Would you hire a plumber to sew you a suit? What about hiring a gynecologist to teach you violin? No?
It sounds absurd, right?
Yet many people erroneously believe that being a subject matter expert is enough to be able to teach. In other words, if I know a subject, that automatically means I can teach that subject.
Nope. Nada. Niet.
In addition to subject matter expertise, there are three more wildly important components for powerful learning and great training.
Using your hard-won and deep subject matter expertise and working together, let’s add those other three elements:
1. Designing powerful learning
- Take a trip through roadblocks to learning and ensure your learning design removes them as ironically, many many many workshops/courses, etc. aren’t designed for how people learn, remember and apply learning. Many many many workshops/courses, etc. shoot themselves in the foot and actually actively go against how our brains learn.
- Most folks unconsciously teach how they like to learn, which is great for those who learn like you do, but we can do wayyyyy better by designing learning that is as accessible and inclusive as possible
- Design learning that gets 3 for the price of 1 in impact by paying attention to what happens before, during and after your workshop/course.
2. Delivering powerful learning
- Learn about pro tips like the hidden tool right under your nose and why ditching the letter M is so important when teaching
- Get as far away from lectures as possible and make learning really engaging – going from UGLY to F.G.L.A. (facilitated group learning activities) and using hooks or teasers..
- Lectures have an atrociously bad retention rate – as Don Tapscott says a lecture, is when the notes of the lecturer go to the notes of the student without going through the brains of either
- Make sure you massage your participant’s almonds to make them feel welcomed, included and involved when you teach
3. Leveraging tech to make it all work
- Pick the best delivery platform for your work
- Choose between three delivery times – synchronous (in real-time), asynchronous/evergreen and/or blended
- Be sure to use simple tech tools that make learning seriously pop and make you stand out as a teacher
Get out of your siloed subject matter expertise and include the three other wildly important components for powerful learning and teaching and, you’ll be on your way to success.
Over to you rockstars. Let me know how it goes. Cheers. Stay well. Stay safe. Be creative.
Now go on and learn, laugh and lead
Learn
- Do an inventory of your own instructional design and delivery skills. Where do you need to add some learning?
Laugh
- When you pay attention to all these wildly important components you’ll avoid grumpy participants like this cat
Lead
- Take action and try some new things when it comes to learning design, delivery and tech. Do you have a ‘Try Stuff’ box? Here’s how to get one
P.S. Missed my recent free Learning and Development Roundtable workshop on Top tips for online facilitating and public speaking. Take action now –> Join the mailing list to receive invitations to the monthly meetings, and get access to all the meeting resources (including recordings of the Learning and Development Roundtables).
Leave a Reply