learning.But there's material that would sink in rather slowly and must be mulled over. I'd be obliged if a teacher can give me ( a student ) some pointers as to how to prepare to be taught/trained .
A Book on "How to Study"!
regards
[ August 21, 2003: Message edited by: HS Thomas ]

I have a different take on this, since I'm involved in both sides of it. In my experience, the difference between teaching and training are related to the differences between academic courses and training courses.
In an academic course, you have to create "the need to know." If the students don't need to know what you're teaching, their need to know degenerates to, "what do I need to know to get an A/B/C/whatever?" If that happens, you've practically lost them already.
In a training course, the students come in with a need to know, or they wouldn't be there. In that case, the instructors job is to find out exactly what they need to know and address it (not necessarily completely fulfill it -- it may not be appropriate to do that -- but certainly address it).
This is also a consequence of the biggest difference between academia and training classes. In academia, I grade the students. In training classes, they grade me.
If I understand you correctly, you're using the term teaching to mean teaching as more abstract concepts and training as specific instructions to do a particular job. I think the distinction is a lot blurrier than that, but, then again, I like to understand what I'm doing and still do it.
Ken

Thanks, Kenneth.
You have answered a large part of my question.

Another difference between academia and training courses would be the
pre-requisites set before attending the course. The pre-reqs are usually quite high for advanced training courses as they build on previous courses.
Whereas, academia courses allow some lee-way in getting up to speed at the beginning.Do you have any tips about getting up to speed , especially for adults returning to study.
Hence my question on any books,audio/visual courses on "How to study".
ie getting the most benefit from the process.
Are there any you recommend to your students on the academia courses?
regards
[ August 22, 2003: Message edited by: HS Thomas ]

The answer depends very much on what you're preparing for. Programming syntax can be learned by drill, which means computer-based training works well. Semantics (i.e., how to use the language to do what you want) is best learned using examples. That means books and magazine articles, which are usually filled with best practices ideas.
Learning to think like an OO developer usually requires somebody to talk to. That's where training courses are the most beneficial. Short of that, the study of design patterns can be very helpful in that area.
As for specific recommendations, Kathy Sierra's "Head First Java" book is excellent if you're trying to learn that language.
Academic courses can afford to be a bit looser on requirements sometimes because the course extends over a complete semester, while training courses are usually a week long or less. It's harder to make up deficits in background in the shorter time frame.
If you have a particular goal in mind, I'd be happy to make suggestions about it. Please feel free to disregard them, of course.

Ken

Such a good and interesting question...
I think I pretty much echo what others have said -- and I just wanted to add that with "teaching", the goal can sometimes be knowledge, with less emphasis on skill, while with training, the goal is nearly ALWAYS about walking away with skills you can apply right now, even if it is at the expense of some knowledge.
But Bert and I try to force ourselves to try to look more at the other side - what is "learning", and then figure out what has to happen in order for learning to occur. So in some cases, if we know the learner's goal, then we don't care WHAT you call whatever it is that we do... it's not about what WE do; it's all about what happens between the learner's ears.
So learning has to be a very active process, regardless of whether it's teaching or training, although the nature of the 'activity' might vary a lot, depending on the ultimate goal/objective for what happens to the students when the course is complete.
We used to ask our UCLA instructor trainees to answer this question before they designed their course: Imagine you could attach a tracking device to your student and monitor what happened AFTER he leaves your course. What would you want to see happen? Then we made them do their design based solely on the answer to that question. It put the focus more on what the learner did, and less on what the teacher did. (although obviously those are related, since the teacher has to be at least responsible for *getting* the learner to DO things...)
Sometimes, their goal was simply knowledge, and so the tracking-device objective would show the *ways* in which that knowledge would be demonstrated... (perform this thing correctly, be more motivated by this other thing, do a better job of explaining this to others, simply make more informed choices, etc.)
But if the goal was something related to performance, then you'd have more standard performance goals ("Will be able to do this thing accurately and more quickly than before") in which case, we still have to add -- yeah, but will the learner be MOTIVATED to do it correctly? Especially if the incorrect way is... easier? So motivation is a big key.
There's a really great discussion in the Information Anxiety book which talks about the four stages of:
Data * Information * Knowledge * Wisdom
As a learner, you have to decide what YOUR goal is, and as a teacher/trainer/author whatever we have to decide what OUR goal is as well. In a learning environment, it should NEVER be data. Information would be data that's organized to have some meaningful representation. A lot of reference books are done that way.
The problem is that some books and courses which are *meant* to be about building knowledge turn out to be not much more than information. Scenarios in which the teacher simply tells you how things work and what to do, where *you* aren't actively processing, is an example. Many folks *think* they're giving out "knowledge" by talking about tips, tricks, what things really mean, etc. -- but knowledge has to be co-authored by the learner. In other words, if you're the learner, you must participate in order to build knowledge. Knowledge can't simply be poured directly into your brain. Knowledge is about a higher level of meaning than information, but it has to be incorporated into things you already know or can understand -- if someone *gives* you knowledge, by simply sharing it (i.e. telling you), it might "take" but it often does not, without your joint participation in constructing it (through certain kinds of exercises, guided discussions, etc.)
So anything you do to become actively involved -- flexing some brain cells -- is a cool thing.
Hmmmm... what about "wisdom"? I suppose "patterns" are a kind of wisdom, but I have no idea how transferable actual wisdom is...
you got me thinking, though

Thanks, Kathy and Kenneth.
You have both given much food for thought.

posted by Kenneth:
If you have a particular goal in mind, I'd be happy to make suggestions about it.

Thanks for the offer. I won't disregard any advice you give.
Working out the goals is much harder than one thinks.
My immediate goals are to pass some certifications to prove I know something about the subject.
I thoroughly enjoyed preparing for the Java certification.
But the ones I have currently on the go are less enjoyable. SO I need to get focussed on my goals again as well as try and study for the right reasons.

Kathy, as to what Wisom is, that's also a tough one.
I'd guess that would be Knowledge and Experience combined on a higher plane. On my brief stint teaching I've since felt that I didn't do much service to the older ones. The younger ones handed in assignments based on what they were taught and to be honest, didn't much vary from the standard answers.The older ones probably tried to apply their wisdom and experience to the work but I, perhaps, didn't allow much time for that to develop.
Time overall was a constraint, also. But this particular problem has bugged me since.
Being older (and wiser) I am wondering how differently I would handle this situation. It would also help me with my current study preparations
as I feel there are not just standard text-books to read but all that Wisdom that's floating about and readily available.
Kathy and Bert, you have made much leeway in making study enjoyable.
Head First Java and Head First EJB.
Do you both and Kenneth have any pointers on handling/developing Wisdom in a classroom ?
Making time to listen would have been a good start,I think now.It should be given an extra time slot.
In studying also one should cultivate this habit. It would be a great way of re-enforcing what you've learnt.But I don't know how!
With your experiences , I bet you are in the habit of creating Wisdom (or environments to apply Wisdom) sub-consciously.
How do you keep on top of it all!
How do you formally go about it ?
How do you let Experience talk , good or bad, so that it becomes someone else's wisdom. Kathy, your example of patterns/anti-patterns is a good one...

regards
[ August 23, 2003: Message edited by: HS Thomas ]

I've come across these Catalogs that Industrial Logic used to assess needs of different organisations / individuals.
Activity,Workshop,Experience Catalogs
This might be a useful guide.I'd love to see what they actually do in their Experience Catalogues.
regards
[ August 24, 2003: Message edited by: HS Thomas ]