TEACHING NEW IDEAS
Occasionally you are asked to teach your providers a new policy, procedure, best practice, or even technology. For your teaching to be effective, your providers change behaviors, gain skills, and knowledge, and even improve their attitudes.
When teaching your providers, you will find they fit into different categories:
A PROVIDER WITH MANY YEARS EXPERIENCE
Experienced providers evaluate new information by what they already know. If you are attempting to teach them something that goes against what they already know, they are likely to reject it. Often you will hear, “I’ve always done it this way” or “ I tried that and it doesn’t work.”
Working with an experienced provider:
Give this provider a chance to express how she feels about the new training requirement.
Acknowledge her experience and mention positive skills or behaviors you have observed her using. This can give her confidence to learn a new skill or concept.
Ask questions throughout the training.
Encourage the provider to express how she sees herself using the information you present.
NEW INEXPERIENCED PROVIDER
New providers do not have a lot of experience to relate to the new training. You will need to:
Connect her to the new knowledge by making sure that she understands any key words or practices related to the training goals.
A NEW PROVIDER WITH AN EARLY CHILDHOOD DEGREE
Even though this provider may have an Early Childhood Degree she may lack the experience in applying it on a daily basis. Make sure you let the provider see how her knowledge relates to the new policy or procedure you are teaching.
A PROVIDER WHO HAS A COMBINATION OF EARLY CHILDHOOD DEGREE AND YEARS OF EXPERIENCE CARING FOR CHILDREN.
This provider may be very set in her ways, so it is essential that:
she understands the relevance of the new learning to what she is already doing.
Understanding why she must make changes will go along way in her adopting the new information.
Praise her experience and let her know how she may be a wonderful resource to hep new, inexperienced providers meet their training goals.
In each case it is important that you relate the new information to what they already know and are doing. Let the providers know how the goal of adopting the new training will benefit them. It may be enhancing their marketability, increasing the children's success in starting school, or as simple as they will not get their reimburse or childcare payment unless new training is adopted.