There are several advantages of using a flip chart, some as follows:

1. Flip charts do not need electricity – You don’t need to worry if the bulb will burn out or worry that you forgot the extension cord.

2. Flip charts are economical – They do not require you to use any special films or printers to produce them.

3. Color can be added very easily – An inexpensive box of flip chart markers allows you all the creativity you want.

4. Flip charts allow spontaneity – Any last minute changes can be easily made.

Tips for using flip charts:

1. The best flip chart stands have clamps at the top and will hold most type of flip chart pads. Most allow you to hang your flip charts while some stands will only allow you to prop them up. Don’t wait until the last minute to find this out.

2. Make sure the flip charts you use will fit the flip chart stand you will be using. Some have different spaced holes at the top.

3. Flip chart pads are usually sold in packages of two and come either plain or with grid lines on them. Using the pad with grid lines makes your job easier for drawing straight lines and keeps your text aligned. Also, make sure the pad has perforations at the top to allow easier removal of sheets.

4. Use flip chart markers and not regular magic markers. Flip chart markers will not “bleed” through the paper.

5. Avoid using the colors yellow, pink, or orange. These are extremely difficult for the audience to see. Using one dark color and one accent color works best.

Some limitations include:

1. May require the use of graphics talent.
2. Are not suitable for use in a large audience setting.
3. May be difficult to transport.

Have any additional advice on improving presentations? Please share in the comments section below.

Happy Training!

Diagnostic Assessments occur at the beginning of the teaching/learning cycle. This type of assessment will provide the teacher with an understanding of the prior knowledge and skills a student brings to a unit, as well as the strengths and specific learning needs of an individual or groups of students in relation to the expectations that will be taught.

Formative Assessments are on-going assessments, reviews, and observations in a classroom. Trainers use formative assessment to improve instructional methods and student feedback throughout the teaching and learning process. The results of formative assessments are used to modify and validate instruction.

Summative Assessments are typically used to evaluate the effectiveness of instructional programs and services at the end of a training session. The goal of summative assessments is to make a judgment of student competency after an instructional phase is complete. Summative evaluations are used to determine if students have mastered specific competencies and to identify instructional areas that need additional attention.

Surveys – Course Evaluations are the most commonly used survey type within the learning process but others survey types include Job Task Analysis, Needs Analysis, 360 and other forms of peer review assessments, Employee Attitude, Customer Satisfaction, Partner Satisfaction and Political Opinion surveys.

It’s important to use a variation of the types of assessments you are providing your audience. Adult learners demonstrate their learning and communicate areas of success and improvement in multiple ways. Just as we cater to their learning style, so must we provide various platforms to demonstrate competency. This not only gives us a true picture of what the learner has gained, but also areas within our training sessions that were either successful or need work.

Time is extremely important when we are presenting. We don’t want to talk past our limit, but we do want to fill the time we are expected to fill. This causes many presenters to continually look at their watches. What this does is cause the audience members to start looking at their watches and become more concerned with the passage of time than the important information we are trying to impart. There are several ways to work around this distraction. If you have a lectern or a table, you can place a small travel clock that it easy to read from a distance, so that a quick glance will be inconspicuous.

Banish the use of filler words from your speech.

By “filler words”: ums, ahs, ers, you-knows, ands, buts, and any other word that you may be using to excess. We often are not aware that we are filling our presentations with these distracting words, so the best way to spot them is to ask someone to tape your presentation. Then listen to the tape in the privacy of your home or office. You will be astounded. There may not be any “ums” or those kinds of fillers, but you may be saying a word over and over again. Once you are aware of this habit, you just need to stop and pause for a moment to reset your word choice.

Keep your hands off and out of your clothing.

Some speakers put their hands in their pockets, while others tug and pull at their clothing. Most are not aware of what they are doing, but part of the problem arises because we either get nervous and/or uncomfortable with the clothing we are wearing. If you can find someone to video your presentation, again you will be amazed with the little habits you have acquired over the years. Be sure you pick clothing that fits comfortably and also makes you feel like a million dollars, so you will have nothing to worry about.

Avoid too much movement.

It is actually better to stand comfortably still than to get into a repetitious movement that resembles a dance. I have become incredibly distracted by a trainer who rocked back and forth – one step forward, then one back. Just remember that any movement without a natural purpose will distract the audience.

Source: http://www.creativekeys.net/powerfulpresentations/article1032.html

Listening is passive. It is the lowest, least-efficient, least-effective form of learning. That means lectures are the lowest, least-efficient, least-effective form of learning. Listening alone requires very little brain effort on the learner’s part (and that goes for reading lecture-like texts as well), so listening to learn is often like watching someone lift weights in order to get in shape.

2) Know the wide variety of learning styles, and how to incorporate as many as possible into your learning experience.

We’re not talking about sorting learners into separate categories like “Joan a Visual Learner while Jim is an Auditory learner.”, or “He learns best through examples.” Every sighted person is a “visual learner”, and everyone learns through examples, step-by-step instructions, and through high-level and low-level “forest” views. Everyone learns top-down and bottom-up. Everyone learns from pictures, explanations, and examples. This doesn’t mean that certain people don’t have certain brain-style preferences, but the more styles you load into any learning experience, the better the learning is for everyone–regardless of their individual preferences.

3) Know why–and how–good stories work.

Learn as much as you can about storytelling and entertainment. Learn what screenwriters and novelists learn. Know what “show don’t tell” really means, and understand how to apply it to learning.
Humans spent thousands upon thousands of years developing/evolving the ability to learn through stories. Our brains are tuned for it. Our brains are not tuned for sitting in a classroom listening passively to a lecture of facts, or reading pages of text facts. Somehow we manage to learn in spite of the poor learning delivery most of us get in traditional schools and training programs (and books).

4) Know how — and why — good games can keep people involved and engaged for hours.

Learn how to develop activities that lead to a Flow State.

Source: http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/

Here is a list of a two games to help facilitate more participant-centered learning in an adult environment:

The Bump: Great for review of content

• Break people into teams of 4-5
• Give each team a 1-minute timer, flipchart paper, and markers
• The object is to list single words that summarize key training points
• To win, the team needs to list the most words in one minute
• Everyone gets a marker so they can write on the team’s sheet as quickly as possible
• After 1 minute, all writing stops
• The team with the longest list of unduplicated key words wins

Step by Step: Good if you’re training on processes

• Break class into an even number of small groups
• Ask each member of the group to draw one step of a process you’ve covered in the training session
o More steps than group members? – assign additional steps to certain members
• Give each group four minutes to complete their drawings
• Pair each group up with an opponent group
• One group shows its drawings out of order while the other group shuffles those holding the pictures until all steps are in the correct sequence
• Have groups switch opponent groups and repeat the exercise

Have any additional advice to share? Please send your curious case studies and anecdotal training stories to lisaj@pathwise.com. All names, locations, and other identifying information will be removed if we decide to use it in a future newsletter.

Happy Training!!!

• “Are we ever going to take a break?”
• “Does this guy know the person next to me is asleep?”
• “Is she just talking to herself at this point?”
• “How did we get from there to here?”
• “How am I going to remember all this?”

The brain, as it ages, gets better at recognizing the central idea, the big picture. If kept in good shape, the brain can continue to build pathways that help its owner recognize patterns and, as a consequence, see significance and even solutions much faster than a young person can. The brain is plastic and continues to change, not in getting bigger but by allowing for greater complexity and deeper understanding. In order for your participants to gain the most from your training sessions, use a simple 90/20/8 rule, which takes advantage of the natural learning process of the adult brain.

90: Adults need to physically step away from the content every 90 minutes in order for their brain to rest and review what it has just learned. This means “completely.” Avoid sending your participants off to break with an assignment. (I’ve seen this way too often.)

20: Within the 90 minute training intervals, stop every 20 minutes to check for retention. Instructors do this in a variety of ways. I’ve seen many that like to do verbal fill-in-the-blank. E.g. “When we are following the rules we are following our own what?” These are fine, but keep them limited. Not everyone responds well or quickly to audio cues, and not everyone is vocal enough to provide out-loud answers. Find ways to vary how you review content.

8: After that 20 check for retention, provide only about 8 more minutes of content, and then turn the groups to each other to get involved and review both what was covered in that 28 (or so) span of time. Games are always a favorite as long as they’re relevant and worth the amount of content covered.

A simple way to facilitate this in shorter training sessions is to provide blank pages to each participant, have them title them “Review Pages” and then at this 8 minute point have them write down as many things as they can remember that was covered (open book.) Then, direct the groups to share these, marking or highlighting ones that each person felt was key to their own success back on the job.

My lesson began, as most, with an overview of the materials. Everything was going smoothly; they agreed with the objectives, and were enthusiastic about learning the front – end use of Excel. As I got into my lesson, I began demonstrating some of Excel’s features. I started with imbedding an object (a picture) on the spread sheet, and then building a macro (an automatic series of functions) that would run when the object was clicked on. I was demonstrating the Excel feature that allows you to record the steps to be performed by the macro, when one of the participants asked a question. He asked if this macro could also be written in code. This wasn’t an unusual question given the audience. I replied that it could be written in Excel’s programming language called Visual Basic, and in fact, most of what we’re doing could. That was my biggest mistake. Mind you, I did not teach Visual Basic classes, I just knew that’s Excel’s programming language. Guess what happens when you tell a group of computer programmers that the point and click functions you’re teaching them can all be written using code? Yep. I was in purgatory for the next 3 ½ hours. No matter what I showed them how to do, they asked, “How would this be written using Visual Basic?” The only response I had each time was, “I don’t know.” They were disappointed at this, but nonetheless persistently asked throughout the session, hoping just once I’d have a different answer for them.

At first I was furious that this group raked me over the coals the entire session. It was a horror story I told for years to other trainers who were all empathetic. It’s only recently that I reviewed that training session again in my mind. What I’ve come to realize is that these global learners had to see the “whole” picture before they could understand its moving parts. I had focused my understanding of “global” to the front – end use of the program, ignoring the back – end, which was my audience’s strength. Rather than preparing for and catering to their learning style, I had brought my own in an applied it to them. Can you relate?

Since managing tough situations is best managed before they start, here are some ways to provide equal opportunity to adapt, adopt, and apply their learning.

Over Participation

Ask closed-ended questions-Begin your questions with phrases that solicit only a yes or no answer. Do you, can you, or is it, are pos­sibilities. (“Do you plan to set requirements with your future customers?”)
Use networking-Get participants to talk, to each other rather than interact only with you. (“How do you and Terry feel about that process?”)

Ask for a link to the topic-Get the group to bring itself back on target. (“Who wants to tell me how Karen’s story relates to our investigation step?” or, “Marisa, will you explain how that fits into our overall plan?”)

Summarize and move on-Aquick tie-up of material signals an intent to continue on. Let your participants know you’ve completed your material by capturing key points and introducing the next ones. (“We’ve just completed our pre-work discussion of … and need to proceed to our next topic of ….”)

Have a story to share? Please contribute your curious case studies and anecdotal training stories in the comments section below.

Keep in mind that these participants often don’t want to be in training. By showing you and the rest of the participants what they already know, they are trying to communicate that they don’t need the training. In some cases, they will frankly state it, but in most, their body language and comments will reflect this state of mind.

Don’t be surprised if they truly do know it all. Often, this type of participant is at a management or executive level, and for good reason. Never discount the information they have to share, but instead learn to control the way in which it’s delivered. It’s best if you can circulate throughout the training room prior to the start of training and get to know the participants. You can generally tell right away which participants are going to challenge not only your knowledge, but also your authority. One tell-tale sign of these individuals: They will generally try to station themselves as far away from the front of the room as possible, since again, they don’t really feel they need to be there. Once you identify that person or persons (yes, there can be more than one in training), engage them in discussion to gain insight of their level of knowledge. Try and use something in training you learned from them in that initial chat, whether information about operations or processes, or detailed product information. This satisfies their need to interject, and gives them the credibility they are seeking.

Remember that YOU are the trainer. Set up expectations at the beginning of the training session so everyone is aware of the objectives, how to share comments and questions effectively, and what your role as their facilitator is. This creates a sense of a “contract” with the participants, and the group will be more inclined to follow the same “guidelines” of the training session.

As an avid user of keyboard shortcuts, I often shared with my participants the ones that would make maneuvering around an Excel spreadsheet more efficient. In this class, I was instructing the participants to press Ctrl + End to move to the end of the data in their spreadsheet. As all of my participants followed my instructions they were surprised that the keyboard shortcut seemed to erase the information they had inputted in their spreadsheet! I walked behind the participants to see their screens, and sure enough, all their data was missing from the spreadsheet. I asked all of them to press their “undo” key, but nothing happened. The only commonality I noticed was that all of their documents were now titled “Document 2”, which is shown in the blue title bar at the top of the window.

At this point I asked someone in the class what keyboard shortcut they used. They replied, “Ctrl + N”. At this, the others in the class replied that’s the one they had used as well. Now I’m at the root cause of the problem: Because of my cold and stuffy nose, the word “end” sounded like “N”, therefore everyone had pressed a keyboard shortcut that is a command to open a new spreadsheet.

See how the miscommunication of even one word can disrupt training and drain your credibility?

Have a story to share? Please send your curious case studies and anecdotal training stories to lisaj@pathwise.com. All names, locations, and other identifying information will be removed if we decide to use it in a future newsletter.

Happy Training!!!