30Sep 2019 by Katrina Kennedy No Comments

Stop Doing Things Learners Can Do Themselves

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When my son was born it required me to do everything for him. EVERYTHING. Of course, over time that changed, and he became more able to do things himself. I remember the first time he looked at me and said, "mom, I can do it." As trainers I think it's in us to do things for other people. We are helpers by nature. Our help can sometimes go too far though. When we work to make things "easy" in training we are robbing our learners of the effortful work that learning requires. You are also making it harder on yourself. Think about it for a moment. Which of these do you do? Over explain conceptsTell learners what they've covered in prior modules of classExplain what learners should take away from…
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30Sep 2019 by Katrina Kennedy No Comments
Stop Counting People To Form Groups

Stop Counting People To Form Groups

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Do you use groups while you train? Forming groups to conduct activities during training is essential for engagement and active learning. Sometimes groups are formed to break up undesirable behaviors and to help move through material more quickly. How do you create those groups? If you said you count them like you did for third grade kickball teams, I'm going to scream. Really. I'm going to scream. It's not pretty. Please stop. Everyone (including my third grade self) will appreciate it. But, what are you left with then? Okay, before we get there, let's address a little bit of why you need to stop counting people. Quite simply -- it doesn't work. People forget their numbers. People confuse their numbers with other peoples. People aren't paying attention when you say…
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30Sep 2019 by Katrina Kennedy No Comments
Stop Asking Learners To Read Out Loud

Stop Asking Learners To Read Out Loud

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He sat in the back of the room with his head down. I could see the tiny pieces of eraser he'd been nervously tearing apart as his turn to read approached. I knew he wasn't listening, you could see it in every part of his body language. He was calculating. Which paragraph would be his? He was pre-reading in hopes of making it easier. And then his turn arrived and all eyes were on him. If you guessed this was a story of my son in third grade, you are correct. He is dyslexic. No, he doesn't see numbers and letters backwards. It's more complex than that and current research is showing it is a brain wiring difference beyond just reading. Click here if you are curious about what he…
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30Sep 2019 by Katrina Kennedy 3 Comments
Stop Going Around The Room For Introductions

Stop Going Around The Room For Introductions

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There I said it. Stop it. Please. No one benefits from it. And honestly, who has time? There are many things we do in the training environment because we've always done them that way. Around the room introductions fall firmly in that category. Think about the last class you participated in and try to recall the names around the room. My guess is you might recall the three people you already knew and the one person who was annoying and two other people. Or you may recall none. Every minute in the training room needs to be treated as sacred. Learners are investing their time and energy and their organization's money to learn something to make their lives better. Knowing twenty four names of random people is not going to…
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30Sep 2019 by Katrina Kennedy 1 Comment
Seven Things To Stop Doing In Training

Seven Things To Stop Doing In Training

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Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.Maya Angelou We've all been stuck in that spot as trainers. We do the best we can until we know better. It can be a harrowing experience to discover you've been doing things "wrong" right in the middle of doing them wrong. I'm here to help, even though you may not have asked! I am often asked in class what are the worst or best or strangest or most annoying things trainers can do in class. To answer the worst question (and maybe most annoying) I've created my SEVEN THINGS TO STOP DOING LIST. Ready? Seven Things To Stop Doing In Training Doing things learners can do for themselvesTelling learners what they should get out of an exerciseAsking people to read…
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30Sep 2019 by Katrina Kennedy No Comments

Stop Confusing Presenting Information With Training People

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The table by the doors has fresh orange juice and cookies awaiting everyone before they exit. It's your turn to push up your sleeve and give blood. Pause for just a moment and think about your phlebotomist's background. How do you want them to have learned their job? I'm just going to guess that you'll say you want them to have practiced. On someone else's arm, right? Now, translate that perspective into your own training. Are you training or presenting? It matters, my friend. If you are talking at length, you are not training. If learners never practice what you are covering, you are not training. If you go through fifty PowerPoint slides at great length, you are not traning. If your training objective is to reduce conflict, learners need…
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30Sep 2019 by Katrina Kennedy No Comments
Stop Telling Learners What They Should Get Out Of An Exercise

Stop Telling Learners What They Should Get Out Of An Exercise

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Imagine the activity you've planned for the last few months has worked! Learners were engaged and you can see the learning occurring. You get the room back together and say, "here is what I want you to take away from this exercise." Oops. You just missed your most impactful training moment. We each learn best when we are active learners. Active learning doesn't require moving around the room, talking to people for the duration of a training session. While we need movement, active learning is much more about engagement of our minds. When we shift our comments to questions, we create a more active environment. Instead of telling people what they should take away from an exercise ask: What happened in this exercise?What did you like about this exercise?What was…
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27Sep 2019 by Katrina Kennedy 2 Comments

Stop Cramming So Much On A PowerPoint Slide

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"I know this is hard to see in the back." How many times have you heard those words as you watch a slideshow crammed with so many words, you could barely read them from the front of the room. Government codes, lengthy definitions, examples of forms and documents. You know the culprits. Funny thing is...if the learner can't see it, they aren't going to get much value from it. And if every slide is crammed with stuff they can't decipher, they are walking away with almost nothing. PowerPoint sides are cheap. Having "too many slides" isn't really a problem. What you do with those slides is the bigger issue. How Many Words Are Too Many? I've been around long enough to have lived through the Rule of 7x7 which morphed…
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15Sep 2017 by Katrina Kennedy No Comments
Make It Stick: Helping Learners Retain Information To Apply In The Workplace

Make It Stick: Helping Learners Retain Information To Apply In The Workplace

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Learning is fundamental to training. It's easy to focus on the information we want to disseminate. Create a handout, make a PowerPoint. Talk. Not so hard. We put the responsibility on the shoulders of our learners to take in the information and decipher how to use it when they return to work. Training gets trickier when we focus on how we want people to learn to use the information we share in a productive way when they return to the job. When we design our sessions so that we not only provide information, but give people an opportunity to practice, we have created training. As trainers we need to focus more on learning and less on telling. How do we go about providing more opportunity for learning to really occur?…
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05Sep 2017 by Katrina Kennedy 2 Comments
How To Make Training Learner Centered And Performance Based

How To Make Training Learner Centered And Performance Based

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I'm on a mission to elevate our profession. My mission begins with an understanding that learning is an active, engaged process. People need to DO IT in training in order to DO IT on the job. It doesn't matter what the IT is. Knowing is great, but doing DOING is where it's at. We can't ask our learners to sit listening to us drone on (even if we are energetic and knowledgeable) expecting them to magically return work with the skill and ability to perform in the way we've described. They've got to DO IT. Yes, knowledge is important as a foundation to help people understand why they perform their jobs. But we can't exist on knowledge alone. Imagine the airline pilot who understands physics but has never landed a…
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