A small investment that can add big value to your training or workshop
People attend courses and workshops for a variety of reasons: some are there to learn, some are forced to attend, and others are curious-but-skeptical. Yet whatever the reason, how can we add value in the form of creating a compelling and memorable experience? An experience that effectively reaches beyond the workshop into the “real world” inhabited by our learners?
An obvious way to help bridge the learning-practice gap is to offer a package of professional, relevant and well-designed handouts. We trainers reassure ourselves that this invaluable resource will serve as an oft-consulted reference for learners post-session. Yet, how many of these things have you unearthed and pitched out in an office-purge years later? It’s a natural tendency to “file it and forget about it”. So…What else is needed?
I have attended two recent faculty development sessions where the speakers employed an ingenious and appealing strategy. So brilliant, so obvious, why have I never done this before? I am decided that I will now incorporate this into every single workshop:
Give each and every participant a small, meaningful token – a symbol – of the underlying meaning or “spirit” of your session.
Don’t tell them ahead of time. Do it near the end of your workshop or talk. Involve them in an activity demonstrating how they might use it.
Example:
In the Motivational Interviewing workshops that I facilitate, we talk about the skill of affirming as one of four foundation skills in this counselling approach. Last week at a session I gave for Queen’s University Health, Counselling and Disability Services clinicians, I handed out “saphires” (plastic, from a discount store) to each participant, and asked them to consider an affirmation that they could offer to a challenging student they are working with. Long after the workshop, that “jewel” on a practioner’s desk is a tangible reminder of mindful practice, and more evocative (and concise) than the 40 page handout I provided! (Or even the one page “ MI Tips ” for that matter).
Learners give their time, attention and wisdom to us when we co-construct learning communities. In the spirit of reciprocity, I have decided that going forward, a symbolic token to take away represents a significant value-add for learners and a reminder of what we have collectively shared.
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