Training preparation

We delved further into The ULTIMATE Training Workshop Handbook this week (I capitalize ultimate just because the book is so freaking huge!) with a focus on chapters six and seven to help plan for our upcoming training projects.

Jim and I have a few weeks in which to plan a 1-2 hour workshop for an audience of our choice. We're going to be teaching/training refuges who come to Boise with basic cultural and speaking skills to aid in their social life and interviewing here in the U.S. The first point from the book that jumped out at me was "Keep Participants Involved and Active." Now, this is something we've really hammered home with our reading of Train Smart but it's funny how, even with that fresh in my mind, my initial thoughts for the class are "What will we lecture on?" Then I immediately realized, well, I don't really want to worry too much about that, we'll just go over the basics then get the students practicing the skills for themselves. Not only will they stay engaged and learn better but they will also likely have a higher skill level at the end of it given the practice. An idea that springs to mind is using a role play activity to have the students act out first of all how they would usually act, then improve that based on our tips to practice. I'm sure as Jim and I discuss and plan we'll come up with a lot more active learning strategies.

One of the other great tools I found in the handbook is the organizing checklist (page 256). I think as Jim and I move into that planning stage, this could be really helpful to guide us and make sure we are well prepared on the day. After meeting with administrators with the refuge organization that we will work with this morning, we have already checked off the first item on the list: Assess participants' workshop needs. Now we'll have to move through the rest of this comprehensive list to figure out exactly what we want to cover, how we will implement that into activities and how the training will flow.