Lesson plans (or session plans) guide your design and instruction.
Last week I wrote a bit about Soapbox, which is an online tool that can be used to create training and skill-building lesson plans in just a few minutes. Today, I’m going to show exactly what it looks like to create a lesson plan in just a few minutes (and later in this post, you can download a digital copy of the final lesson plan).
First, here is a video that will walk you through how I developed a complete lesson outline for this train-the-trainer session in under 7 minutes.
Continue readingSince I began writing this blog in 2012, one of the most visited and requested resources has been this lesson plan template. I find this template super helpful when I’m starting from scratch, especially when it comes to organizing my thoughts and mapping out how much time I should be spending on any given activity… and then how much time I’ll have left to cover other content after getting through any given activity.
While this lesson plan template helps keep my thoughts organized, it doesn’t save me a lot of time in the development of a lesson plan. If I (or someone on my team) wants to save some time, we’ll turn to Soapbox, which is an online tool that we created to basically map out a lesson plan for you in about 10 minutes.
Continue readingThere are plenty of courses you can take, books to read, certificate or even master’s level programs to study, but sometimes people who are mapping out a training program just need something right now. They don’t have the time to read a book or the money to complete a course. Following is a list of quick reference resources (articles, podcasts), activity ideas and job aids for someone who just needs a crash course and some resources… now.
Continue readingA few weeks ago, my colleague Erin Clarke, led a session at the Washington Banker’s Association’s annual conference for HR and training professionals. The session focused on new and unique activities to engage learners. As part of the session, Erin distributed a handout with activity instructions for five of the activities she demonstrated, and that handout can be found here. Of course, effective training is more than just an engaging activity.
One of my most popular blog posts ever was the one in which I shared a free training lesson plan template. It was so popular that it made me think that a tool like Soapbox, an online tool that basically puts a training lesson plan together for you in a matter of minutes, would be something the world would be interested in.
If you have about 10 minutes or so and want to hear what should go into a training lesson plan, give this week’s podcast a listen.
And if you have an extra 5 seconds, I’d love your response to the following survey question (I’m genuinely curious about who’s been listening to my podcasts lately). Thank you in advance for listening (and for giving me some idea of what your role is)!!
Continue readingDuring train the trainer sessions, I always tell my participants that if you can craft your learning objectives well, then the rest of the training program will pretty much write itself.
Continue readingA few weeks ago, I was preparing to deliver a 60-minute workshop revolving around the concepts from my book, What’s Your Formula? My challenge, which is probably a variation of an issue many of you have run in to as well, was: how do I cover all the things from a 200-page book in 60 minutes… and leave time for interactions, activities and Q&A?
As I stared at my screen, preparing to write a lesson plan, an idea came to me. I thought it was brilliant. When I went to test my idea in a practice session with some colleagues in advance of the real session, I received feedback that helped me to feel I was actually going to cover everything I needed to in the one hour I was allotted for my session.
Continue readingWhen I wrote a book revolving around a periodic table of 51 different elements that can lead to effective, amazing training, I decided to make element #1 the Lesson Plan because I felt this is one of the most fundamental elements for a successful training.
Continue reading“How do we get subject matter experts (SMEs) to be better trainers?”
It’s a question I hear often, especially in light of the recent presentations I’ve been doing on the concept of radioactive elements, which comes from my book What’s Your Formula?
Before I dive more deeply into SMEs, I want to remind everyone what “radioactive elements” are. Radioactive elements are components of training that can be very powerful, but they can also be very dangerous or even harmful if they’re not used very well. As you can see from the image below, these elements include some of the most commonly used pieces for training today: lecture, PowerPoint, SMEs, handouts, smile sheets (level 1 evaluation forms), icebreakers, elearning, augmented reality, role play, games and data.
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Last week I began to share some “experiments in learning design” based upon the following periodic table (which is the basis for my upcoming book, What’s Your Formula: Combine Learning Elements for Impactful Training):
This week we’ll take a look at another experiment. Today’s experiment revolves around the question: Are there ways to support SMEs to help their presentations to be more engaging and effective when they’re asked to train other people?
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