Tammy explains how she uses a checklist:

“What you really want to be thinking is ‘How can I make this learning engaging, so that it’s as easy as possible for people to retain essential knowledge and they are motivated to do so?

When I’m developing training, I follow a process. It’s really important to have a process and a checklist to make sure everything meets a certain standard. We all get busy, and we all try to do our best, but often people just sit down, dump all their knowledge, do a bit of research, and then break it up to put on some slides. They might add a couple of activities, but that’s not enough.

Having a process means asking yourself critical questions: Have you included the relevant legislation or guidance learners need? Is the session suited to different learning styles? How long is the session? How many slides have you prepared?

Being that critical friend to yourself or following a structured process with a checklist will keep you on track.”

Tip Three: Have a Quality Control and Feedback Process in Place

During the design and planning phases of a training session or course, having a feedback process in place can help ensure your training sessions are suitable for different learning styles, and as engaging as they can be.

This can be between two facilitators, e.g., when one facilitator designs a course and another reviews it to provide constructive feedback and fresh perspectives, as Tammy explains:

“There should be a second pair of eyes on every course or training you design. At Transform Your Training we actually have three sets of eyes, and every single set of eyes finds something different that another trainer may have missed”. 

Tip Four: Implement Accelerated Learning Principles

Another effective way to make every training session engaging and ensure it meets different learning styles is to implement accelerated learning principles.

Accelerated learning involves incorporating practices that engage all of a participant’s senses—sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste—to improve information retention.

For example, think about how babies and young children learn. They explore their environment by picking up objects, touching them, moving parts around, putting toys in their mouths, bringing them to their noses, and shaking them to discover the sounds they make.

A child often learns how the different parts of a toy work before their parents do. That’s because children learn instinctively and naturally, whereas we, as adults, often lose or forget this ability, relying instead on rote learning and other more traditional methods.

These abilities are still present, however, as is our capacity to learn and store memories through our senses. Ensuring your training is designed to stimulate these abilities in your delegates is key to avoiding dull and uninspiring training sessions.

Tammy recommends thinking ablut an unispiring class or couse you’ve personally taken as a starting point on what not to do:

“Think about a class or course you attended where the training moved too slowly, was too dry, or involved too much sitting and listening to the trainer. How quickly did you become bored? Did you find yourself yawning, looking at your watch, or perhaps even having to consciously force yourself to stay awake?”

“In that scenario, did you find it difficult to learn? To retain the knowledge? Did you switch off and miss some of what the trainer was saying? If the whole course was like this, how much do you think you learned? That’s the kind of training I so fervently want you to avoid, which is why I fully embrace the use of accelerated learning techniques.”

“Now consider the opposite of that scenario. The facilitator delivers the training in a way that stimulates your senses, encouraging you to connect with and create your own learning, have fun, and learn instinctively.”

Tip Five: Applying Accelerated Learning Principles

In practice, applying accelerated learning principles means designing and delivering training in a way that appeals to people’s senses, stimulating their desire to learn.

When this is achieved, delegates enter a mindset of wanting to learn rather than learning because they were told to attend the training course. In this state, they absorb information without being consciously aware of everything they are taking in.

Accelerated learning in practice involves creating an environment where people actively draw learning from you and each other, rather than simply having your experience imparted to them. This shift can be subtle but powerful.

The first step is to encourage delegates to involve their senses. This can be as simple as encouraging them to:
 

• Eat while they learn.
• Touch different fabrics or toys as you deliver a session
• Drawing or coloring in to engage the delegates’ conscious mind, which opens up the unconscious mind to absorb more information.
• Having music playing while a session is in progress
• Helping delegates learn by smell and association e.g. making different scented pens available.

Once you’ve put those tips into place you’ll be in a good position to start seeing the benefits accelerated learning can bring.

Here are some additional tips Tammy recommends keeping in mind:
 

• For in-person sessions, an easy win is to provide fiddle toys, sweets, and coloring resources on the tables.
• Start the session with some emotional learning to connect people to the subject and keep them engaged for longer.
• Get people moving to stimulate their brains and increase oxygen flow. Include at least two or three activities that require movement.
• Change the delivery style every twenty to thirty minutes, e.g., switching between PowerPoint, verbal activities, movement-based activities, and written tasks.
• Play music over lunch and breaks to aid relaxation.
• Encourage talking instead of passive listening by asking delegates to explain learning points to each other or to the entire group.
• Include an optional workbook or a printout of the slides. Some delegates prefer to write as it helps increase absorption and retention of knowledge.
• Watch a video clip together and ask delegates to give a summary on the key points. Be mindful of the temperature, location and facilities.
• Make sure the space where you’re delivering a session is well lit.
• Ask a delegate to teach someone else what they are learning. If a delegate knows that they are responsible for teaching someone else, they will pay more attention to the material.

Tip Six: Implement Learning Principles in Your Course Structure

You can also start to structure your training courses with accelerated learning principles in mind.

In our recent webinar, How to Grow Your Training Business, Scott D’Amico shared an example of how he does this through applying the Learn, Practice, Apply, Methodology, within training sessions.

As the name suggests the Learn, Practice, Apply methodology is one that aims to make sure training is practical, rather than just theoretical, and is all about helping delegates practice the new skills they are learning, and giving them opportunities to apply them in real-world, relevant situations.

Scott recommends trying to give your delegates something practical they can bring to each training program to work on.

For example, in the pre-work assignment for Communispond’s executive presentation skills training program, students are asked to bring an example of a presentation they frequently deliver, an upcoming meeting they’re preparing for, or an important email they need to send.

In the training session, the example the delegate brings will then be the subject that the techniques the facilitator teaches are applied to.

To really help the delegate’s understanding and skills development, the facilitator applies in-the-moment coaching, which involves providing feedback and guidance during the actual execution of a skill or task, rather than after the fact.

Scott shares an example of this from his experience teaching presentation skills classes

 “If somebody is getting ready to present, and they have their hands in their pockets, or they’re shifting or mumbling, the instructor can stop them, remind them of what they’ve learned and have them pick it up and re-do it, to see if they can apply the skills they’ve learnt”. 

Watch the full webinar below to learn more about the Learn, Practice Methodology and for more expert guidance on how you can grow your training business.👇