How People Learn to Drive and how we can Teach them Effectively.

How People Learn to Drive and how we can Teach them Effectively.So what does learning entail?Generally, we are looking to help our clients master basic skills; be able to deal with distractions and work at different levels across varied topics, from moving off and stopping to complex multi lane roundabouts. Our clients come to us at various stages of learning e.g. novice, partly trained, trained and full licence holder. We take the topics of learning to drive and apply them in a variety of weather and traffic conditions. We use mainly our verbal skills to help the clients learn, problem solve and make decisions - often under pressure from other road users.
We need to consider the most important factor - when it comes to learning, it is not what is learnt, but how it is learnt that matters.
Traditionally, we told people what to do and all that was required of them was to copy what we told them to do. This focuses on what the person needs to learn but doesn't consider how they need to learn it. For learning to be effective, the driving instructor has to adapt the information so that it is put across in a way that suits the individual.
This is precisely how times have changed - we meet the learner’s individual needs from a client-centred learning approach and, part of our role as driving instructors, is to understand how to help our clients learn.
There is a saying ‘a journey over 1000 miles starts with a single step', the problem, it should be in the right direction.
Now, we know that all learners are individual, however, there are similarities between learners, simply because there are similarities in how our brains work. Did you know, that we all have the same number of brain cells as Albert Einstein? Who’d have thought it!.
There is a saying: ‘use it or lose it’.
Our job, as driving instructors, is to encourage our learners to make new connections in the brain so that they learn how to apply the art of problem-sovling to a multitude of situations. We can do this by developing tasks that stimulate the learner to think and reflect, whilst at the same time, consolidating existing knowledge, so that learning is transferred from one task to another.
This is why the switch to coaching and client-centred learning has become so very important, and the traditional methods of straight forward instruction only have a place in keeping the car safe.
If you want to explore coaching for driver development we can offer you an introductory course. This course will help you develop and hone your coaching skills, increasing your capacity to give great learning opportunities for your clients. To find out more follow the links: