Workshops and Training Adults

http://ideamatt.blogspot.com/2006/04/crucible-of-teaching-want-to-learn-in.html

First, in the article Ten Tips for New Trainers/Teachers Kathy Sierra tell us:

• Keep lecture to the absolute minimum.
  
• It is almost always far more important that your learners nail fewer subjects than be "exposed" to a wider range of subjects.
  
• For classroom trainers, the greatest challenge you have is managing multiple skill and knowledge levels in the same classroom! Be prepared to deal with it.
  
• Work hard to get everyone to complete the lab exercises, but NEVER give out the solutions in advance!
  
• Do group exercises whenever possible, no matter what you've heard.
  
• Designing exercises
  
• Leave your ego at the door. This is not about you.
  
• Have a Quick Start and a Big Finish.
  
• Try never to talk more than 10-15 minutes without doing something interactive. And saying, "Any questions?" does not count as interaction!
  
• Don't assume that just because you said it, they got it. And don't assume that just because you said it five minutes ago, they remember it now.
  
• If you're not passionate, don't expect any energy from your learners.

She finishes with:

Remember: It's not about what YOU do... it's about how your learners feel about what THEY can do as a result of the learning experience you created and helped to deliver.

Second, Marc Shiman passed along these very helpful thoughts:

1. What do you want your audience TO DO when you get done with the workshop? There's your goals. Focus on that. Then - focus on what you must achieve for them to DO what you want them to do. Some achievements might be "complete understanding of the system", "complete buy-in and commitment", "establish that they have a problem", etc.
   
2. The human brain has a short-term memory of 8 minutes before it stops absorbing. Once you hit that 8 minutes of information, it needs to be transferred to long-term memory. That's the role of the exercises. Try to structure everything in chunks - short presentation, reinforcing exercise, and, most importantly, thorough debrief.
   
3. Use a variety of activities, people get easily bored which is a learning killer. Have them discuss things in a large group, have them discuss in small groups. Put them through very structured dialogue, put them through very open ended dialogue.

Last, a friend who teaches in high school suggested attitude really counts, and encouraged me to let my passion for this work come through. He thinks passion is absolutely necessary to reach the audience, but not necessarily sufficient (you have to know and repeat your content.)