Training programs -The secret of success

Here are a few challenges in conducting a teacher training program:

1. Know your audience.

It is important to have a fair knowledge of the kind of audience you will have. To what category they belong, what are their strengths, what are their inadequacies, where do they stand on their own learning curve and what are their personal pedagogical challenges. One must prepare the content, the pedagogy, and the levels of communication to match these requirements. It will be ridiculous to use the content prepared for some other program for this one and it may be a disaster.

Yes, a few dimensions of the content may be relevant but even they need to be articulated to suit the required learning climate. A good trainer spends a few hours introspecting, planning, designing, and articulating the delivery for each program.

2.  Never take your audience for granted.

Entering the program venue as an icon of knowledge, or as a power of house wisdom will be suicidal. While the confidence of the Resource person counts a lot to handle the program, it is quite important to know that two different types of people could be present in the audience – one who are better informed than you; the other who do not have the basics of what you are likely to speak. It is vital to position yourself in such a way that both feel relevant and comfortable with you. Both are willing to engage with you without either fear or regret. Preparing the audience to receive the content after a few minutes is indeed a skill. A resource person can use diverse types of psychological tools to create a climate and the curiosity. The first few minutes of the program sets the tone for the rest.

3. Do your homework well.

Getting ready for the program requires several days of work. To do a program one has to engage mentally at least one week before, draft an outline of what you are likely to speak, convert the outline into presentations that speak for themselves, plan out a communication design in terms of anecdotes, data, case studies, visuals and graphics so that the attention of the audience is kept alive for the entire duration of the program. It is advisable to personally articulate the presentation as the ownership of the presentation will go a long way to speak with greater confidence and authenticity. The presentation must be focused, few in words, rich in message, visually vibrant, emotionally impactful and enabling understanding without further communication. The role of the Resource person will only be to enrich the content and bring out the hidden message in the letters and visuals.

4. Never over-populate the content.

Oftentimes, resource persons tend to overpopulate the information either in a slide or in the entire presentation to provoke the curiosity. A few are either in an urgency or an anxiety to reach out to the audience or to impress them in split seconds. It leaves the audience either confused, dismayed, or creates a sense of fear about the content. It is important to keep the content simple, communicative, and relevant to the needs of the audience. One could caricature the content to create imageries that would play on their mental theatres to create their own visual and emotional sequences. This would help the audience to look for further feed from the speaker. A few who have the habit of reading out from the PowerPoint have been rejected by the audience. The tendency to post visuals which provoke humour but are non-contextual to the content in the slide will underrate the presentation.

5. Never be militant in the program.

  A training program is an informal platform for collaborative learning and sharing of experiences. It is not a courier delivery to be delivered at the doorsteps of a venue. The audience are not waiting there to be commanded, to be intellectually or emotionally downgraded with inadequacies or to witness the superiority of someone else on a stage. The profile of the speaker is extremely important to create a learning and participative climate for the audience. They need to feel a sense of belongingness within a few minutes of the starting of the program. The body language of the Resource person is critical for the socio-emotional climate for the programs. Persons who display intellectual arrogance on the stage through their verbal or non-verbal postures and become a demigod of the content are rejected in a brief period. Mere theatrics on the stage doesn’t help though it might gravitate the attention of the audience for a brief period.

6. The language matters

The language of the Resource person is a crucial factor to create the necessary receptive climate for the program. Language should be simple, fluid, and friendly. It should not be pompous, prosaic, and pregnant with multiple meanings. The informal communications, rather than theoretical, text-based, and conventional definitions, reach out to the learners. Meaning making is an exclusively individual competency of each learner and hence illusive languages tend to convey meanings which are mutilated, incorrect and inappropriate. The language of the speaker should help in facilitating the correct meaning. A deep insight of the nuances of NLP would help the speaker to choose words – the nouns, the adjectives, the verbs, and the syntax properly for the programs. The speed of delivery of the content on the stage makes a profound impact. It must be measured, spaced, and delivered. Too fast or a too slow a delivery might throw the audience out of gear.

7. Sustaining the attention is an art.

In many a program, one could see the interest and attention of the audience is alive for a brief period. It reduces with time and the audience tend to get mentally disengaged from the speaker though they are physically present. For programs spread more than an hour, it is important to be ready with different strategies to keep the focus and attention of the audience for the entire program. Linearity in delivery practices kill the spirit of the program. The speaker should have content, strategies and practices that would play with the minds of the learners to engage both the right and the left-brain competencies. This would help them to relax as they learn. Providing experiential inputs, case studies, book reviews, project references and firsthand experiences will help to sustain the curiosity and motivation of the audience.

8. Humour is a trump card.

Any program which is absolutely ordered to a rich content without an element of humour might gravitate the intellect and thought dynamics of the people but not help in long term potentiation. Humour is an excellent interventional and curative input for any lecture or conversation as it helps to relieve the stress construct embedded in the content and its absorption. Using humour as an element in a program is an art. The timing, the appropriacy, the relevance and the emotional input in it, must be kept in mind before using. I have seen several inappropriate narratives have caused chaos and brought down the dignity of the speaker.

9. References and quotes build the credibility.

The references and quotes given by the speaker during the program speak volumes of the knowledge, wisdom, and the extent of learning. They enhance the authenticity and the credibility of the content if there is no overdose of the same. Too many of such references make the audience feel that the speaker has nothing to say for the self. It is important to ensure that these references and quotes are authentic because the internet is flooded with unauthenticated content. It may be a clever idea to make contextual reference from the current social dynamics including references from films and managerial or social practices to keep the mood of the audience vibrant, however taking care that these are not offensive to any individual, community, or a system.

10. The feedback matters

It is a good practice to get written feedback after the program through some purposeful valid questions, not to seek any appreciation or encomium for one’s work, but to help oneself to redesign the programs for the future. It is also important not to be carried away from the negative impacts which could be sometimes too personal, non-contextual or illogical. Nevertheless, the feedback is a potential input for reformative action.