Many trainers are a lot of fun to listen to. Many trainings are exciting to participate in. Although they can be great and fun, they are not necessarily useful.
What we all want is to make people fit for their specific real-world challenges in addition to being excited.
How to ensure trainings are set-up for their participants success? First be aware that:
I. Great telling DOES NOT TRIGGER knowing
II. Knowing DOES NOT MEAN people are able to apply
The important question is how to ensure trainings are set-up for their participants’ success?
Here are 3 points from our experience:
1. Activities instead of input
Learning for real world doesn’t come from listening, even if it sounds plausible. So, for every piece of learning content: Develop one specific activity which enables people to apply the new piece of content.
2.Focus on designing these activities
Think through how to include learning content into activities when designing your training. Don’t overemphasize content when planning your agenda.
People who design trainings often think: “I have to say this, then mention that, and not forget about those 5 details, etc.” … Try to get away from this!
People will remember what they have experienced.
3. Trigger learning transfer when starting and ending each piece of content
When starting with one piece of learning content, always start with participants recollection of real life experience. After this piece of learning content: trigger reflection how the solutions and approaches provided help with real life challenges.
As a trick, if you have nothing else at hand: Ask people about exchanging their “Key learnings” after a session by asking the group: “How can you use this to solve your day-to-day challenges?” Feel free to share your training experiences and training design experiences!
