How do you educate people in an increasingly time-poor world and one where attention spans seem to be reducing quite dramatically?

DFQ is a learning strategy invented by the School Of Thinking and as usual they seem to have been ahead of the pack in developing this technique.

The School Of Thinking is an educational organisation founded in New York during 1979 by Michael Hewitt-Gleeson, Edward de Bono and George Gallop – inventor of the famous Gallop Poll.

So what is a DFQ?

DFQ stands for Daily Feedback Question.  Quite simply, each day you answer one question after reading a short piece of text (maybe a couple of paragraphs) or watching a short video. That’s it.

Now contrast this to spending 4 hours solid in a lecture, or one solid week on a training course. Granted, there is, and probably always will be, a place for this traditional block type of education. But the DFQ method, where you spend a few minutes every day over a long period of time, is particular suited to the Twitter generation and our modern busy lives.

So why does this work so well?  Well it’s based on a lot of research and in particular a military leadership training program which took place in Australia during the 1960’s. From my own personal experience there are two key factors which make this so successful and such an enjoyable way to learn.

1) I only need to spend 5 minutes (or less) a day. I typically have so much in my schedule that the thought of adding anything time-consuming becomes overwhelming.

2) PRR – Practice, Repetition, Rehearsal.  You get to go over the same material many times, albeit in different ways, and practise makes perfect.  Plus you also get an opportunity, ever day, to put the one thing you’ve learned into practice.

So when considering how you educate people, think about the benefits of the DFQ method and how you, and your organisation, might benefit from employing this type of training. I also encourage you to check out the School Of Thinking’s program and learn how to become a better thinker.  Did I mention it’s free?