4MAT

We're all familiar with times in our life when we
really "connected" with instructors, making learning a real pleasure
and making acquisition of new skills almost effortless.
And we'll
also remember times when we just weren't "on the same wavelength" as
someone we had to learn from. Learning became a difficult,
unpleasant, slow chore.
And at times when we may have trained others, perhaps in a formal
training role or in passing knowledge on to our teams, we've probably
found teaching some people easy, while others seem to have difficulty
even with really simple things.

What's particularly frustrating is that the mismatches of style that
cause many of these learning difficulties have long lasting effects,
in terms both of personal outcomes and of team member and team
performance.

4MAT is a different approach to instruction that seeks to overcome
these differences in style, engage all learners, and present
information in a format and using an approach which suits all.

If you are responsible for training and coaching team members or
others (and most managers and professionals are, to some degree),
then you need to know 4MAT and use it to a greater or lesser extent
if you are to get the best from all of the people you are developing.
Important Ideas 1: "Learning Styles"
David Kolb's ideas of experiential learning and learning styles
lie at the root of 4MAT. Kolb (a well-respected learning guru)
argued that there are four different learning styles, and that
different people prefer different approaches for learning
information:

The "Converger" style: Preferring concepts and active
experimentation.
The "Diverger" style: Preferring practical experience and
reflection.
The "Assimilator" style: Which prefers abstract modelling and
theoretical reasoning.
The "Accommodator" style: Preferring practical experience and
active testing.

Now these terms are quite difficult to grasp and remember. Peter
Honey and Alan Mumford proposed a similar approach with much
more intuitive terms:

"Reflectors": Who like to stand back and gather information
before coming to a conclusion.
"Theorists": Who want to fully understand the theory behind a
subject before they feel comfortable with it.
"Activists": Who want to learn by diving straight in to new
experiences, and don't particularly like theory.
"Pragmatists": Who want to see the practical use of what they're
learning, and want practical techniques. Theory can follow
later...

The argument is where an instructor caters to a learning style
you like, you find learning quick and easy. But where an
instructor has a different preferred approach from the one you
like, learning can be difficult and unsatisfying.

And as an instructor, while you might instinctively like one
style, you'll have to take the learning needs of people who
prefer other styles into account if you're to train them
effectively.

Important Ideas 2: "Experiential Learning"
Kolb also argued that adults learn many types of skills most
effectively by learning from experience ("experiential
learning"). This involves learning through the following steps:

Taking an action and seeing its effects.
Understanding that this effect will reliably follow from this
action.
Forming a generalized mental principle or rule about what's
happening.
Testing this rule (loops back to 1).

4MAT (developed by Bernice McCarthy at www.aboutlearning.com ) is a process you can use to train people in a
way that suits all learning styles and which incorporates Kolb's
ideas on the stages of experiential learning.
Using the Tool
At the heart of 4MAT is a 12-step learning cycle that learners go
through as they learn new skills. Effective instructors work with
this cycle, seeking to engage the learner; provide information,
knowledge and theory; deliver the skills being taught; and cement the
knowledge learned. This process is shown below:



During the first three steps of the cycle, your focus as an
instructor is on winning the attention of your learners, and engaging
their interest in the subject. You are seeking to help them
understand the real value (to them) of what you're saying, and get
the learner to think about how what you're saying fits in with and
enhances his or her existing experience.

During steps four to six, you build learners' knowledge, and
encourage them to find out facts for themselves. In doing this, you
help learners make connections between what they already know and
what you are teaching. And by finding out facts for themselves, they
learn the broader context into which information fits. This all helps
to build a good theoretical foundation of the subject.

During steps seven to nine, you teach the practical skills that come
from the theory, and encourage learners to test their understanding
of the material. This is where learners confirm and refine their
understanding, and apply and generalize the information they've
learned.

Finally, during steps ten to twelve, you encourage learners to extend
creatively their use of the skills you've taught. This gives practice
in the new skills, and helps them reinforce and "cement" their
learning.

By structuring a learning session using this approach, you can engage
and satisfy people who learn best with all of the different learning
styles:

Reflectors get the opportunity to gather information and reflect
before they come to a conclusion.
Theorists get the chance to learn new ideas and fit them into
existing theories before they put them into practice.
Activists get the opportunity to "dive in" at an appropriate stage of
the process, and learn and try out new techniques.
Pragmatists see the techniques they're learning firmly grounded in
reality, with practical benefit and relevance explained from the
outset.


Tip 1:
Here we're looking at the central part of 4MAT: It's a
sophisticated system, and there's a lot of surrounding
information. To find out more, visit Bernice McCarthy's site at
http://www.aboutlearning.com or read her book About Learning,
which is available at Amazon.com.
Tip 2:
Different situations often attract people with different preferred
learning styles, and people often self-select themselves into
groups (or even professions?) with preferred approaches. If you
find that your audiences (or members of your audience) have a
strongly dominant preferred learning approach, you need to adjust
your approach to cater for this. Also, different types of
information need different approaches. As ever, use your common
sense to decide the approach you use.
Tip 3:
You can find out more at the following URLs:

Kolb Learning Styles: www.infed.org/biblio/b-explrn.htm
Honey & Mumford Learning Styles: http://www.campaign-for-learning.org.uk/aboutyourlearning/whatlearning.htm
4MAT: http://www.aboutlearning.com/all-about-4mat.htm

Also, there's a lot of cross-over here with the Myers Briggs types .

Example
We're not going to give an example here: Rather, we're going to ask
you to think about this a little.

Which of the Honey and Mumford learning styles most describes your
preferred way of learning (even if it is a bit of one, and most of
another)? And when you think about the people you have to instruct or
coach in your day-to-day life, what learning styles and aptitudes do
they show? (Incidentally, try asking them which of the approaches
they prefer!) What does this tell you about the teaching approach you
should use?

And when you think back to past learning sessions you've experienced,
were there approaches that worked well for you, and ones which fell
flat? For example, are you a theorist, who was bored by practical
work at school? Or a pragmatist who just couldn't get on with pure
mathematics? And were there teachers from whom you just couldn't
learn, who you now realize just weren't on the same learning
"wavelength" as yourself?

Again, what does this tell you about your instructional approach?
And, knowing this, what are you going to do?
Summary
At the heart of 4MAT is a twelve stage process which you can use to
structure a learning session to ensure that people with preferences
for different learning styles can get the most from them. By using
4MAT, you can adopt an approach that will help all of your people
learn effectively from you, not just those who happen to share your
preferred approach to learning.

In the first three steps of the cycle, your task is to win the
attention of your learners and engage their interest.

During steps four to six, you give them information they need, and
help them build their own knowledge of the subject.

During steps seven to nine, you teach the skills the learners need,
and encourage them to test and apply these theories.

And during steps ten to twelve, you encourage learners to creatively
extend the use of skills and internalize the knowledge they've
gained.