If you are a mentor or a presenter of the workshop, imagine
your best client came to you for the easiest guidance, thanks to teaching what
you recognize. They need you to develop a software for the people they're
dealing with all over the world. Money is not an entity, but they need you to
build the best possible software, use whatever technologies and other resources
are available, and not be limited in the least by what you have wiped out in
the past. They need something that is the best technique in the world, and they
need your assistance.
What kind of stuff
will the participants design for you?
Will that you...
Travel to the world's top experts in this field (apart from
you, of course!) to introduce yourself to them?
Through Twitter, Facebook and Google+, to deliver new
material?
Build presentations of hypermedia that they can install on
their phones?
Upload training material, integrated with self-assessment
quizzes, to YouTube and Slide share?
To exchange ideas and ask questions, set up a personal
online forum for them?
To exchange ideas and ask questions, hold a monthly video
conference for them?
Integrating the preparation into their everyday jobs so that
they receive regular prompts to reinforce new habits?
Of course, you might probably do all of those things,
counting on the specific circumstance, and a lot more I have never listed.
But one thing you would almost definitely not suggest is to
allow the participants to avoid what they do, take in a classroom, and hear you
delivering content during the day.
And yet, that's how
most workshops in training still run.
Yeah, I do know that all you do is lecture your audience all
day long! You've got a lot of time for Q&A, handouts and workbooks,
community games, best online learning platforms
for high school students and a lot of social opportunities. But it's still
a bunch of people learning from an instructor in a room. That really doesn't
even compare with the best practice in the world!
In fact, most training remains stuck in this style, which
was the main practical choice in the twentieth century, to be honest. But there
are many other - and better - possibilities for sharing your thought leadership
now available. We have social media, collaboration online, Google,
gamification, applications for smartphones, on-demand video streaming, podcasts
for education, webinars, iPads and other tablets, and much, much more.
If you do not take advantage of those opportunities, you
fall behind - and do a disservice to both your clients and audiences.
How do you give your
classrooms a flip?
I'm not saying that there is no space for learning in the
classroom. There are advantages to physically having participants together in a
room. But if you use that point to teach them things that they would have
learned just as easily before they arrived, it is a waste of your time.
Instead, to foster dialogue, promote participation, and provide encouragement,
assistance and mentoring, use the classroom time.
This idea I didn't invent. It is called "Flipping the
Classroom" and in educational circles it is becoming increasingly popular.
This is being taken on board by several schools and universities - and you
should, too, because that is the path forward for the course.
At a time, take one
measure.
It looks like a huge move flipping the classroom, and in
some respects it’s. But the most important step is not to do it; it is to
change your attitude and let go of what has succeeded in the past for you.
Do not immediately plan any of it to be delivered in your
training room if you are planning a replacement educational program. Find other
methods of supplying the cloth, using the training sessions for what must be
done there, as far as possible.
What if you have a teaching program already in place? Don't
throw it away in this situation! Instead, begin by analyzing it for components
that do not need to be physically inside the space for the participants. Then
consider how, in other ways, you can deliver these elements, and re-design
those parts of the software. You also don't need to do any of them explicitly.
Only do the full amount as you can initially deal with it.
Either way, during this process, I strongly encourage you to
start flipping your training programs around.
This is not optional; it is a prerequisite. If you do not
roll your programs in the hay together, someone else will come along and put
you out of business!
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