New intensive training methods immerse students

Michelle Crowe Special To The Business Journal

Total immersion, intensive training and boot camps are all being touted as the newest methods for saturating students of all ages with knowledge. While total immersion is frequently likened to the sink-or-swim learning method of placing non-English-speaking students into an English-only environment for long periods of time, it also is being used to teach adults a different language--technology programs. On the other hand, intensive training is usually brief--a few hours to a few days--but provides meaty periods of learning. Boot camp, the throwback to military training, lasts anywhere from a few days to several weeks, and is designed to instill lifelong discipline and workstyle habits. While each method offers a different approach, all share the goal of maximizing the return on a student's investment of time and effort.

Immerse yourself in education
The Ex'pression Center for New Media, located on the campus of Sybase in Emeryville, takes total immersion a quantum leap forward in intensity. "Words can't come close to describing what these students will be doing--they'll spend nine hours a day, five days a week in scheduled activities alone, and probably even more time than that playing around," said president Gary Platt, one of the schools two founders. While located at Sybase, the program is open to all adults interested in an alternative to traditional college. Students will receive diplomas in either Digital Visual Media, requiring 2,178 hours of instruction for $27,700, or Sound Arts, requiring 2,160 hours for $25,700. The program lasts 14 months. Ex'pression will accept its first class of up to 60 students this January, and anticipates enrolling as many as 264 students by the end of 1999. Mr. Platt, a nationally recognized audio engineer and producer who originated the total immersion concept for technology and sound arts, and its applications for Ex'pression, admits the program's intensity appeals most to ambitious, results-oriented students. "This is pretty much all you'll do with your life for 14 months - you'll work long and hard, just as you would in a real job, and the labs will be open 24-hours a day," Mr. Platt said. Although total immersion may be the catch phrase of the moment, some educators and businesspeople molding the Bay Area's work force find variations of intense training more beneficial for their students.

Train with intensity

The nonprofit Industry Initiatives for Science and Math Education offers seven to 10 summer fellowships to Silicon Valley elementary, middle and high school teachers annually, exposing them to the real-world applications of technology, science and math. Teachers trained in the intensive hands-on program return to school better equipped to teach their students in technology and team building. "We've found project-based learning is more effective for our students than total immersion," said Carol Welsh Gray, Challenge 2000 Project program manager for Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network in San Jose. "Putting a child one-on-one with a computer isn't always best; sometimes groups of three around a computer with a teacher as facilitator has more of an impact," Ms. Gray added, "We're using technology in more diverse ways, not just drill and kill." The organization employs various programs to facilitate desired outcomes in reading, writing, communication, math, science, critical thinking and problem solving, with technology as one of the tools used to achieve those goals. "I think the best way is to learn multimedia is by applying it to a project that matters to you, not something hypothetical," said Michael Simpkins, program manager for the Challenge 2000 Multimedia Project for the 21st Century Education Initiative of Joint Venture. Another brief but effective training program for teachers is National Semiconductor Corp.'s Internet Training Initiative Global Connections program, which started in October 1997. That year over $5.2 billion was spent on hardware, software and wiring for education, yet only 15 percent of teachers were effectively trained, and 80 percent of them identified lack of training as their key obstacle to teaching Internet use. "Nine teams represent several schools, and we only take 14 teachers at a time in our Global Connections program, structuring the lessons as tools to gather information and design projects and presentations in more sophisticated ways," said LuAnn Jenkins, corporate public relations representative for National Semiconductor in Santa Clara. Although it's a two-day intensive course, the two days are scheduled four to six weeks apart to allow questions and issues to surface before the second training. Strange as it may sound, boot camps fall between total immersion and intensive training as far as intensity.

Boot camps train for real life
Eighteen years ago, Tom Hopkins of Tom Hopkins International in Scottsdale, Ariz., began offering one of the first educational boot camps for adults in the country. His training involves blocking out distractions and focusing attentively on mastering sales techniques through a variety of exercises, including role playing, quizzes, homework assignments and goal planning. "When I lock people up for three days and nights and make them do what they don't want to do, which is study, they exponentially increase the amount of their retained benefits," Mr. Hopkins said. "According to our last survey, which is always taken one year after completing boot camp, 84 percent of the graduates experienced an average increase of 60 percent in their income," Mr. Hopkins said. One graduate of Mr. Hopkins' early boot camps is Realtor Judy Carr of Altas Realty in Campbell. "Tom's training was intense, but it helps keep me focused on what I need to be thinking, saying and doing to best help my clients successfully buy and sell real estate in this valley's competitive market," Ms. Carr said. Ms. Carr currently represents a staggering one-third of all real estate transactions in her sales area, and attributes much of her success to skills mastered through at boot camp and reinforced with Hopkins' follow-up materials. Although different approaches, total immersion, intensive training and boot camp all share the same goal: equipping students with the training, experience and personal skills required to succeed in the most competitive global markets. Michelle Crowe is a freelance writer based in Campbell.