Change tools for instructors | teachers | students | sports coaches | athletes | players | workplace trainers | operators | trainees
Rapidly correct persistent errors in performance | understanding | operating procedures | work routines | techniques | habit patterns

Habit patterns

Trainers, teachers, instructors and sports coaches try to get it right the first time with their trainees, students and athletes but invariably end up spending a lot of time trying to correct errors, misconceptions, non-compliance, technique faults and bad habits that somehow develop.

Because these errors were not corrected early, and were inadvertently repeated over and over, i.e., practiced, many error patterns are actually learned, habitual and automatic and therefore much harder to eradicate.

For example, John always writes "recieve" instead of "receive"; Mike always has to be reminded to wear his safety goggles; Mary always slices her golf swing; Susan always follow cars too closely when driving; and Geoff is mentally still following the previous aircraft’s pre-flight checklist even though he's converted to another aircraft.

We all know that old habits die hard and many habit patterns are resistant to conventional change methods.

These limitations of traditional teaching, coaching and training programs are apparent in all settings including sport, workplace training, education, therapy and personal development.

Re-training or re-education, the typical solution to these problems, improves things only slowly, if at all.

Although learners may appear to pay attention during instruction and practice their new, correct, skills and knowledge over and over, the next day when placed under performance pressure or when unsupervised and left to their own devices, they seem to have forgotten what they’ve learned and the same habit pattern errors, e.g., old entrenched attitudes, beliefs, misunderstandings, work practices and routines, faulty procedures, poor techniques and unsafe behaviours, resurface.

A prolonged adjustment period and poor transfer of learning are the two most typical outcomes of education, training and coaching efforts worldwide.

All this wastes talent and resources and makes change and transition programs so much less cost-effective. There has to be a better way.

Fortunately, a cognitive science discovery called Old Way New Way^® Learning offers:

• A new perspective on the transfer of training problem.

• A cost-effective and user-friendly method for rapid skill and technique correction and habit eradication.

• A fast and practical method of transition and conversion training.

This home page tells the story of habit forces; how and why habits develop; the crucial role habits play in our lives; why old habits die hard; and what you can do to change that using the Old Way New Way^® change tool.

Training options

Training in Old Way New Way^® Learning is available in an online course, either with or without email support, or in a training workshop for small groups.

Online course

Online courses are designed by professional educators and follow modern instructional design principles. The Flash based courses can be downloaded and are self-paced, interactive and self contained. Step by step instructions, examples and case studies teach you all about Old Way New Way^® Learning and how to apply it to a wide range of human performance problems in your field of interest. Most courses include at least one video segment that shows Old Way New Way being used; some courses contain four video segments. Online courses that come with with email support cost more but are tailor made and provide step by step solutions for your own selection of specific performance problems.

Workshop

The one-day training workshop provides face-to-face instruction and follow up support for small groups of practitioners, e.g., workplace trainers, sports coaches, flight instructors, driving instructors, nurse educators, teachers, physiotherapists, behaviour change specialists, and so on.

Sport

Technique correction

Workplace training

Workplace safety

Manual handling

Flight instruction

Flight instruction (email us)

Type conversion (email us)

Glass cockpit conversion (email us)

science misconceptions

correcting misconceptions—a fresh approach

This program:

greatly improves students' conceptual understanding
quickly and permanently corrects errors and misconceptions
greatly improves transfer of learning and memory
increases student flexibility and adaptability to change
is being used by both large and small schools, home schools, colleges and universities
uses an innovative learning method officially endorsed by the South Australian Department of Education
is backed by published research, case studies and workplace trials
is readily adopted by teachers, tutors, home school tutors, trainers, instructors and coaches as part of their professional toolkit
can be learned through videos, self-paced courses and workshops ranging from $39 to $395 (some courses are still being developed).

habit pattern errors

The problem is not learning the new; it's forgetting (unlearning) the old!

Old Way New Way offers a new theory and a method for overcoming errors, misconceptions and entrenched old ways so teachers and learners can achieve continuous improvement.

Persistent errors and misconceptions, known as habit pattern errors, in the learning of science, mathematics, spelling and other school studies are notoriously resistant to correction by conventional teaching and learning methods. Old Way New Way^® offers a new theory and a user friendly method of correcting these errors, once and for all.

learners just keep falling back to old ways—the transfer of learning problem

One of the most time consuming, frustrating and costly features of human learning is that, despite quality teaching, expert learning support and advice, caring friends, school counselors and the strongest self-determination to improve, students still improve only slowly and often keep falling back to old ways.

For example:

have you noticed that children keep misspelling the same words over and over, despite repeatedly being shown the right way and writing that out many times?
despite quality teaching, why do even capable children keep reversing letters and numerals?
why do students hang on to their wrong ideas and misconceptions in science and mathematics, despite being shown the error of their ways?
does improvement and change have to be so slow, difficult, frustrating and expensive?
did you know that with conventional change methods it can take up to 2,000 repetitions before a learner is competent and comfortable with the new way?

Because we are not a blank slate, self change is hard. Self-teaching attempts, observation, education, training and practice have given us prior knowledge and skills. Consequently, we all have our own way.

Knowledge and skills can become incorrect, incomplete or outdated over time, making us less effective as individuals, as employees, as partners, as parents, as professionals, as performers. We then face having to change ourselves.

But our "own way" of thinking and doing, developed and practiced over the years, has now become habitual and automated. Many of the routines we follow, from the time we get up in the morning to the time we go to bed, are automated and operate mostly beyond our conscious awareness. Many of these routines are not within our direct conscious control. In fact, much of our life is "automatic" and we run many things and respond to many situations as if we were on "automatic pilot."

This has clear advantages for us in our attempts to cope with life's demands. For example, when learning to drive we initially have to concentrate on each and every step while changing gears or executing a turn. With practice comes learning and what took so much concentrated effort and conscious control before now happens almost without thinking. Instead of concentrating on gear changing we can now leave that part to the "automatic pilot" and instead direct our energies to figuring out how to get to our destination.

Such automated skilled routines serve as well as long as nothing changes. Try changing to a car without a manual shift or one that has the windscreen wiper control lever on the "wrong" side and you will discover the interference generated by your prior learning.

Automatic, learned skill routines and ways of coping with the world that we have picked up over the years are not always the best ones. Sometimes, for one reason or another, we get it wrong. Our driving habits may not be the safest ones because we were not taught properly. Since you learn, i.e., automate, whatever it is that you practice, it is likely that when you practice inferior driving skills then that is what you will end up with as a driving habit.

If not corrected early, then, some of that faulty knowledge, those wrong ideas and inferior skills we have will have developed into learned errors, technique difficulties, misconceptions and ingrained bad habits.

Habits are automatic, reflex-like acts and behaviours that are not under conscious control - by the time you realise what you've done wrong, its too late to stop

Convinced that it's time to change, you seek help. An "expert" may point out your errors, show you a better way and you copy and practice it.

While this teacher, coach, trainer, therapist is alongside and giving you cues for the new, correct performance, you can do the right thing and appear to have improved.

You can do the right thing afterwards, too but you have to concentrate hard each time on exactly what to do. The new knowledge, action, technique or performance feels strange having done it the other way for so long.

Because the new technique differs from the old way there is a conflict or tension between them. Your brain detects this conflict and instantly activates a knowledge protection mechanism called proactive inhibition (PI for short).

PI is a well researched psychological phenomenon. PI protects all your learned knowledge and skills, right and wrong, and strongly resists and slows down any attempt to change or improve your prior knowledge and skills,

We all have this knowledge protection mechanism but it is stronger in some people. It is an unconscious mechanism and we have little or no control over it.

If you have not already experienced the brief demonstration of PI from the colour chart activities, please go there now and do that. Then come back to this section by following the Misconceptions link. Go to the PI demonstration.

The level of PI a person has is not associated with his or her intellectual ability or "IQ".

PI is why old knowledge, skills, habits and techniques die hard and why self-improvement is so difficult, slow and frustrating under conventional training methods.

PI causes accelerated forgetting (within minutes or hours) of the new way and this is why you then appear to revert and go back to your old incorrect or inappropriate way of thinking, acting or performing. You know what you're doing wrong and what you should do and you're highly motivated to improve but your brain (force of habit, i.e., PI) won't let you change.

It is a sad fact that with conventional methods it can take you up to 2,000 repetitions of the new way before you are comfortable with and competent using the new action, technique or behaviour.

All this is known as the transfer of learning problem.

Now you know what the problem is and what it feels like, you are ready for the solution. Being aware of PI and it's effects, however, is not enough to overcome it. Simply re-teaching a skill, action or information, even when supported by specific videotaped feedback to improve awareness, is unlikely to work quickly, if at all. You need an alternative teaching method that bypasses habit interference altogether in order to accelerate learning and skill development. This teaching method is called Old Way New Way.

Old Way New Way^® learning

Personal Best Academy uses and teaches Old Way New Way^® to teachers, tutors, workplace trainers, instructors, sport coaches, players, athletes, physiotherapists, sport medicine practitioners, sport psychologists and other individuals seeking to improve human performance and adjustment.

Old Way New Way^® is not like behaviour modification, brainwashing or hypnosis, nor is it a kind of psychological conditioning.

It is readily incorporated into what educationalists normally do and is well accepted by learners - it is very user-friendly.

Based on a novel interpretation and synthesis of well researched and accepted learning principles, Old Way New Way^® is far superior to conventional approaches to correcting errors and misconceptions, improving understanding, correcting technique problems and developing new skills.

With Old Way New Way^® there is no need for special equipment, although the use of video feedback, stop-motion analysis and kinaesthetic feedback can be helpful with complicated performance skills.

Old Way New Way^® works with the brain, not against it, to accelerate the natural process of change.

new model for teaching and learning

Old Way New Way^® is a unique example of successful collaboration between researchers and practitioners to design the most effective teaching and learning protocols.
Old Way New Way^® is basically a Neo-Constructivist model - the learner is the one who is responsible for learning, understanding and changing.
The teacher's ability to identify and diagnose the error or technique problem is critical, as is his or her ability to identify, explain and demonstrate to the learner the "correct" knowledge, skill or technique. This befits the teacher's role as the subject matter expert.
The learner can be empowered through Old Way New Way^® to take on personal responsibility for improving.
The learner's prior knowledge and skills (incorrect as well as correct) must be incorporated into any teaching strategy.
If no conflict is likely between new and pre-existing knowledge and skills, then a conventional teaching strategy is OK and new knowledge and skills will consolidate and build on old.
However, when prior knowledge and skills are likely to conflict with the new, the learner needs to follow prescribed Old Way New Way^® procedures and not just attempt to practice the new while ignoring pre-existing knowledge and skills.

case studies in effective teaching and learning using Old Way New Way^®

All kinds of skills, technique difficulties, misconceptions, misunderstandings, actions and behaviours can be corrected.

TO READ THESE CASE STUDIES: Click on the hyperlink to read details of some of these case studies. After reading them, click the "Back To (previous page)" button on your browser to return to this section.

We have successfully corrected misconceptions, improved understanding, corrected errors and faulty technique, unlearned habits, changed behaviour and developed skills in a wide range of learning activities, for example:

Literacy: Reading, spelling, reversals, handwriting
Numeracy: Correcting misconceptions in knowledge of maths concepts, e.g., percentage, fractions, area, subtraction
Second language acquisition: Overcoming mother-tongue interference and fossilisation
Science teaching: Correcting misconceptions in physics and chemistry knowledge using a whole-class rather than a one-to-one use of Old Way / New Way
Musical performance: Controlling stress and performance anxiety; keying, bowing and fingering technique
Vocational training: Soldering, carpentry, handling and cutting glass, drafting, animal science
Driver training and retraining: Correcting habitual driving behaviour that increases wear and tear or reduces driving safety margins
Assertiveness training: Developing assertive skills in an employment situation
Speech pathology: Articulation, language, stuttering
Physiotherapy: Correcting a long-established injury-causing gait.

correcting misconceptions professional development program for teachers - please email us for further important information about the availability of these courses before placing an order

Online course

Online rapid behaviour change course includes all course material including a video segment, plus step-by-step guidance and support in a course that is customised just for you. Order form.

Teacher development workshop

One-day instructor development workshop tailor made for teachers from beginner to experienced. Email us.

teaching and learning skills online course

Suitable for

Individuals wanting to change aspects of their performance or behaviour
School teachers (primary and secondary) and their students
Vocational education teachers and students
Teachers and students of music, drama, singing, speech, second language, physical education, dance, deportment and modeling, assertiveness
Adult education students and teachers
Adult literacy students and teachers
Workplace literacy students and teachers
Performing artists - vocalists, actors, musicians, dancers, models and their teachers
Instructors and students of flying, driving, sailing and diving
Anyone with a need for performance enhancement.

Features

Self paced, you decide how fast you want to go
This course equips you to become a competent and confident user of the change methodology, so you can use it to change yourself and to help others to change themselves
The course has a theoretical and a practical component and is heavily biased towards the practical side.
The individualised, self-paced course draws on your own personal and professional experience and incorporates interesting, relevant and practical projects that immediately apply what you learn
The knowledge and techniques you will learn can be applied to a wide range of performance problems in teaching and learning and can be used with individual students, small groups and whole classes.

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Change tools for instructors | teachers | students | sports coaches | athletes | players | workplace trainers | operators | trainees Rapidly correct persistent errors in performance | understanding | operating procedures | work routines | techniques | habit patterns