Teaching Life Skills with Confidence &

Competence

Patrick R. Nelson, Ph.D.

Competencies for Teaching Skills

• Understands and can use a variety of teaching tools and modes.

• Confidence in one’s ability to teach.

• Ability to individualize teaching.• Ability to help learners understand

the general principles and concepts underlying a particular lesson.

• Ability to explain both basic and difficult concepts clearly.

• Ability to put a specific lesson into larger context (relevance, prior material).

Competencies for Teaching Skills

• Ability to ask good questions to stimulate thinking and analysis.

• Ability to provide useful feedback.• Ability to adjust lesson based on

client feedback and response.• Ability to foster an effective

learning environment including showing respect for the learner, communicating optimism, treating mistakes as expected opportunities rather than failures, and encouraging skill development and practice.

Client Barriers to Skill Acquisition

• Mental Health – Affect and Mood problems– Anxiety problems– Attention and Concentration problems– Conduct and behavioral problems– Social and interpersonal problems– Attachment Disruption

Client Barriers to Skill Acquisition

• Substance use/abuse• Trauma

– Separation and Loss– Abuse and neglect– Exposure to violence

• Learning and Developmental Disabilities

Environmental Barriers to Skill Acquisition

• Insufficient stimuli– Impoverished environment, lack of

learning opportunities, lack of play and practice opportunities, poor instruction

• Excessive stimuli– Overly demanding – Contradictory expectations– Loud, chaotic environments

Environmental Causes of Emotional & Behavioral

Problems• Intrusive and hostile

stimuli–Conflict in environment–Abusive and rejecting behavior

by caregivers and/or teachers–Bias related to gender,

race/ethnicity, disability, appearance

–Peer rejection and bullying

Consequences of Barriers to Skill Development

• Impulsive behavior; lack of reflective thought prior to action

• Low tolerance for frustration • Poor social comprehension and

interactions • Overly excitable during group activities • Inappropriate, unselective, and often

ineffective approaches to learning• Memory problems• Poor organizational skills

Consequences of Client Barriers

• Failure to see consequences for actions or make logical connections

• Excessive variation in effort and responsiveness

• Poor adjustment to environmental changes • Difficulty making decisions• Distractible/difficulty concentrating• Easily confused by instructions

General Goals of Skill Development

• Increasing feelings of self-determination

• Increasing feelings of competence and expectations of success

• Increasing interpersonal relationship skills

• Increasing range of interests and satisfaction of learning

• Increase awareness of values and motives

• Increase understanding of capabilities

General Goals of Skill Development

• Learn to set appropriate and achievable goals

• Learn to make appropriate, effective and satisfying choices

• Learn to accept responsibility for choices

• Practice and improve:– Metacognitiveskills– Psychosocial skills – Self-Management skills– Adaptive Behavior Skills

Critical Soft Skills

• Oral/Spoken Communication

• Written Communication

• Honesty• Teamwork/

Collaboration• Self-Motivation/

Initiative• Work

Ethic/Dependability• Critical Thinking• Decision-Making/

Risk-Taking Skills• Time Management

Skills

• Flexibility/Adaptability

• Leadership Skills• Interpersonal Skills• Working Under

Pressure• Questioning Skills• Creativity• Influencing Skills• Organization Skills• Problem-Solving

Skills• Multicultural Skills• Learning skills• Teaching/Training

skills

Psychosocial Skills

• Responsibility and integrity–Understanding and valuing

societal expectations–Moral decision making skills

• Self-esteem–Feelings of competence–Self-determination–Feeling connected to others–Provide status opportunities

Psychosocial Skills

• Social and working relationships– Social awareness– Empathy, respect, cooperation– Communication skills

• Self-evaluation, self-direction and self-regulation– Understanding self needs and values– Development of personal goals– Understanding impact of behavior

on others

Psychosocial Skills

• Temperament–Development of emotional

regulation strategies such as relaxation, anger control, cognitive restructuring

• Personal safety and safe behavior–Understanding and valuing

ways of keeping oneself safe from violence, sexual abuse and substance abuse

Psychosocial Skills

• Health maintenance–Understanding and valuing ways

of maintaining physical and mental health

–Stress management–Effective physical functioning

• Fitness• Nutrition

Psychosocial Skills

• Careers and life roles– Awareness of vocational options– Relationship and family goals– Stress management

• Creativity– Flexible thinking– Development of creative skills

Self-Management Skills

• Self-Awareness• Cognitive restructuring

(positive self-talk)• Relaxation• Problem-solving skills• Communication skills • Humor• Environmental modification

Adaptive Behavior Skills

• Communication• Social Interaction Skills • Daily Living Skills• Self-Care Skills• Household Management• Community Living• Resource Acquisition skills

Skill Acquisition vs. Performance Deficits

• Skill acquisition refers to the presence or absence of a particular skill or behavior.

• Performance refers to whether a present skill or behavior is used.

Teaching Soft Skills

1. Present a model of the desired behavior

2. Guide learner in developing a mental checklist of the key behaviors in a particular principle/skill.

3. Provide numerous examples of the applied skill/principle in the form of scenarios

4. Learners practice in a realistic environment while receiving feedback.

Client Approaches to Learning

• There are significant differences in client goals, processes and approaches for engagement in learning:–Full (Deep) Understanding–Superficial/Simplistic (Surface)

Understanding–Successful Outcome Learners

What Skills are Needed to Learn New Skills?

• Attention Control• Goal Setting about material to be

learned.• Cognitive Restructuring—using

cognitive or intellectual processes to restructure or restate information– Verbal Mediation—talking self

through a task– Positive Affirmation

• Self-Evaluation—monitoring progress toward learning goal.

Motivation to Learn• Teach clients what they want to

know, rather than what we think they should know.

• Help them meet their self-identified needs, including social/interpersonal needs.

• Help them develop skills to cope with specific life-changing events—e.g., change in living arrangement, a new job, being fired, losing a loved one, moving.

Motivation• Clients are generally willing to engage

in learning experiences before, after, or even during actual life change events.

– Once convinced that the change is a certainty, they will engage in any learning that promises to help them cope with the transition.

• Clients seek out a learning experiences when they have a use for the knowledge or skill being sought. Learning is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

• Increasing or maintaining a sense of self-competence and pleasure are strong secondary motivators for engaging in learning experiences.

Motivation Strategies• Emphasize the most critical concepts

continuously. • Provide learners with a "visual aid" when

possible to explain abstract concepts. • Use group activities to reinforce newly

presented material. • Help learners create a "link" when

teaching something new. If the learner can "link" the new material to something already learned, the odds of learning the new material are greatly increased.

• Treat learners with respect. • Hold learners to a high standard.

Learning Preferences

• Many people have preferences for one or more learning styles.

• Common learning styles include visual, aural/auditory, read/write, and kinesthetic/sensory.

• About 50% of clients are multimodal, with some preferring 2, 3 or 4 modes.

• Preferences are not the same as strengths

Visual Learning• This preference includes the

depiction of information in maps, diagrams, charts, graphs, flow charts,

• It could have been called Graphic (G) as that better explains what it covers.

• It does NOT include movies, videos or PowerPoint.

• It does include designs, whitespace, patterns, shapes and the different formats that are used to highlight and convey information.

Aural/Auditory Learning

• This perceptual mode describes a preference for information that is "heard or spoken."

• Learners with this modality report that they learn best from lectures, tutorials, tapes, group discussion, email, using cell phones, speaking, web chat and talking things through.

• It includes talking out loud as well as talking to yourself.

• Often people with this preference want to sort things out by speaking, rather than sorting things out and then speaking.

Read/Write Learning• This preference is for information

displayed as words. • Not surprisingly, many academics

have a strong preference for this modality.

• This preference emphasizes text-based input and output - reading and writing in all its forms.

• People who prefer this modality are often addicted to PowerPoint, the Internet, lists, dictionaries, thesauri, quotations and words, words, words...

Kinesthetic/Sensory Learning

• By definition, this modality refers to the "perceptual preference related to the use of experience and practice (simulated or real)."

• Although such an experience may invoke other modalities, the key is that people who prefer this mode are connected to reality, "either through concrete personal experiences, examples, practice or simulation."

• It includes demonstrations, simulations, videos and movies of "real" things, as well as case studies, practice and applications.

Multimodal Learning

• Life is multimodal. There are seldom instances where one mode is used, or is sufficient,

• Those who prefer many modes almost equally are of two types. – There are those who are context

specific who choose a single mode to suit the occasion or situation.

– There are others who are whole world who are not satisfied until they have had input (or output) in all of their preferred modes. They take longer to gather information from each mode and, as a result, they often have a deeper and broader understanding.

3 Learning Domains • Cognitive = Knowledge

– Knowledge and the development of intellectual skills. This includes the recall or recognition of specific facts, procedural patterns, and concepts that serve in the development of intellectual abilities and skills.

• Affective = Attitude – Emotional skills. This domain includes the

manner in which we deal with things emotionally, such as feelings, values, appreciation, enthusiasms, motivations, and attitudes.

• Psychomotor = Skills– The psychomotor domain includes physical

movement, coordination, and use of the motor-skill areas. Development of these skills requires practice and is measured in terms of speed, precision, distance, procedures, or techniques in execution.

Cognitive Learning

1.Knowledge2.Comprehension3.Application4.Analysis5.Synthesis6.Evaluation

Affective Learning

1.Receiving Phenomena2.Responding to

Phenomena3.Valuing4.Organization5.Internalizing Values

Psychomotor Learning

1.Imitation2.Manipulation3.Precision4.Articulation5.Naturalization

What Kind of Teacher Are You?

• Lamplighter• Gardener• Muscle Builder• Bucket Filler• Challenger

• Travel Guide• Factory Supervisor• Artist• Applied Scientist• Craftsperson

Designing Learning Experiences

• Clients tend to prefer learning experiences that focus heavily on the application of the concept to relevant problems.

• Clients need to be able to integrate new ideas with what they already know if they are going to keep and use the new information.

• Information that conflicts sharply with what is already held to be true, and thus forces a re-evaluation of the old material, is integrated more slowly.

• Information that has little "conceptual overlap" with what is already known is acquired slowly.

Designing Learning Experiences

• Adult and older adolescent clients often prefer self-directed and self-designed learning projects over group-learning experiences led by a professional– They select more than one medium

for learning, and they desire to control pace and start/stop time.

– Self-direction does not mean isolation. Studies of self-directed learning indicate that effective self-directed projects involve other people as resources, guides and encouragers.

Designing Learning Experiences

• Clients tend to take errors personally and are more likely to let them affect self-esteem. Therefore, they tend to apply tried-and-true solutions and take fewer risks.

• Today’s learner’s prefer interactive, multimedia learning experiences.

• Regardless of media, straightforward how-to is the preferred content orientation. Clients cite a need for application and how-to information as the primary motivation for beginning a learning project.

Designing Learning Experiences

• Clients have something real to lose in group learning experiences and settings that are reminiscent of a classroom. Self-esteem and ego are on the line when clients are asked to risk trying a new behavior in front of peers and cohorts. Bad experiences in traditional education, feelings about authority and the preoccupation with other life events affect learning.

• On the other hand, if the learning environment is safe, clients can learn a great deal from talking with each other.

Discussion as Teaching Strategy

• Start discussions that engage clients:– Common experiences– Controversy– Questions—connective, cause-effect,

comparative, evaluative, critical– Problem or example using

developmental discussion: • Formulate the problem• Suggest hypotheses• Get relevant data• Evaluate alternative solutions

Discussion as Teaching Strategy

• Socractic Discussion—to learn to reason to general principles from specific cases– Ask about a known situation (e.g.,

“describe a time when you felt…”)– Ask for causitive/contributory factors– Ask for predisposing factors– Ask for precipitating factors– Ask for perpetuating factors– Explore counterexamples and factors

that are insufficient to explain the problem.

How to Teach a Skill• Teaching is not primarily telling. It’s helping

other people learn. That means the focus is on the learners, not the teacher.

• Get into the shoes of the learners so that you can better understand where they are and what they need from you to learn the subject under study.

• Develop learning experiences in which the learners are trying to do something with the insights or skills involved.

• Help learners realize what they have learned to increase their comfort and confidence in using an insight or skill in actual situations.

• Appreciate that learners do not have one set, definite way of demonstrating that they understand or know something. Each learner is an individual.

How to Teach a Skill:5 Basic Steps

1. Preparation• Make sure that all necessary

information, equipment, etc. is available.

• Have a plan.

2. Explanation• Introduce the subject by explaining

it’s usefulness and application.• Describe the skill in a simple, clear

way and in a way that creates a desire to become proficient.

How to Teach a Skill:5 Basic Steps

3. Demonstration• Actually show how to do each skill,

slowly and carefully, explaining each step.

4. Practice• Have the learner try out the skill with

your guidance and support.5. Application

• Have learners try the skill without you present, and report back.

• Have learners teach the skill to someone else.

Self-Instruction Training for Skill Development

1. Teacher performs the skill while talking through the steps.

2. Learner performs the skill while teacher talks through the steps.

3. Learner performs the skill while saying steps out loud.

4. Learner performs the skill while whispering the steps.

5. Learner performs the skill while whispering the steps.

Tips for Teaching Skills

• Be able to perform the skill well yourself.

• Keep the instruction personal• If the learner is not familiar with the

skill, go slowly. • Insist on accuracy first, then speed (if

speed is a factor).• Don’t interfere when learners try to do it

on their own. Don’t interrupt their efforts unless they bog down or go off on the wrong track.

• Let the learner make mistakes and then help then analyze what went wrong.

• Urge them to practice and to teach someone else.

Skill Generalization• Teach new skills in the settings where

they are likely to be needed and used. If this isn’t possible, use role-playing.

• Teach skills that are valued by the client and the client’s family and community.

• Teach skills with a variety of mediums across a variety of situations.

• Take advantage of teachable moments:– Incidental teaching, using media, skill

autopsies, use of stories