RESPONSIBLE FOR LEARNING
Was the pupil encouraged to analyse problems and take responsibility for their learning?
From just the basics of learning how to roll from their back to their front, a baby begins learning very quickly, this evolves quickly to sitting up, standing, walking then running.
All of it takes effort, trial and error, and time.
It never happens overnight, but a baby takes responsibility for it's own learning to start with.
As a baby grows, it tends to need assistance.
Learning how to talk.
How to read.
How to write.
How to ride a bike.
How to play different sports etc.
As a baby achieves different things we encourage them and give them praise for their achievements.
But the initial achievements were probably taught by themselves, they unknowingly took responsibility for their own learning.
A baby is too young for us to speak to them to teach them how to roll over. This is done by trail and error and the baby learning from what worked and what didn't.
So in a sense, they took responsibility for their learning.
When it comes to driving, we need to allow a learner to again take a responsibility for their learning and to analyse what it is they do and whether it works or not.
Obviously as the instructor we still need to ensure that what is happening is safe, but allowing a learner to analyse things, especially if they don't feel good, will concrete in the good and the bad.
By allowing the learner to analyse what went well and what didn't they will learn far quicker and build up a core skill in different situations as to what is required to keep themselves and everyone around them safe.
Younger brains especially that of a 17 year old has not yet fully developed. The frontal cortex of the brain is responsible for the performance of cognitive skills such as planning, organising, and self monitoring, memory storage, self-control, motor task, judgement, creativity and maintaining social appropriateness along with other things.
Therefore, the attitude of a younger driver will not necessarily be the same as someone just a few years older.
This is not the younger persons fault, it is just that their brain needs more time to develop into being capable of making the correct decisions.
It is therefore your responsibility as an instructor to ensure that the responsibility for learning is encouraged and nurtured to your pupil.
Some attitudes you may get from a learner will be of beliefs of things they have seen or done in the past.
LEARNED BEHAVIOUR STARTS FROM A VERY YOUNG AGE
Babies begin to retain information from the outside world, at about 8 months old.
Things they see, things others do, starts to be retained.
Therefore, imagine a baby sat in a child seat in the back of a car and they see the driver using their mobile phone, not wearing a seat belt, shouting at other road users, speeding, this list could go on.
The baby's stored information sees this happen day after day and learns that this is "NORMAL BEHAVIOUR" when driving.
Then when they learn to drive this "Normal behaviour" is questioned when you the instructor says "You must not do that"
Who is right, you or the person they have watched for possibly 17 years doing the "normal thing"?
As an instructor you need to able to influence your pupil as to why it must not be done and change their attitude.
They need to be able to analyse why it must not be done.
This can be done by explanations, it can be done by getting them to understand about the Highway Code and that driving comes with a set of rules.
But you have to have facts and proof that what you are saying is factually correct.
They may find this very hard to believe initially and totally disregard anything you have to say.
Let's just use the use of a mobile phone while driving as an example.
Your pupil gets in the car for their first lesson, you are having a chat with them about using the foot controls and how to move off.
The engine is running as you are teaching them about the biting point.
You are just about to move off and the pupils phone bleeps.
They've got a text message, and grab their phone out of their pocket and read the text message.
Instantly you jump into OFFICIAL MODE and say you can't use that it's illegal when driving.
Your pupil's attitude may be "Ah shut up my dad uses his all the time"
They may actually believe your are just annoyed that they are interrupting your instruction but they are paying for the lesson so it doesn't matter.
They continue to reply to the text message, but you insist that they cannot use the phone as it is illegal.
They shrug this off but put the phone away.
The phone subject does not get mentioned again for the rest of the lesson and the instructor believes that having made the pupil aware of the legality of using a phone whilst driving has been accepted by the pupil.
The following week, the exact same thing happens and the pupil gets their phone out again while the engine is running.
The pupil still believes the instructor is having a laugh.
They have obviously not taken on board that it is illegal to be holding a mobile phone while driving. Your influence of talking to them about the law has had no affect. You must now influence further by showing proof. This could be through the Highway Code page 144 and showing them in print that using a hand-held mobile phone when driving holds a maximum fine of £1000 (£2500 for motorway offences) and 6 penalty points. And for a learner in the first 2 years after passing their driving test would cause the to have their licence revoked.
You have now shown them in black and white what the laws are. They may well have a chat with their dad when they get home and re-question it.
Most probably their dad will agree that it is correct, but will still continue to use the phone when driving.
There is nothing we can do as instructors about their behaviour when driving once they pass their test, but we can advise, educate and allow them to make their own choices for taking responsibility for their actions and their learning.
Having had a couple of instances where your pupil had pulled out their phone during a lesson, I would make it brutally clear to them that they either switch their phone off before the lesson starts or that they must not bring it along for a lesson.
The reality of it is, why do they need their phone during a lesson?
99% of learners are picked up and dropped off at their home and are having a driving lesson so should have no need to use their phone during it.
Understandably, some pupils may be picked up from work, college a friends house and they will naturally have their phone on them but here is nothing to say you cannot enforce as part of your terms and conditions that mobile phones MUST be switched off for the entirety of the lesson.
If you pupil is not prepared to do this then it is possibly time to apologise to your pupil, but you can now no longer continue to teach them as they are constantly breaching the laws of driving and you are not prepared to accept this during your lessons.
Quite simply by asking them!
The more they understand what is good and what is bad with how they are driving the more prepared they will be when you are not there.
Just some ways of getting to know how your pupils is taking responsibility with their learning is through Q&A
Look at some of these examples of questions you could consider asking them.
"How do you think that went?"
"How do you think you could have handled that better?"
"Is there something you could have do to have achieved a better outcome?"
"What went well there?"
"What didn't go so well there?"
"How could you position in the road have helped the other driver?"
"How do you feel about today's lesson?"
"How slow do you think you should take this corner?"
"What can you take away from what just happened?"
"Talk to me about how that felt"
The list of questions you could ask are pretty much endless.
What type of answer you receive back from your pupil will depend on whether you ask them an Open or Closed question.
An Open question is one that is asked that can explore a topic.
An example of this would be.
"Talk to me about today's lesson. What went well and what didn't go so well?"
By asking open questions you are more likely to get a lot more of a response from your pupil.
If you are looking for a quick response or short answer then a Closed question would be far more suitable.
An example of this would be.
"Do we need to stop here?"
The answer is probably going to be a yes or a no
Closed questions tend to be restricted to a limited set of possible answers.
Taking responsibility puts your pupil on a good path to safe driving. They will understand that risk taking is not safe, they will understand that not following set procedures and rules will get them in to sticky situations. They will know what their capabilities are and possibly understand more about the capabilities of the car as well.
The responsibility for safe driving does not just come down to how your pupil can control a car. They also need to become responsible for their actions, their physical health, their mental health, the condition of their vehicle, the weather conditions.
All these are factors that will change how they drive and their ability to control the car.
If they are tired, happy, sad, angry, late for work, in a financial situation, getting ready for a holiday/wedding/funeral/dentist appointment/ other appointment/ in a break up, other areas that will affect how a drive goes will be whether they drive in urban roads, rural roads, dual carriageways, motorways, rain, snow, fog, sun, wind, night time, loose road surface, leaves on the road.
This list again is not endless put will need to be experienced by your learner so that they have the skill to know how to deal with them in the future and build up the responsibility to understand how their driving methods will meed to adapt to the different circumstances on any particular drive.
Literally every drive could be different.
Was their last drive good?
what part of it went well?
what part of it didn't?
Did they affect anyone else on their last drive?
Were they aware of their surroundings?
How were they feeling physically on the last drive?
How were they feeling mentally on their last drive?
Did their mental or physical health affect how they drove?
Did time constraints make them drive any differently?
Did the volume of traffic affect how they drove?
Did the time of day affect their last journey?#
Again and endless list but all real questions that your learner needs to be able to build the ability of being able to assess themselves and change how they drive accordingly.
It may be a case that in the future, they might be on a long journey and they are feeling tired.
Is there someone else in the car that can legally take over part of the drive?
If not, is there a safe location where they can stop, take a breather or maybe have a nap before continuing on with their journey?
Scaling is an excellent way of allowing your pupil to gauge improvement in their ability and experience.
A very easy process that can be used at the start and end of a particular task.
By asking you pupil on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being awful and 10 being great, where they feel they currently are regarding the particular task.
You will get an idea of how good your pupil thinks they are at that task.
When scaling is used at the beginning of the task, and then again at the end, the goal is to try and have achieved a higher score.
Lets just say as an example.
You have aske your learner how they would scale themselves on their ability to judge a meeting situation.
They may say a 4 or 5.
So you can they ask them, what might need to happen to bring that 4 or 5 up to a 6 or 7
This opens up a conversation with them and also allows them to build their understanding and responsibility for that particular task.
You then put the task to the test, and re-scale it at the end.
It may not go so well and your pupil rescores as a 3-4. They have self reflected on what happened and realised it was not as good as they first thought, but allows for another discussion to take place on how to achieve a higher score next time.
One of the biggest factors to consider with scaling, is that it is YOUR PUPILS SCORE and not yours.
Whatever you think their score should be is irrelevant and never divulged to your pupil.
If they say they think they are a 10 and you think they are a two, it's your job to influence them in to understanding that 10 might not be a true reflection of their ability.
Without undermining them, highlight areas where things might not have gone so well that would justify them to bring their score down, but don't suggest they bring their score down. Always work to achieving a higher score.
To be honest, even you should never be scoring your own ability as a 10, because there is ALWAYS something new to learn.
We don't know it all, and i would be an arrogant person who thinks they do.
Unfortunately, with the introduction of the theory test, many instructors no longer get involved with their pupils to discuss the theory of driving.
They tell their pupils to just crack on with it, suggest an app, and never really discuss anything about it, but one day their pupil turns up for a lesson and says "oh by the way I passed my theory test yesterday"
The pit fall to this, is the instructor doesn't really know much about how much the learner has actually taken in from it.
It's a very frequent text that instructors will get from a pupil saying
"Ah, I failed the theory, I was only 1 point short, I'll get it next time!"
In truth though, they didn't only get 1 point short
The theory test involves answering 50 multiple choice questions, and answering 43 of those 50 questions correctly to pass.
If they only scored 42 out of the 50 it means that they were missing 16% of knowledge of those 50 questions.
16% should not be taken as "I only missed out by 1 mark
Yes they failed to pass the test by 1 mark, but what didn't they know.
Did they not know what a One Way street sign looks like?
Did they not know what a No-Entry sign looks like?
If you took that 16% of the 700+ questions that are in the theory test that is a lot of knowledge missing.
I suppose you could argue that it was only the 16% of those 50 questions that they didn't know but i suspect the figure is probably greater.
These are just simple things that by not knowing could put them and others around them at risk every time they are on the road.
A learner should be aiming for 100% and you should be encouraging that as well.
By setting Homework for your pupils it will mean that they may have to do some research.
Base that homework around particular subjects that you are working on with them.
It does not need to take up hours of their time, but it means that they are taking an active role in their learning, and also taking responsibility for it.
You may find on their following session, they were genuinely unable to find the relevant information you were asking them for, and it may be that you need to help them to understand it together.
But by keep setting a tiny bit of homework each session you will encourage your learners to take an active part in their learning.
Even if the homework is just to do with theory questions, it shows that you are actively showing an interest in their learning as well.
There is nothing more soul destroying than a pupil who struts their stuff walking to their lesson because they have just passed the theory test,
only to find 20 minutes later they can't answer a question on basic road rules.
Ensure that you involve your learner.
Get them answering questions.
Give them time to analyse situations if they don't go well, and to work out what they might do differently.
Allow them time to reflect on what did go well and how it will benefit them.
Don't lead the whole lesson.
Use different teaching methods to allow your pupil to understand things.
Give your pupil some homework.
Allow them to express how they feel and their understanding of subject.
Allow your pupil to explain their beliefs and opinions but nurture them to understand the facts.
When asking questions, don't jump in with an answer if your pupil hasn't answered in seconds, give them time to consume the question, analyse it, and come up with an answer.
