Training Trainers
“Excellence is an art won by training and habituation... We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. ”
Effective adult educators and trainers are more than practitioners of fancy techniques or tricks. The best facilitators, trainers, and teachers understand what makes for effective learning and design their workshops, classes, seminars, and presentations using a combination of inductive and deductive methods that engage the learners and encourage active learning.
I work with individuals, organizations (both private and public), and communities to model and integrate the principles and practices of effective adult learning. I teach participants by modeling the essential concepts of knowledge discovery, learning process, and training design as well as how to set achievement-based objectives and evaluate learning and training events. These skills form the foundation from which they can independently acquire further knowledge to fulfill their own unique needs.
One-size-fits-all tricks and techniques have limited use. Principles allow us to go beyond the range-of-the-moment, to approach most situations with a firm grasp of what is essential, and to effectively evaluate alternatives in any context.
Participants in my workshops learn the discipline of thinking in principles and applying these principles in an innovative and creative manner within their particular circumstances.
Once you learn the many active ways by which learners can be engaged, motivated, and respected to do their best work and thinking, a lecture followed by a question-and-answer period will seem antiquated and passive.
Understanding and Facilitating
Adult Learning
I take current and potential trainers, facilitators, teachers, presenters, and others who address learners and other audiences and change what they do and how they do it for more effective outcomes. Through my training workshops, which can be one, three, or five days long depending on needs, participants learn:
the basic principles and practices of effective adult learning
how to design workshops, classes, seminars, and other learning sessions in interactive and participatory ways
how to evaluate the effectiveness of their teaching so they can continue to self-develop and innovate
Through learning by doing, participants become proficient at:
setting achievement-based objectives
creating problem-posing materials
designing learning sessions with a partner
using the Four I's model of learning
leading a learning session
using effective feedback methods
examining models of learning evaluation
understanding how adults learn best
distinguishing between monologue and dialogue
using the seven steps of planning
employing a learning style inventory
conducting a learning needs assessment
designing open questions to invite dialogue
