As the decade closes, I would be remiss not to reflect on how my career has evolved over the last 10 years. I have been an instructional designer for the majority of this decade, thanks in no small part to the immense amount of resources available in the learning and development field. Continue reading
Basic Facilitation Skills
Facilitation is an art that takes practice. Invest in yourself as a facilitator and your trainees will reap the rewards.
Training Outline, Activities & Slides in Less than 5 Minutes!
Have you ever wished you could reduce the number of hours (or days) it takes to come up with engaging ideas for your training sessions?This morning my company, Endurance Learning, launched an online tool that can help you generate a facilitator guide, a complete set of activities and a PowerPoint deck – all in under five minutes. The tool is called Soapbox. Here is how it works:
Continue readingOn Training and Wedding Officiating
A couple of friends asked me to officiate their wedding last weekend. There are a lot of special things about being asked to perform this ceremony and this being a first for me, I worked to make it special. I wrote a ceremony unique to the couple and their families, I practiced diligently, and I arrived at the venue to rehearse with the wedding party. As I stood at the altar, preparing to make minor adjustments, someone Continue reading
What kind of training participant are you?
No, this isn’t some sort of personality quiz (although that’s an interesting idea for an upcoming blog post). It’s a real question.
When you attend a training session, what kind of participant (or non-participant) are you? Continue reading
Asked to speak about a topic? You may actually be an imposter… just not for the reason(s) you think.
I’ve seen a lot written about “imposter syndrome” on LinkedIn recently. In short, imposter syndrome is when you doubt your own abilities, especially when you’re asked to publicly show them off.
My colleague, Heather, wrote about this phenomenon among L&D professionals last year in this blog post.
I’ve worked with a number of people – from early career professionals to senior staff – who express doubts about what kind of wisdom they could possibly have to offer others. It’s quite a natural sentiment.
The truth is, however, that I’ve seen more actual imposters among those who have been asked to share their expertise with an audience and who feel confident in their wisdom and their experience. I’ve seen imposters among doctors, lawyers, tech executives and learned academics (among others). They’re smart people, to be sure, but where they come across as true fakes is Continue reading
The STORY model for storytelling
Sometimes the simplest way to bring your content to life is to tell a story. Storytelling is a means of educating people that has been around for millennia.
Just because you have a story to tell, however, doesn’t mean you know how to tell a story in an engaging, effective way. The S.T.O.R.Y. model can help give structure to the way in which you plan for, and ultimately tell, your story.
Continue readingRethinking Inclusivity
Every year my kids’ school has spirit week where they are encouraged to dress in themed clothing for each day of the week. As a person who facilitates activities for a living, I’m a good sport about most things that serve a purpose and cause no harm. Up until this year, I’ve taken no issue with the silly shenanigans of Crazy Hair Day and putting my children in backward clothing.
This year, however, I’ve observed a lot of anxiety over one spirit day that has me thinking about the inclusiveness of activities. Continue reading
Not All Holiday Parties Have to Be Ugly
It is that time of year again. The time where we conservatively let loose in front of our co-workers and talk about something other than work at the annual holiday party. I enjoy holiday parties, as long as they are not awkward or forced. Just like training, if these parties are well thought out and curated, they can be really fun. Similarly, if they are poorly planned, they are awkward. Continue reading
Storytelling for Trainers
Last week, my daughter came home from the school library with her first graphic novel. She excitedly showed me how the story moved through the speech balloons and panels. Her excitement came from the novel approach (pardon the pun) to telling a story. She recently graduated to chapter books, and I think she was missing the imagery she had grown accustomed to in her beginner books. Continue reading
Meet Train Like A Champion (a blog post written using icebreakers)
I was talking with a colleague recently who shared with me how much she hates icebreakers. Confession time: If I’m being honest, I hate being a training participant and having to engage in icebreaking activities, too.
So how do we take the sting out of icebreaking activities for our participants? My guiding principle is pretty simple on this point: Continue reading