Lessons taught by a Motorcycle class

Lessons taught by Bike teachers.

I have become a biker. A what? A biker! You know, Harley Dude! I took an abate of Indiana motorcycle class (August 26-30th). The class started on a Friday evening and then went over the weekend. Two experienced instructors conducted this class, both instructors work at local bike shops.

What does this story has to do with P540?
The relationship lies in how I was taught to handle a 250cc bike safely and learn the rules of the road in one weekend. Mind you, I have never ridden a bike prior to this class. I will attempt to relate the various learning theories from Driscoll’s chapter 1 to the class.

Friday Evening: We were divided into three teams and asked to come up with team names. We were provided with a manual and a list of 100 questions. Each team was responsible for answering a specific set of questions. Example, our team took questions 1 to 15, second team took questions 16 to 30 and so on. We utilized the manual to find the answers. The instructors did not lecture at this time, after 10 minutes we were asked to share our answers with the rest of the group. The instructors provided additional bits of information and/or corrected some of our answers. After each module, we watched a video that reinforced the key points. In my opinion, this was a cognitivist approach.

Saturday and Sunday:
Half of each day was spent riding the bikes, after lunch we spent going over the remainder balance of the questions. We started with the basics such as turning the bike on, going to first gear, identifying the clutch’s friction zone etc…

The instructor shared the objective of each skill, then they demonstrated the skill on the bike and finally we all had a chance to practice. Each person was given constructive feedback on his or her performance. The skills were tiered that each new skill built on the previously learned skill. Eventually we reached the advanced skills where we had to apply everything we had learned. In my opinion, the teachers approach at this time was behaviorist in nature.

Conclusion:
It seems I am always in the teaching/facilitation mode, this was an opportunity to step back and be the student. Some of the exercises were difficult and I quickly lost interest; however, the continuous support of my fellow students and the constructive feedback of the instructors were instrumental in my eventual success. This weekend provided me with a motorcycle license and a new perspective on what it means to be a conscious incompetent student.