Dave Chong · HRD Corp Train The Trainer
My Train The Trainer Study Journal
Day-by-day notes, takeaways and reflections as I work through the Train The Trainer course — written for myself, shared for anyone walking the same road.
About
Why this journal exists
I'm attending the HRD Corp Train The Trainer course, and writing things down is how I learn. This journal keeps my notes, takeaways and reflections from each day in one place — and holds me accountable to actually process what I'm taught, not just sit through it.
Journal
Day by day
Ice Breakers, KitKats and Ground Rules
Before a single slide, our trainer made us live the principles she was about to teach — balloon games, chocolate rewards, and one engagement rule I'm stealing for every meeting I run.
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Learning ≠ Training
"I taught Stripe how to whistle." "I don't hear him whistling." "I said I taught him. I didn't say he learned it." A cartoon that quietly demolishes how most companies think about training.
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Four Theoretical Perspectives of Learning
Behaviourist, cognitivist, constructivist, collaborativist — four different answers to what learning actually is, and a good trainer picks the right one for each learning goal.
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ADDIE — Instructional Design's Operating System
Analyse, Design, Develop, Implement, Evaluate — with Evaluate wired into every other phase. ADDIE looks like common sense until you notice how many trainings skip straight to Develop.
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The 70:20:10 Learning Model
Only 10% of learning comes from the classroom. The workshop's real job is to ignite the other 90% — the learning that happens through other people and through the work itself.
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The Forgetting Curve
Within one hour, more than half of what you learned is gone. Within a month, four-fifths. Retention is not about how well content was presented — it is about how often it gets retrieved.
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Lean Learning — 20% Content, 80% Practice
Only about 12% of employees apply what corporate training teaches them. Lean learning is the response: minimum effective content, immediate application, immediate feedback, repeat.
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Understanding Your Participants
Before you design a single slide, know who is in the room: why they're there, what they already know, what they expect — and the special considerations that decide whether they can learn at all.
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Learning Styles — Activists, Reflectors, Theorists, Pragmatists
Two axes — how people take experience in, and what they do with it — give four learning styles. I took the assessment: Pragmatist 19, Theorist 17, Reflector 15, Activist 11. It explains a lot.
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Carl Rogers — Training Is Closing a Gap
"Training is performance driven. There is a real self, and an ideal self — and the trainer's job is to close the gap." The afternoon opened with Carl Rogers and ended up redefining what a trainer is for.
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The Laws of Learning — Readiness, Effect, Exercise, Intensity, Primacy
"I also got law. My law is law of learning." Five behaviourist laws every trainer runs on — and why your school timetable put languages and maths in the morning.
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Andragogy — Malcolm Knowles and the Adult Learner
Pedagogy is the art and science of children's learning; andragogy is adult learning — and trainers who only know one cannot do the other. Five assumptions, four principles, and why adults walk out of bad training.
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Trainer Types — Listener, Interpreter, Director, Coach
To be a good trainer, you need to be a good learner. Four trainer types — each one trains one learning style best, and each one quietly neglects the others.
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The Competent Trainer — Nine Roles in One Person
A trainer is more than a speaker: designer, educator, communicator, motivator and influencer in one. Nine roles, and an honest self-audit of where I stand on each.
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Say hello
Taking the same course, or thinking about it? I'd be glad to compare notes —daveckw@gmail.com.