What value are you adding in your driving lessons?

The use of questions in a learning environment is beneficial for the trainer AND the trainee.  Trainers can test for understanding, and trainees can get clarification.  Either way, the person asking the question is making attempts to aid learning.

There can hardly be a more significant 'crime' than ignoring if learning is occurring.  A driving instructor will lose custom, and very possibly their business.  A pupil will waste time and money. 

Arguably a pupil would be better served by having NO instruction at all and be given the freedom to self-teach.  If they have no motivation to learn, they will not learn.  If they are motivated but lacking in the skills of knowing how to learn, they will get there; it will just take a while. 

So my advice is to take care here.  In certain circumstances, it could be argued very convincingly that a driving instructor is not adding ANY value to a learning environment.  Questioning is critical.

I attended some classroom CPD a while ago where a peer raised a very pertinent question which had practical significance.  Her issue was brushed aside in the blink of an eye.  I then added to her question, probing yet further for understanding and likewise a declaration was made of "keep it in the classroom....keep it in the classroom".  This phrase was utilised as a coping mechanism by the trainers when the practical aspect of their teaching was losing some ground.  The result?  Loss of credibility, loss of learning, demotivated pupils, nothing definite.

Driving is a practical activity.  If the "learning" occurring in a training session does not assist in practical terms, you, me, WE are not providing any value in that learning environment.  In the BIG TOM Foundation block training of "Customer Feedback," this point is emphasised.  As a business owner (even if you are trading alone), it is essential you make every effort to discover from your customers the effectiveness of your training that you provide. 

Ignore this point at your peril.  Staff within an organisation (ESPECIALLY WITHIN THE SERVICE INDUSTRY) who become 'used' to brushing aside questions from customers are walking along a very thin tightrope.

You can make one significant positive step right now in your business; commit to never, ever, brushing aside a pupil's question. That question, no matter what your perception of it is, means the world to that pupil.  Treat it with care and attention.  Remove your mindset from how you interpret it and make every attempt to understand the thinking behind the question.

This approach is a critical difference between the quality of driving instructors.  The lazy way of teaching is to ignore questions from the pupil, don't test for any learning, and insist a pupil does what they are told to do.  You end up with a pupil who is modelling your expected driving behaviours that they have NO intention of continuing in the long term but dangerously, this approach WILL pass driving tests.  This is one of the limitations of an assessment that does not probe for learning via verbal questions.  Pupils get conditioned to do specific mirror checks, blindspot checks, observations at junctions, maintain separation gaps purely because they know that is what their instructor is expecting.  They know not why they do it, or how the driving action alters in differing contexts, it is merely a function that 'ticks a box'.

If you cannot relay to a pupil what practical benefit a driving action has to the extent that upon further testing they can provide a verbal explanation that meaningfully describes that benefit, then they will not be doing that driving action for long.  As a driving instructor, you do need to understand this point.  It is not sufficient that you know you have covered your explanations repeatedly; that matters not.  Don't get fooled by this trap of minimal self-evaluation in your teaching ability.  Just because you have explained something many times does not in itself mean that your pupil understands.  Test for understanding some time later, and if learning has not taken place, then it is essential to adapt your explanations until the pupil has absorbed the vital idea.  Once a connection is made, very often, that will suffice and you will not need to return to it again.  But if there is a disconnect in learning, the issue will not go away.

The value that you are adding to this process is by ensuring that long-term learning is taking place.  It is in the insistence of practical education that makes you a professional, creates a good reputation, and conforms to the DVSA Driving Standard.