Regarding the title question - I don't spend time splitting hairs over what to call what I do because ultimately, people who really don't know what we do (even when they think they do) never differentiate.

What I do is NOT react to requests like "I want a 1 hour workshop on overcoming objections" with "when do you want it?" My first question is almost always a form of WHY? The moment someone tells me how to do what they hired me to do is when I start asking the questions nobody seems to want to ask or answer.

Otherwise known as ANALYSIS. My expectation is that anyone doing what we do understands that this is where to begin and knows how to do it (or quickly seeks out resources to learn how).

Is that unrealistically optimistic of me?

I don't care what you call it. Call it horses and pigs. I'm more interested in trying to find out whether the trainers/educators/whatevers on this board are more focused on learners performing tasks, potentially in a standardized way, or whether they are primarily focused on changing mindsets/getting people to think.

I agree that it is important to ask why a client wants a course or other WLP intervention. I do not always have that luxury: one of my clients offers public events where participants come to learn what we offer.

It may not matter to you whether you are teaching how to do something or whether you are trying to teach a thinking process, but to me, at least, it seems that these different tasks sometimes require somewhat different methods. I am trying to think through my design and delivery processes to evaluate whether I am doing things as optimally as I can. Hopefully along the way I can get others to think, too. As I approach thirty years of doing this, a little self-evaluation seems in order: if I evaluate training events to make them better, it seems appropriate to evaluate myself to make myself better.

travelerjjm,

Good discussion, thanks for starting it. Always nice to pause and consider (maybe even challenge)our own mental models.

My own approach was influenced by Len Nadler (GWU) and his discussions around the three elements of HRD...training-education-development. Training being skills for right now; education being skills for next level.

When asked about the difference between training and education I recall hearing someone explain it like this: "Well, let me put it this way. Would you rather hear that your kid went to school one day and attended a sex training class or a sex education class?"

Trying to translate that nugget back into the classroom (for me anyway) meant needing to pay close attention to the proximity of skills/knowledge to the application of those skills/knowledge.

The closer they are to application the more I tend to focus the learning event on the task itself (training)...the more distance there is the more opportunity there is to be more provocative (education and development).

Good analysis leads to clear definition of goals/ objectives/ outcomes (whatever you choose to call them) which leads to good design in which one determines best methods for learners to learn what needs to be learned. This is basic stuff. Maybe I don't understand the question (or the mystery?)...

LoveLearning,
Maybe I am being too complex. Let's try it this way: if you are training someone the "seven steps for assembling widgets" do you use different methods than when you teach how to design computer software?

I have found that, for the most part, people who do teach people to design widgets or put out fires in a lab, are not the same people who teach software design or writing courses. Maybe my experience is limited, but it is what I see.