Trainings That Are Beyond Boring
Author: Aly McNicoll
Have you ever had to sit through a boring training session, lecture or workshop? At times, we do need to get people up to speed on some fairly dry topics to ensure our service or organisation runs smoothly.
I recall attending a workshop on assessment when I was a new tutor at Unitec Institute of Technology. It was a topic I was actually interested in, because I had run plenty of workshops, but had never been required to check people’s learning against formal requirements. The trainer for that session started with an apology to the group for being the one who had to do the ‘boring stuff’. I noticed that my energy dropped as soon as I heard this and I started looking at the clock to see how long we would have to sit there. His monotonous voice and laboured delivery didn’t help either.
A few years later, I found myself teaching that very same session to tutors from all over the Institution and was able to impart my enthusiasm (and belief) around the potential of assessment processes to enhance the learning process and to add value to the student experience. We needed to think outside the box to revise this important element of the formal training process. I designed an uplifting and interactive session to help shift their thinking.
Have a think about a lesson you have found boring in the past, either at school, at university, or in the workplace, and reflect on the following questions:
Could it be that the topic was too difficult rather than boring?
Could it be that the topic was just too easy for you?
Could it be that the trainer rather than the topic was boring?
Could it be that the trainer was bored with the topic?
Could it be that the training process rather than the topic was boring?
Could it be that the topic was someone else’s agenda and not a topic you had chosen for yourself?
Go Beyond Boring
Back in my previous role at Unitec, new tutors had to deliver a training session at the end of their course and I sat through some very engaging sessions on, for example, the difference between disc brakes and drum brakes, a session on the seven legal requirements of a debtor’s letter and even a session with a veterinary nurse tutor who showed us how to analyse the urine of a small dog to learn the signs of sickness.
So here are five tips to ensure your training sessions hold people’s attention from the start to the very end, even with the most potentially boring topics.
1. Establish trainee’s ownership of the agenda at the beginning.
Let them know the relevance and importance of the topic and find out from them how it might be useful for them.
2. Acknowledge their experience
Don’t tell them anything you can ask them first, resist the temptation to lecture the audience or be the expert in the room. Find out what they already know about the topic before you start.
3. Keep them busy
Get them learning by doing, it’s the most efficient way to get your message across. Plan short tasks, not long ones and use a variety of training activities.
4. Manage time well
Structure breaks in to keep the energy up, keep to time and let people know at the beginning what will happen and when.
5. Manage attention
Notice when the energy starts to flag in the room and be ready to take the pulse and change gear if you need along the way. Don’t get wedded to your plan and make sure you collaborate with people to keep their attention up.
To help you build your training toolkit, come along to our Train the Trainer workshop series on Friday 1 July and Friday 8 July.
Aly McNicoll will be sharing the tips and tricks she has learnt over the last 20 years so you can design and deliver fabulous training sessions for staff, volunteers or members of your community.