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Keeping Debriefs Brief
Working in groups is an important part of your design so what can a trainer do to help learners squeeze out (squeeze in?) all the learning without taking forever? Is experimenting a solution?
10 Things That `Only' Work For Trainers - No. 1
Over the next few months, I'll be sharing the tools that never fail me - here are my top ten training tools or techniques that only work for trainers.
Top 10 Things That Only Work - No. 2
You need to design appropriate performance objectives but that is incredibly difficult and often, objectives are at the wrong `chunk size'. How can outcomes link the learning to the business?
Do You See What I'm Saying? The Role of Gestures in Learning
Recent research indicates that gestures do convey critical, often unspoken, information. What role do gestures play in effective learning?
Real Life – A Nice Place to Visit (but you wouldn’t want to live there)
Second Life is a virtual world, very similar to real life and educators and companies have used Second Life for classes, research projects and simulations. The possibilities for interaction and learning are endless because in real life, we are “making up” our own reality all the time.
Tips from the Team
Our selection of top tips, movies, and must-read books for trainers. Are you up to speed with these?
Get Out Your Interactive Whiteboard
Whiteboards help you avoid ‘death-by-PowerPoint’, create content on the fly, allow interactivity, react to incoming ideas, and deflect red herrings. Are you misunderstanding or under-utilizing them?
One Thing at a Time…
Overwhelm is self-perpetuating so it is important to encourage participants to focus purely on the current task and ignore any other factors that may be contributing to the feeling of overwhelm during or after training.
It's not big but it IS clever!
The IMAC from Apple is an attractive piece of design and therefore adds value when it's switched off. The new ones are minimalistic - no tower, a flat screen, keyboard and mouse - that's it. But it is smart!
Analogies in training?
Analogies? They're a bit like making love to a beautiful woman! Most people can come up with a wider range of analogies and some just can't stop doing it.
The Seven Deadly Sins… (training topic)
Training has come a long way in recent years with interactive and collaborative learning. There is lots of laughter, music is sometimes playing, and people are interacting and collaborating.
Questions for Eric Jensen
This TrainingZone thought-leader piece is part of a discussion between two pioneers in the field of brain-friendly or brain-based learning - Eric Jensen and Kimberley Hare of Kaizen Training.
The Gift (group exercise)
How often do we tell people that they are really good at something - generally it is not enough. Much work in the training room around team building is about what is not being said within the team.
Photos on Tap
Of all our senses, the one with the potential to receive the most information per second is sight - 10 million bits per second and we only consciously process 40 of those!
IT Meets Brain-Friendly Learning
By chunking Structured Walkthroughs sideways, you can design or critique a course as a participant, a trainer, and a client. In a Kaizen Blitz or Kaizen Workout Thats what we do in Kaizen Blitz or Kaizen Workout...
Manage State Transitions
This tip is intended to be a refresher about state transitions which are the in thing these days. My most outstanding results are largely credited to a great state management strategy.
What's in a Name?
Quite a lot. Do your customers have any historical or emotional context anchored to a word?
How Flexible is your Trainer State?
“There are no difficult delegates, only inflexible facilitators”. If you would like to increase your own flexibility, Robert Dilts has come up with a fantastic way to categorise trainer behaviours, helping to highlight where there are opportunities for growth.
Defogging your Communication
How brain friendly is your written and spoken communication? Are your handouts and course notes truly readable? This article shows you how to reduce your fog index.
Putting the Cart before the Horse
How often do we as trainers rush headlong into the task at hand rather than taking the time to build a solid and trusting foundation with our participants? And how do we build such a relationship?
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