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In 1988, President Ronald Reagan began his speech to the Gridiron Club by saying “Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement.” Most facilitators have been tempted by this sentiment – just listen and don’t ask me anything. But effective facilitators know that questions can be the lifeblood of learning. Not only do questions from the audience show that brains are engaged, they let us know where the comprehension or attitude gaps exist. I encourage questions in many ways during my professional learning activities but recently encountered a very reluctant group. After exhausting my repertoire to methods, I had a creative inspiration that worked so well! I quickly created a slide as seen here and informed the learners they would be sent to a breakout room for three minutes. They were to choose a facilitator and develop a question beginning with the assigned question word. (For an in-person session, assign a word to each table group.) I then pulled everyone back together after a few minutes and asked for their questions. This strategy yielded rich, interesting discussion on our topic.  BTW, I usually randomly assign a facilitator for any experience like this so that someone will quickly take the lead and ensure the task is completed. Ideas for facilitator assignment can be as simple as whichever person is tallest, most experienced, owns the most pets, wearing the brightest color, or ate takeout most recently.
For more creative ideas, check out my book Caffeinated Training Design or contact me to customize a session for you.
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 Polling apps boomed in popularity during the pandemic. They are a simple way to increase engagement in virtual (or in-person) training. For anyone that wants to hyper-charge that engagement boost, try my 3P strategy - Poll-Pause-Predict.
It’s simple. Operate your polling app as normal except do not show the results coming in live or when they are finished. Provide your learners with some silent think time to make a prediction about the data and be ready to share their rationale. If you are in-person, you can insert a quick turn-and-talk. Facilitate some sharing before the big reveal. Research has found that when we thoughtfully engage in making predictions, our brain pays better attention to the correct answer, with an increase in retention of the information. And which of us doesn’t want our learners to have better retention?? If you are interested in more ideas on engagement, attend my ATD session, Total Participation Techniques to Caffeinate Your Presentation, on May 16th at 3:00 pm. I promise to wake you up and fill your cup with lots of ideas.  Last week I presented all day, each day, fully masked. Trying to sound crisp and clear, rather than muffled, was tiring on my voice and my lungs. So I've spent some time today generating a list of my favorite ideas that increase participant talk and decrease presenter talk. The 3D Strategy - Divide, Develop and Discuss is one of them that I will use during my next professional learning session.
1. Divide your content into 3 topics or categories. For example:
2. Divide your learners into groups of three, each with their own piece of blank paper. Direct them to each write one of the categories at the top of their paper, so that each topic is represented. 3. Explain that each person will have 3 minutes to jot down bullet point ideas on their paper related to the one topic listed at the top. They might be developing new ideas, new perspectives, or solutions to a posed problem. After 3 minutes they will pass their paper to the person on their right and have 3 minutes to add to the new page, developing ideas further. Repeat this process one more time so that everyone has added to each page. 4. Prompt the trio to discuss what they developed, using some of the following questions or some of your own.
Tip: If each person in the trio uses a different color of ink, the added comments will be very visible. I like this strategy because it is simple, interactive in a low-key way, and honors the experience that each learner brings to the table. For more simple ideas, check out my books Caffeinated Learning and Caffeinated Training Design. According to Todd Kashdan, a psychology professor at George Mason University, anxiety and curiosity are two opposing systems. In order for learning facilitators to enhance the curiosity of their learners, we need to find ways to decrease the anxiety and fear that can be present. One strategy I created is called Fear Flipper. I begin by modeling how I flipped a fear that I had when I moved to Florida. As an avid open water swimmer, I was anxious about swimming in Florida lakes that were sure to have alligators lurking nearby. I was concerned that I would be attacked, eaten, maimed…you get the picture.  To flip this fear, I generated a list of questions that related to my fears. This first step immediately gave me a feeling that I was taking control, rather than letting the anxiety control me. I then systematically gathered answers to my questions. When I had gathered the data, I found that I was comfortable enough to jump in the lake. I’ve been swimming with the gators now for four years.  After sharing my process, I ask my session participants to create their own Fear Flipper list of questions related to our topic. This example was generated during a session for a call center sales team whose data showed lower than average closure rates. Team members had also anonymously reported hesitance about asking for the sale.  After generating questions, the team divided responsibility for gathering answers, then shared information for a robust discussion. As they decreased their anxiety, curiosity about how to improve performance increased. Fear Flipper is a simple strategy you can integrate into a wide range of training topics. What fear do you want to flip? A shout out to Julie, the reader who left this Amazon review of my book, Caffeinated Training Design. Glad to hear you found it valuable!  I competed in my first ½ Ironman Relay team last weekend, doing the 1.2 mile swim leg. Over the last few weeks, my teammates asked me for predictions about my swim finish time so that they could estimate our overall time. I had to synthesize my knowledge of previous race times, weather, fitness level and motivation to make my prediction. Predicting is a process that holds great value for our brains. It improves curiosity, activates prior knowledge, and increases brain activity across multiple regions. (Curious about my finish time? Read to the end.*) You can gain these benefits for your learners by using this simple strategy to encourage predictions in your training sessions.  1. Create a slide that has a book cover related to your content. This works especially well if you have designed your session around the book or if you have some copies to give away.
2. Ask everyone to take a few minutes to jot down their predictions for the book’s Table of Contents. 3. Show the Table of Contents and have participants compare their predictions. Discuss the similarities and differences. I usually show an example first as part of the directions. Feel free to use this slide if you’d like. This activity usually takes about 10 minutes but could go longer if you wanted deeper conversation to occur. *My prediction was off, but in my favor! I expected about a 39-minute swim and finished in 34 minutes. There was a river current that sped me along :)  I had so much fun gathering and arranging ideas for my ATD@Home virtual presentation on curiosity and creativity. If you were unable to attend, here is one of my ideas for stimulating curiosity, even in an online session. Curiosity can be defined as the gap between what we know and what we seek to understand. To make this a bit more concrete, try my Mind the Gap strategy. Create a t-chart slide, labeling the top of the left column What do I/we know? And the right column What do I/we want to know? Ask participants to create a similar chart on their paper and quietly reflect on the left column as it relates your topic or problem. After 1-2 minutes of reflection, ask participants to share and add to the slide. A sales team created the following example:  Next, ask participants to reflect silently on questions for the What do we want to know? column. After 1-2 minutes, lead them in a sharing, adding to the slide. Encourage questions that are “outside the box.”  Once the knowledge gaps have been identified and curiosity piqued, there are many ways you can structure further gathering of information. Individuals can explore topics, teams can review research or gather new data or you can bring in a consultant to fill the gaps.
If you have gaps in your knowledge about how to engage virtual learners or wake up your audiences, I'd be happy to work with you to upskill your trainers and facilitators. Reach out today!  Creative solutions often come from people who are willing to ask “Why?”
To encourage my teammates and session participants to ask more why questions, I created a simple activity I call The 5 Why’s Challenge. To grab attention I preface it with a short video clip of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge from a few years ago and explain that this will be much easier!. Then I share that everyone will be participating in a different type of challenge today. They are to ask 5 why questions at some point during the session. I encourage everyone to draw 5 check boxes on a sticky note or piece of paper and keep track of how often they ask a why question. To support them, I show a slide with some question stems that begin with why and model a few examples.  Depending on your topic and desired outcome, it can also be helpful to provide your participants with a greater variety of question stems. You can download those here.
For more ideas on how to encourage creativity and curiosity, check out my session during the ATD@Home Conference, August 29-September 1, or contact me directly to schedule something for your talent developers. You spent hours designing the course. Marketing created enticing registration announcements. The slides and materials are ready to go. You've had a good night's sleep and just the right amount of coffee. The first people begin to arrive. What do they see? Our conference space sends immediate messages to our participants. Drab, cold and uncomfortable spaces might be saying "Be prepared for a long, boring day," or even worse, "We don't care enough to make the room comfortable and enticing." The time spent sprucing up your space pays big dividends in the long run. Watch this video to see a recent transformation I did prior to a training class. My goal is to add color, dimension and activity to each table or space. I add things to walls (when permitted), provide sticky notes and arrows, dots, markers, doodle sheets, extra paper and Quick Read QR codes for early arrivals. These are the standard items, and then other things are added based on the content and activities I have planned. What are your standard items for sprucing up your learning space? * I originally wrote this piece in early March of 2019, just before the pandemic hit and all in-person events came to a halt. Now that we are beginning to return, I felt it was finally time to post it. Did you know that the human stomach has gastric folds within it that allow it to stretch to contain up to 4 liters of food and fluid? This makes me think of the accordion blinds that hang in my office window. This is one of many facts I am learning as I study anatomy – a COVID quarantine way to pass my time. Trying to learn something that is totally new and unconnected to my career path or other hobbies has been a fascinating journey. It has given me the opportunity to consider and apply the cognitive and neuroscience research from the perspective of the learner. This, in turn, has led me to create even more ideas to support the learners in my training sessions. For example, we know from research that making connections between prior and new knowledge improves understanding and retention. Instructors often use analogies to assist learners in making these connections. While helpful, these are instructor-driven rather than learner-driven. Given that not all learners have the same background or personal interests, it has been proven more effective to have the learners create their own connections. Here’s a simple and effective way to do it:
 Telling isn't that same as teaching. Participating isn't the same as learning. So pack your session with research-based ideas like this one. Want more? Contact me to discuss how we can customize some professional learning activities for your team.
 Tired of hearing “we can’t” or “it’s impossible”? Sick of low expectations and negative mind sets? This winning strategy is a surefire way to make a strong point while also engaging virtual participants in a multi-modality activity. 1. Think of a word or phrase that you would like participants to remove from their discussion or attitude. 2. Direct everyone to grab a piece of scrap paper or sticky note, while you do the same. 3. Ask everyone to write the word or phrase on their scrap. Show a model in your video feed. 4. Direct all who are able to stand up. Once everyone is ready, ask them to crumple the scrap and toss it into the nearest recycling bin. 5. Facilitate as much follow-up discussion as you’d like. I love simple ideas! If you do, too, check out my book Caffeinated Training Design or contact me at 720-934-1508 to design an idea-packed session for you and your colleagues. Here is a sample of feedback from my latest ATD session:  |
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AuthorAnne Beninghof is passionate about teaching and learning. Archives
February 2022
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