Training from the BACK of the Room!

Do we learn more when we study for a test or prepare to teach someone else? Does it make a difference? If so, how can trainers apply this in their classes? As time passes, we are discovering more about how humans learn best. There are new ideas and observations emerging all the time. I was

Conventional wisdom can be misleading when unchallenged … and there is a lot of unchallenged conventional wisdom about training and learning. In the UK, we have a fabulous show called “QI”. The show’s participants are celebrities (comedians mostly). They are asked a series of questions, and they buzz in to give an answer and win

The trainer speaks, we listen. The corporate slide deck flips to a new text-heavy slide, we read it. The trainer moves around the room, we sit patiently awaiting the next break. Same old training, different day. In “traditional” training classes, the learners sit while the trainer shares their extensive knowledge. The trainer uses a slide

“It’s the end of the training. Do you know what that means? It’s time to break out the feedback forms!” “Yay! Feedback forms!” said no class ever … Feedback is important. Asking learners to fill out a feedback form at the very end of the class is not a good use of the recency effect.

I ask the class, “Does that make sense?” and see a sea of smiling faces nodding. I think to myself, “Great! We nailed it.” Some of the most pointless questions asked by trainers: We’ve all been guilty of using something like this from time to time. How do learners know if it makes sense? Maybe

I’m sitting in a classroom, and the trainer has been droning on and on for over an hour. The coffee break felt like it was forever ago. The caffeine is starting to wear off and I’m starting to fall into a slumber. OK – so this is an extreme example of what can happen in

We’ve all been subjected to terrible openings to training. Random ice breakers, pointless rounds of introductions, trainers waving their credentials around … The problem with all of these openings is that they don’t help learners connect to what they already know, connect to the topic, connect to their learning goals, or connect to each other.

A long time ago, my boss asks me to train some people. So, what’s the first thing that I do? You can probably guess … It turns out that this is a crazy way to design training. Worse still, it is an awful way to deliver training. Thankfully, my colleague Jose introduced me to a