Category: Training Development

How To Build “Home-Grown” Trainers
Have you ever wished you could reduce your organization’s dependence on outside trainers? How about developing your own workshops? Join the ranks of organizations that have benefited from developing their internal resources, saved money, and improved the relevance and quality of their training!

What’s Not Working

Over the last few years, I’ve worked with dozens of agencies to develop their own “home grown” trainers and tailor-made curricula. Why? Agencies tell me it begins with dissatisfaction with current options:

1. Sending employees out to workshops advertised by national companies. Though some of the information is valuable, the workshops are generic. Typically participating are a hundred people or more, from all industries. One or two from your organization that attend may benefit, but the value to the agency may end there.

2. Bringing in training experts. Though sometimes necessary and very appropriate, bringing in experts can be expensive. These specialists may provide a “one-size-fits-all” training – after all, they just gave this same presentation in Cleveland a week ago. And what happens if you can’t find an expert in your very specific subject area?

Exploring Options

The term “training of trainers” (TOT) can mean different things. To some, it means training people the “ins and outs” of a specific program, the ultimate goal being their ability to teach that program. For example, a local health promotion organization trains elementary school teachers to use its packaged curriculum. They assume that teachers will use their already-established training skills with the product. This type of TOT’s focus is on content.

A more flexible type of TOT focuses on process. It usually includes how to design a lesson based on adult learning principles, how to integrate a variety of participatory exercises, how to enhance presentation skills, develop learning aids and evaluate the learning. The best TOTs include strategies to ensure learning occurs and to identify and analyze training needs from the outset. Using these new strategies, participants often develop and present a lesson based on their area of expertise that they can use immediately.

Steps To Develop “Home Grown” Trainers

Once an organization decides to “grow” its own trainers, there are two major investments: a one-time investment in training and an ongoing investment of time.
- When possible, garner enthusiastic, visible support from the top.
  When leaders overtly support trainer development, all employees get the message that learning is a valued and important element of work.
- Select people to become “trainers in training.”
  These can be people with training expertise or just a strong interest, as well as subject matter experts who traditionally have “bored the pants off” people while transmitting information. Clarify expectations, time commitments and potential rewards for participating.
- Provide an expert Training of Trainers.
- Provide regular Trainer Development Meetings. These meetings usually take place once a month. Trainers meet to discuss what is working well and to debrief issues and challenges. Often a different trainer will model a “chunk” of curriculum or an activity each month.
Wouldn’t it be great to use the resources you have right at your fingertips to develop or expand your agency’s training potential? “Home gown” trainers benefit personally from enhancing their skills, the agency benefits from increasing its training ability and other employees benefit from increased training opportunities. “Home-grown” trainers play an important role in creating an organizational culture of learning, innovation and self-reliance.

Guila Muir is the premiere trainer of trainers, facilitators, and presenters on the West Coast of the United States. Since 1994, she has helped thousands of professionals improve their training, facilitation, and presentation skills. Find out how she can help transform you from a boring expert to a great presenter: www.guilamuir.com

© Guila Muir.
August 9, 2014

How Do You Know They Know? Evaluating Adult Learning

I continue to be surprised at the use of “Happy Sheets” as evaluation tools in training. Beyond letting the trainer know if he or she was loved and if the room was too cold, what else do they tell us?

In 1959, Donald Kirkpatrick developed his famous model of training evaluation. Since then, it has provided basic guidelines to assess learning. Experts have found that 85% or more of all training programs use “Happy Sheets,” which reveal nothing about actual learning. And because data is much harder to collect and attribute directly to the training the deeper you go, fewer than 10% of training programs use a Level 4 evaluation.

Level	Issue	Question Answered	Tool
1	Reaction	How Well Did They Like The Course?	Rating Sheets
2	Learning	How Much Did They Learn?	Tests, Simulations
3	Behavior	How Well Did They Apply It To Work?	Performance Measures
4	Results	What Return Did The Training Investment Yield?	Cost-Benefit Analysis (Return on Investment)

Outcome-Based Evaluations

By creating and using an evaluation based on the course’s learning outcomes, you may get closer to an honest answer to the question, How Do You Know They Know? which is evaluation at Level 2 of Kirkpatrick’s model. Typically, the outcome-based evaluation would ask participants to rate their own ability to perform the learning outcome, as in the following example:

As a result of this training, please rate your ability to do the following action from 1 (“I can’t do this at all”) to 5 (“I feel totally confident doing this”): “I can explain at least five features of the Get Fit program without using notes.”

In many cases, the outcome-based evaluation would also ask the participant to list or explain those five features–in this way, acting as a test.

Keep in mind that unless you ask additional questions, you are still simply collecting data on your participants’ perceptions of their own learning. Sadly, those perceptions of learning are usually much higher immediately after the training session than a few days or weeks later. This is why follow-up training and reinforcement is so important.

Nonetheless, using an Outcome-Based Evaluation can provide information on:

Performance issues about which the participants feel less confident.
Issues you could improve or clarify for the next round of training.

All of this data is valuable to you as you (1) improve the class itself, and (2) follow the participants into the workplace to observe and support them. We invite you to download free examples of Outcome Based Evaluations from Guila’s book, Instructional Design That Soars.

Guila Muir is an expert trainer of trainers, facilitators, and presenters. Find out how she can help transform you from a boring expert to a great trainer: www.guilamuir.com

November 6, 2013

The Curse of Knowledge
by Guila Muir
info@guilamuir.com

Think of a skill you have, (such as driving, swimming, writing, reading…) Would you say you are unconsciously competent with this skill? That is,
- Can you do it without thinking about it?
- Is it part of you, like an instinct?
- Would you have a hard time explaining the steps of this skill to someone with no knowledge at all about it?
All of us have skills like these. And it’s great that we do! And yet, here’s the big question. Can this level of expertise actually hurt us as teachers, trainers or presenters?

Before taking a guess at the answer, consider this experiment Elizabeth Newton did in 1990 at Stanford University. She assigned volunteers to one of two roles, either a “tapper” or a “listener.” Each tapper was asked to pick a well-known tune such as “Happy Birthday” and tap out the rhythm on a table. The listener’s job was to guess the song.

Over the course of the experiment, 120 songs were tapped out. Listeners guessed only three of the songs correctly, making the success ratio only 2.5 percent. But before they guessed, Newton asked the tappers to predict the probability that the listeners would guess correctly. They predicted 50 percent. The tapers were flabbergasted by how hard the listeners had to work to “get” the tune.

Why?

The problem is that once we know something (for example, a song’s melody or a skill), we find it hard to imagine not knowing it. Our knowledge has cursed us. The more intimately we know a subject or a skill, the harder it may be to effectively teach or present it to others in a way they can understand. We may find it impossible to fathom how to teach because we don’t know where to begin.

The Need for “Conscious Competence”

It’s common knowledge that experts who know the most about a topic don’t always make the best teachers. In fact, some of the very worst teachers have the highest levels of knowledge and expertise. These experts have lost touch with conscious competence, and they wonder why their students aren’t learning.

As presenters and trainers, we must come to our subjects anew. We need to get in touch with what the Buddhists call “beginner’s mind”, an experience of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions. But we must also “crank ourselves down” from unconscious competence to conscious competence.

Conscious competence is the state we’re in when we are able to do a skill, yet must still concentrate on its steps and nuances. It’s the state we inhabit when we don’t feel like an expert, even if we are. Even if we must concentrate in order to do the skill correctly, we can verbalize each step we take. We are not on automatic pilot.

A Challenge

So-beyond the need to “know your stuff,” which elements do YOU believe are most important to make a great teacher? Here’s this month’s challenge. Please take the time to answer the question, What makes a great teacher, trainer, or presenter? in the “add new comment” box below. I’ll publish the most-often stated ideas in our next newsletter.

Thanks to The Art of Explanation, by Lee Lefever, for introducing me to the Stanford experiment.

Learn about Guila Muir’s Presentation Skills Workshops.

Guila Muir is a premiere trainer of trainers, facilitators, and presenters. Since 1994, she has helped thousands of professionals improve their training, facilitation, and presentation skills. Find out how she can help transform you from a boring expert to a great presenter: www.guilamuir.com
August 12, 2013
How a Hook Can Save Your Presentation
by Guila Muir
info@guilamuir.com

I have discovered that my clients all love a good hook, and are always looking for new ones. Let’s review what a Hook is and isn’t. Then I’ll provide two dynamic Hooks for you to use in your next presentation or training session.

What a Hook ISN’T:

Fluff. Never make the mistake of thinking that a hook is unimportant and can be left out. It is an essential part of the learning experience.
Lengthy. A hook is typically not a full-blown exercise, energizer or icebreaker.
A pre-test. Don’t use a hook to identify the “smartest guys in the room.”
A way to fill those nervous first moments of a training session when you feel least confident. A hook has a definite role. Don’t waste the precious first moments of a training session with comments about the weather or unrelated issues.

What a Hook IS:
- A way to immediately engage your listeners.
- Relatively short. Although there is no actual rule about length, the hook should serve its purpose concisely.
- Connected to the session’s topic or purpose. Although anything can serve as a hook, it should have a relationship to your session’s purpose. Don’t lob out a meaningless joke just to get laughs.
- Connected to who your participants are. You must know your audience’s concerns. The best hooks relate to their past experiences.
- Emotional, even if only mildly so. Adults become engaged through their emotions. Good hooks incite almost any kind of emotion, including laughter, groans of recognition, anxiety, or excitement.
- Inclusive. Use a hook that all the participants can relate to. Again, the best hooks elicit the past knowledge, emotions, and/or experiences of most people in your audience.
Developing a hook takes careful preparation. However, your participants’ immediate interest and involvement is on the line, so a little preparation on your part is worth the effort.

Two Dynamite Hooks

You can use literally anything as a hook. Trainers have used visual aids such as short videos or toys from the local Dollar store. They have used riddles, music, anecdotes, yoga stretches, and many more ways to immediately engage their participants.

The two Hooks I’ve outlined here have proven to work with a bang every time:

1. Real-life Questions

These may be the easiest type of hook to create. As for all hooks, make sure you know enough about your audience to use topics that resonate. Also, as in all hooks, ensure that your questions elicit an emotional response.

See if you can guess the topics for these Hooks:

“How many of you get so frustrated with your computer sometimes that you’d like to put your fist right through that screen?”

“Raise your hands if you’ve ever participated in a nightmare meeting.”

“Raise your hands if you’ve ever hit your boiling point around kids—even if you don’t have any!”

Guidelines:
- Always ask a minimum of two questions. You need this many to get your participants’ brains moving in the direction of your training session.
- Create your questions so that nearly everyone will respond in the same way (for example, 99% of hands in the room go up or down.)
- Insist on a physical response (hands up, stand up, thumbs up, etc.)
Option:
Start your questions with the following:

“How many of you would NOT be willing to…(Remember, your goal is to get everyone’s hands up. Asking in the negative may be more provocative and participatory than asking in the positive.)

2. “Did You Know?”

(Provocative Fact or Statistic)

The world is full of provocative statistics you can use to hook your participants. Just keep your eyes out as you read blogs, newspapers and articles. You can usually make the most unrelated statistic relevant to your participants.

See how one trainer brought together issues as diverse as strawberries and personal choices:

“Did you know… that Delta Airlines recently saved $210,000 a year simply by removing one strawberry from salads served in First Class? One little strawberry was removed and passengers didn’t even notice it. Big results can be achieved by little changes. Today, we’ll talk about how little changes in your thoughts and attitudes can have big results in your own life.”

Here are two other examples, used in actual classes:

1. “Did you know that in one second…
- A telephone signal can travel 100,000 miles?
- A hummingbird beats its wings 70 times?
- And guess what, in one second, eight million of your blood cells die.
A lot can happen in one second. This session will give you tools to decrease your response time in household emergencies.”

2. “Did you know that ‘Generation X’rs’ have watched 23,000 hours of television by the time they are 20 years old? They also believe they have a better chance of seeing a UFO in their lifetime than a Social Security check. In this workshop, we’ll see how generational differences in the workplace affect all of us.”

3. “Before the rule, more than 50 people here were dying in trenches every year. When you get killed in a cave-in, it’s not an easy way to go. You’re literally crushed to death under the weight of the soil. Soil weighs approximately 3,000 pounds per cubic yard. Nobody deserves to go to work and die that way.”

Guidelines:
- Turn a provocative fact into a hook simply by prefacing it with the words “did you know?”
- Make sure your data is correct.
- Make sure to integrate emotion.
- Consider combining your fact or statistic with another hook, such as a Real-life question.
Always use a Hook if you are serious about immediate engagement and interest!

Learn about Guila Muir’s Presentation Skills Workshops.

Guila Muir is a premiere trainer of trainers, facilitators, and presenters. Since 1994, she has helped thousands of professionals improve their training, facilitation, and presentation skills. Find out how she can help transform you from a boring expert to a great presenter: www.guilamuir.com
June 17, 2012
Are You a Super-Trainer?
Assess Yourself and See!

What attributes do all super trainers share, no matter how different their styles?

Rate yourself from 1 (I’m not so great at this) to 3 (I do this every time!) on the guidelines below. Then read the strategies, which will transform YOU into a Super Trainer.

Three Essential Attributes of Super Trainers

1. Content Knowledge

Of course, this comes first. If you don’t know your subject, you shouldn’t be training it. However, you DON’T have to know every last detail before you’re ready to train.
My self-rating on Content Knowledge:

1                                                        2                                                       3

low                                                                                                                        high

2. Willingness To Have Fun

This one’s a potential danger zone. Some trainers have so much fun themselves that they remain oblivious to the participants’ needs, insights, and potential contributions.

Having fun doesn’t mean you are able to toss out jokes. Willingness to have fun means relaxing WHILE you exude dynamism and energy. It means connecting with the participants WHILE you focus on content and time management. It means enjoying the participants WHILE retaining your unique role as trainer.

My self-rating on Willingness to Have Fun:

1                                                        2                                                      3

low                                                                                                                        high

3. Use of a Well-Structured Training Design

Have you ever wondered about the source of the following issues?
- Bad marks on your training evaluations (excluding comments about cold coffee or overly warm training rooms)
- Participant hostility, side conversations or passive-aggressiveness
- Lack of participation
- People sleeping
The invisible culprit is often how the session is designed, not the presentation skills of the trainer. Design affects everything related to the training.

Training design is training architecture. A badly–designed course will sag, fracture, and even crush the best trainer.

My self-rating on Use of a Well-Structured Training Design:

1 2 3

low high

Strategies to Pump Up Your Training Skills

Even if you rated yourself high on the preceding attributes, these strategies will enhance your training:

1. Content Knowledge

Ensure that you have included only the absolute “MUST-KNOW” material into your training session. When you develop the session, test each part of the training by asking, “is this a ‘must-know’ piece of information, or is it merely ‘nice to know?’ Toss the ‘nice to know’ pieces. Remember-less is more.

If a participant asks you something you cannot answer, remember that it is OK to say “I don’t know. Let me find out and get back to you,” but only if you really will follow up. Meanwhile, acknowledge that a participant in your group may well have the information you lack. Don’t be afraid to ask. Doing so helps you build community with your participants.

2. Willingness To Have Fun

The more prepared you feel with your content and training structure, (attributes #1 and #3,) the more fun you’ll have.

But you must also examine your beliefs about people. Do you feel they are mainly a drag, or do you find them interesting and quirky? Do you like yourself? Are you accepting or judgmental? Your underlying beliefs about yourself and others either boost or impede your level of relaxation and ability to have fun in the training role.

It’s worth your time to examine your philosophy of teaching. Do you buy into a “boot camp” mentality? Alternatively, do you feel oversensitive to students’ needs? Heighten your awareness of your philosophy and actions, and then make changes if needed. Fun will follow!

3. Use of a Well-Structured Training Design

Here are three guidelines to ensure your training architecture is sound:
- Never organize your training session using PowerPoint.
- Carefully and thoughtfully develop learning outcomes. Organize all your content to achieve them.
- No matter how experienced a trainer you are, take a basic class in course design. It may challenge the way you think about training!
It’s always good to re-visit the essentials; all Super Trainers do. Integrate these Top Three into your training, and you’ll find yourself among the greats!

Want more tips to improve your trainings? Learn how Guila Muir’s Instructional Design Workshop can help you to create powerful, effective training sessions.

See free newsletters full of tips and techniques for improved training: http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs071/1101469784148/archive/1101880413533.html
April 14, 2012
Sharpen Your Training Brain
by Guila Muir
info@guilamuir.com

As a trainer, do you struggle mentally as you develop a new course? Are you ever “stuck” when you try to think of ways to improve your class?

There is a scientifically sound way to boost your brain power, pick up your energy, and improve your focus as a trainer. Although it’s very complicated and takes years of schooling and practice (Ha!), anyone can do it. The scientific cure to your fuzzy brain is to go outside.

In a world where many people suffer from Nature Deficit Disorder (go ahead, look it up) the science is clear. Merely seeing nature makes you healthier, even it you view it through a window.¹ Getting out into the natural world is even better. Many studies confirm that simply by going outside, you positively impact your blood pressure, cholesterol, stress, and outlook on life.²

What do these findings have to do with training?
- Sluggish brains make sluggish training. Wake yourself up by taking a quick walk.
- You bring an “incomplete self” into training when you feel separate from the natural world. Call it integrity, holism, spirituality or synthesis, you owe it to yourself and to your participants to be your “whole self” when educating others.
- Walking in nature makes you smarter. An experimental study showed that people who walk in nature perform cognitive tasks 20% better than those who walk in an urban setting.³ Don’t you want to maintain that mental edge in front of your class?
Get out, walk, and enjoy…your training will improve as a result. You can count on it!

1. Kaplan, 1992a; Lewis, 1996; Leather et al., 1998

2. Moore, 1981; Kaplan and Kaplan, 1989; Hartig et al., 1991; Ulrich et al., 1991a; Rohde and Kendle, 1994; Lewis, 1996; Leather et al., 1998

3. Berman, Jonides, Kaplan, 2008

Learn about Training Development. Read more articles about training.

Guila Muir is the premiere trainer of trainers, facilitators, and presenters on the West Coast of the United States. Since 1994, she has helped thousands of professionals improve their training, facilitation, and presentation skills. Find out how she can help transform you from a boring expert to a great presenter: www.guilamuir.com

© Guila Muir.
October 6, 2010
Wild Classroom: How to Prevent the Chaos
by Guila Muir
info@guilamuir.com

Have you ever worried about your participants going wild, tuning out, or exhibiting other potentially disruptive behaviors? The concept of “classroom management” will help.

Good classroom management is the ability to run your training sessions smoothly. Research shows that good classroom management enables students to learn and retain more.

Surprisingly, research also shows that good classroom management has nothing to do with the trainer’s personality, or even whether participants like the trainer. Rather, it has everything to do with the trainer’s behaviors–how you act in the classroom.

Dominance and Cooperation

Research shows that a trainer keeps control of the classroom by exhibiting appropriate levels of both dominance and cooperation.

Dominance

A trainer’s dominance doesn’t mean forceful command and control. Instead, educational researchers define appropriate dominance as the trainer’s ability to provide clear purpose, strong guidance, and consequences for unacceptable behavior.

Think of the best classroom experiences you have had, either as a trainer or as a participant. Did the trainer set out clear goals for the session? Were expectations about behavior clear? Did the trainer provide clear instructions, both visually and verbally?

It’s important to use assertive body language. Maintain an erect posture. Speak deliberately and clearly, especially in the face of inappropriate behavior. Keep your cool.

Very rarely, a trainer must ask a participant to leave the session because of behavior that is impeding the learning of others. This consequence is at the far end of the continuum of classroom management. In more than twenty years as a professional trainer, I have never had to take this step.

Cooperation

Cooperation is characterized by a concern for the needs and opinions of others. Whereas dominance focuses on the trainer as the driving force in the classroom, cooperation highlights a sense of teamwork between trainer and participants.

Often, a trainer models cooperation by asking what participants want to get out of the session, and then integrating these elements into the lesson plan. Cooperation involves other aspects as well, including:
- Taking a personal and authentic interest in participants.
- Learning about participants’ interests and passions outside of class.
- Talking informally before and after class.
- Greeting each participant by name.
You can also demonstrate your interest in non-verbal ways. These include making eye contact with everyone, moving toward the participants, and ensuring the seating arrangement allows clear and easy ways to move around the room.

Good Classroom Management: Just a Set of Behaviors

There have been many quests for the essential traits that make a teacher great, and each quest has come up empty-handed. According to a special report in the New York Times, extensive research shows that neither an extroverted personality, politeness, confidence, warmth, or enthusiasm make a great trainer.

However, the educational researcher Doug Lemov has identified one trait that separates great trainers from the rest: good classroom management. Lemov discovered that what looks like natural-born teaching genius is often deliberate technique in disguise.

It all boils down to two sets of behaviors on your part. By balancing your dominant behaviors with your cooperative behaviors as a trainer, you’ll create an environment that encourages learning and is pleasant for all. Have fun!

Read more articles about Training Development. Learn about Guila Muir’s Trainer Development Workshops.

Guila Muir is the premiere trainer of trainers, facilitators, and presenters on the West Coast of the United States. Since 1994, she has helped thousands of professionals improve their training, facilitation, and presentation skills. Find out how she can help transform you from a boring expert to a great presenter: www.guilamuir.com

© Guila Muir.
May 6, 2010
Avoid Audience Overload: Less is More
Picture it: You’re a student in a classroom. The instructor is throwing out fact after fact. At first, you listen intently, trying to grasp everything that’s going on. After about 15 minutes, your attention drifts. After trying to focus a few more times, you feel so overwhelmed (and possibly irritated and bored) that you just give up.

Hey-how did you like being on the receiving end?

Trainers, have some sympathy. The instructor was just trying to “cover the material.” (How many times have YOU used this line?)

The fact is, more content does not produce more competencies. Information overload can produce confusion, anxiety, and indecision. It does NOT help students transfer learning into the real world.

Training Rule: “Less is More”

Identify the most important pieces of content. Spend training time to ensure that participants can process the information and apply it to real-world situations.

Here is a short list of instructional strategies you can use to bring your lesson’s content alive:
- Discussions
- Surveys
- Contests
- Case studies
- Drills
- Reflective writing
- Mind maps
- Jigsaws
- Brainstorming
- Role-plays
- Simulations
The moral is: By trying to “cover all the material,” you do just that—cover up what’s really important.
January 11, 2010
What Separates Great Trainers From the Merely “OK?”

Many training participants would respond, “Great trainers make the learning easy and fun.” If probed further, they might mention the use of engaging training activities, or the trainer’s personal style.

But most won’t be able to identify an important action that differentiates expert trainers. This action is subtle and powerful. It helps lubricate the session and increases learner retention. Though mostly invisible to the untrained eye, it truly separates the “Greats” from the “OK’s.”

What is this seemingly magic characteristic of great training? It’s (more…)

November 25, 2009
A “Train the Trainer” Tip: Start Your Sessions With a Bang
by Guila Muir
info@guilamuir.com

What’s the best way to assure your training participants groan inwardly and “turn off” when you first open your mouth? Simply by doing what you’ve always been told: By introducing yourself and providing your credentials.

Why not generate your audience’s curiosity, interest, and investment from the outset? Use a “Hook” before introducing yourself or your professional credentials. If your hook is well-crafted, you will have already gained credibility when you do introduce yourself. The participants will be much more open to hearing your message.

What is a Hook?
First, what a hook is NOT:
- An extended exercise or activity
- An irrelevant joke
- An apology of any kind
- A meandering, “off-the-cuff” mumble meant to make YOU more comfortable in front of the class.
A Hook is a short, carefully crafted statement that indicates you know who your audience is and what they care about. It should elicit some sort of emotion in your listeners, whether that is quiet reflection, hilarious recognition of a feeling or situation, or sorrow. The emotion doesn’t have to be “positive.” But it must resonate with your audience and its memories or experiences, while being relevant to your subject.

Three Ideas for Powerful Hooks

Quickie Quiz:
Create a 3-5-question quiz and ask participants to take it the minute they sit down. It’s best if the questions are slightly provocative or controversial. Throughout the class, answer and clarify the issues.

Here’s a “real-life” example currently being used in a Risk Management class for supervisors:
•    What percentage of claims and incidents filed against this company were closed last year without payment?
30%
50%
80%
•    If an employee is sued because of an act s/he committed within the scope of their duties, the employee must provide his/her own legal defense. (T/F)
•    This company is self-insured for Auto Liability and General Liability. (T/F)

Questions
Carefully constructed questions are often the easiest and most powerful “Hooks.” Questions can begin with the words “How many here have…?” or “Did you know that…?” Your question should demand a physical response from the participants, such as nodding, raising hands, even standing up.

Visualization
This technique gives even “dry” subjects the emotional content you need to hook the learners’ interest.

Here’s a real-life example of a visualization “Hook” from a supervisory class on wage and hour laws: “Close your eyes and imagine that you are a 10 year old child in the 1930’s working in a factory 12 hours a day, 60 hours a week for 10 cents an hour. You’ve never seen the inside of a school…your feet are cold and you get just one meal break a day. How do you feel?” Ask the participants to open their eyes. Debrief thoughts and feelings; connect to the course topic and state the learning outcomes.

Remember: to keep your audience actively engaged from the get-go, you must HOOK their interest in the first few minutes of class. Wait until they’re hooked to introduce yourself!

Read more articles to boost your Training Skills. Learn about Guila Muir’s Train the Trainer Workshops.

Guila Muir is the premiere trainer of trainers, facilitators, and presenters on the West Coast of the United States. Since 1994, she has helped thousands of professionals improve their training, facilitation, and presentation skills. Find out how she can help transform you from a boring expert to a great presenter: www.guilamuir.com

© Guila Muir.
August 6, 2009