When was the last time you learned something that significantly improved your performance? Despite the regular efforts of meeting planners and participants, your last positive learning experience is a distant memory. That is, in part, because the distinct differences between training -- which involves teaching a particular skill or type of behavior -- relative to learning -- where one acquires knowledge or skills though experience, practice, teaching or study -- is largely misunderstood. We recommend the following five quick tips to help make your next program a learning success:
1. Clarify the Goal – Teaching and learning, while related, are two different things. Be clear about what you’re doing and the result you want. Are you sharing information that you just want your audience to understand? Or are you sharing the content with the goal that the audience learns and does something with it? A clear goal helps participants relate to what’s needed, remain open to the information and be less stressed about expectations.
2. Make it a Win/Win – Training is often about the organization and its needs. Learning is about the individual and their willingness to adopt new ways of thinking, working and behaving. Be empathetic to learner needs, as well as those of the organization. Explain how this helps the company but also relate it back to the learner's job or experience. Place the content in a context the user can understand and make it personal by providing real life examples.
3. Stimulate and Engage - Use your participants’ natural curiosity to gain their attention and engagement before there’s any opportunity to tune out. And then, get them involved. Learning is a social activity that happens best by doing. Ask participants to work together as a team to problem-solve and develop answers. This type of activity replicates the way they may be collaborating back at the office. The old adage that people learn best by doing has proven true repeatedly.
4. Make Thinking Visible – The thinking and memory of an instructor is an integral part of the training/learning process. It needs to be made visible to participants so they can incorporate it into their own thinking and memory banks. This can be done in both conventional and technological ways:
- Use technology that allows two way communications, such as an online polling system.
- Consider providing small, hand-held versions to learners so they can make their thinking visible, as well.
- Information persistence through visuals that are continuously available during a session can also make a strong – but subtle -- impact.
5. Connect Through Stories – Great stories and pictures can be powerful learning tools. They help make content “sticky” or memorable in a way that stays with people. Borrowing one another's stories can help individuals develop their own. And the emotional impact of such elements helps learners retain the information being communicated long after the training has ended.
Looking for even more guidance on how and where to host your next training session? Convene designs and operates a network of hospitality-driven meeting, event, and flexible meeting spaces that deliver a premium, “one-stop-shop” experience for conferences and events. We are a single-solution provider that includes in-house culinary, award-winning design, and onsite AV and production services in 40 locations across 9 cities, and we’d love to help plan your training sessions.
