It’s the end of the week and all good things must come to an end, especially trainings.
The primacy and recency effect in training tells us that participants tend to remember what happens first and last, hence the need for a good ending.
How do you end your trainings?
Here’s a checklist of things to keep in mind:
- ending a training is more than saying ‘we’re done, go home’
- ending a training is not the time to open things up to questions – encouraging questions should happen throughout the process
- ending a training is one of the most critical parts of the workshop – just like the introduction and the body
- pay attention to how you close the process – what can you do to transition the individual participants out of the group, deal with any emotions or relevant issues that came up?
- pay attention to how you close the content – what can you do to help the participants review and carry their learning forward?
- some groups need a thorough focus on process and little content closing; other groups will be more 50/50 and yet others will be mostly content focused – which is yours?
- include logistical things that need to be covered (e.g. sending follow-up resources)
- include evaluation – ideally you’ll have been doing this throughout the process (depending on how long the workshop is) but often it’s good to get some final feedback in a way that makes sense for your workshop
- encourage communication – share your social media contact information – email, Twitter handle, Facebook, LinkedIn (whichever are appropriate for you)
- encourage sharing resources – I rarely end a workshop without showing my website, blog, newsletter resources, book lists, delicious account (social bookmarking site that lists my online resources)
That’s a wrap. Make it good, make it sticky.
And speaking of wrapping, here’s another way to do it (tongue firmly in cheek) … (since I first saw this video they’ve added an obnoxious 15 second advertisement; feel free to ignore it – the real video is worth waiting for).
this is really useful information about parts of facilitation that often get missed in the planning of a workshop – people are so used to the question period at the end (and then to running out of time when it’s supposed to happen!). thanks for this!
Hi Aaron; thanks for your lovely comment. Any other parts that you see get missed frequently? I’d love to hear more about your experience.
I think we could be a lot clearer about when and how people can ask questions or interact with the trainers, and too often I see trainers say there will be a question period and then they run out of time or priorise something else…
Here’s to lots of great, intriguing, incisive questions for 2011. And to intriguing, incisive answers (that serve to bring up more questions). Happy holidays Aaron. Thanks so much for commenting.
I see that you are using my image titled “burning my candle at both ends”. Thank you for linking the photo back to the original image, but the creative commons policy states that attribution of all photos should be included whenever images not belonging to the author be attributed to the originator of the image. Please either add the correct attribution or remove my image from your site.
-gfpeck
Hi Wes- thanks for your comment & for clarifying. I strongly believe in proper attribution so I appreciate your email.
It’s a fabulous image. I’m happy to attribute the photo to you as requested, I’m not sure how to do that however. On the Creative Commons license you’ve chosen it says – ‘Some rights reserved by gfpeck’. The hyperlinks don’t copy into the photo caption bar (as you can see above).
Is there something else you’d like me to add / edit / change or does the link to your page & the attribution under the photo satisfy?