Start With The Known

We often forget that learners enter their training with past/current experience and knowledge. Tapping into this at the start gives:

• The trainer an indication of the groups general level eg beginner/advanced.
• Gets learners thinking about the upcoming content and connecting it to their own world.
• Gives the hook to help the brain connect new content to what it has already stored.

Here’s a great opening for your training or as a transition to a new module within your training.

Best Practice Activity

Live Virtual Training

Preparation

• Create a slide with a table containing the same number of cells as learners.
• Add each learners name to a different cell.
• Add a title ‘Best Practice For [your content]’ eg ‘Training’, ‘Leadership’, ‘Customer Service’, Sales etc

Facilitating the Activity

• Ask learners to add a best practice action they regularly perform and add it to their named cell eg
  for training, being ready for the first learner arriving and welcoming
  them. Say, “No duplicates allowed so be quick to get your best practice
  idea written”.nb – in Zoom or WebEx learners can use the annotation tools, in Teams you could use the whiteboard or an interactive shared slide.
• Acknowledge the great best practices and move on
  to, ‘so if this is what you already do, what are you hoping to leave
  this training with? ie the ‘goal setting’ piece.

Face-to-Face Training

Preparation

• For training groups of less than 10 learners keep the team as one group.
• For groups of trainers that have more than 10 learners divide the full group into smaller teams of 6-8 learners.
• Give each team a flip chart sheet and coloured pens.

Facilitating the Activity

• Ask learners to add a title to the top of the flip chart sheet ie Best Practice For eg ‘Training’, ‘Leadership’, ‘Customer Service’, Sales etc.
• Ask learners to create a grid that has enough spaces to add each person name.
• Add each learners name to a different cell.
• Ask learners to add a best practice action they regularly perform and add it to their named cell eg
  for training, being ready for the first learner arriving and welcoming
  them. Say, “No duplicates allowed so be quick to get your best practice
  idea written”.Tip – if you’re using a flip chart, get learners to write on PostIt notes and
  stick them to their square – saves scribbling out duplicates.
  
• Acknowledge the great best practices and move on to, ‘so if this is what you already do, what are you hoping to leave this training with? ie the ‘goal setting’ piece. These could be added around the flip chart sheet using posit-it notes.

Call to Action

Rather than simply assume that the learners in front of you know nothing about the content, tap into what they already know and this will help them determine what they really want from their training.