On this episode, Allen Oelschlaeger is joined by Gerard O’Dea from Dynamis (https://www.dynamis.training), a UK conflict management training company and Professor Chris Cushion from Loughborough University (https://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ssehs/staff/chris-cushion), a renown expert in how to teach psychomotor skills to optimize learning (conflict management skills are psychomotor skills).

Gerard and Professor Cushion have been working together for the last six years to develop a training system that creates a relatively permanent change in their student’s behavior that results in the benefits Dynamis promises its customers (healthcare, education, law enforcement, residential care).

The discussion focuses on the core training principles validated by empirical research over the last 40 years that produce these outcomes. Also discussed are how these principles are so rarely applied in the training of psychomotor skills.

Some of the core principles discussed include:

- How the goal of a training program is learning (a relatively permanent change in student’s behavior that supports the results expected from the training) rather than getting positive reviews

- Training must use whole task scenarios in order to optimize learning (instead of block training of small elements of the whole task that only create the illusion of learning)

- The whole task scenarios must reflect real-world situations faced by the student (instead of the skill practice being decontextualized).

- Training should be structured to take advantage of the background and experience that the students bring to class