After a rather lengthy absence dealing with some difficulties with the birth of our second little girl, I'm working on getting back into regularly reading and posting blog entries.
Some low hanging fruit comes in the form of the Learning Circuit's
Big Question for September. The question investigates working with SMEs. I once heard the statement that SMEs make the worst trainers. While it's certainly a generalization in order to make a point, the truth is that SMEs may often breeze through critical information that a novice would not understand. On the other side of the coin, it's obvious that ISDers can't work without SMEs (i.e. we all can't have SME level knowledge in the variety of disciplines that we will work on over the years).
I've "worked" with several SMEs who thought they knew everything and would not accept any help in their instructional endeavors. There will be a small percentage that will not change...and I think you need to just wait for them to retire or move on to a different position:-) For the rest, there is a certain level of education that will need to be done on both sides. Coming from the learning standpoint, we must show value added. This could involve
very briefly summarizing key learning theories; it should involve outlining potential pitfalls; it should involve asking questions to help formulate the needs.
Most importantly, I've found that it helps out a lot when you emphasize that our emphasis is increasing learning. When SMEs see that we value students/learners/trainees as much (possibly more) than they do, it will help break down barriers.
