The 2 most important tips for making your training accessible & inclusive
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Diversity & culture, Training & development
This summer I got to hang with Sara Mitaru (pictured above), a United Nations designated Messenger of Truth, while we were both at a conference in Istanbul, Turkey. Sara’s a tiny, power packed artist who sings about effecting social change. I spent some time in the recording studio where she was practicing for a gig with her band. They’d been there all day by the time I arrived.
I was blown away by how the musicians, the other singers and herself communicated. It was all verbal. Notes for this song, when to come in on that song, the tempo of this, the pitch of that, were all communicated via voice. Not a thing was written down.
Why did this rock my trainer’s brain? Read on. It has to do with the 2 most important tips for making your training accessible & inclusive.
What’s your preferred way of taking in information when learning something new? Don’t know? Then imagine you’ve got a new techno gadget that you don’t have a clue how to use. What’s your first response?
a) ask someone to explain it to you
b) poke around & press buttons until you figure it out
c) read the instruction manual
This is a quick & dirty guide to how your brain processes information. Your answer is critical to how accessible & inclusive your training is (or isn’t).
If your first choice was ‘a’ you’re likely an audio learner; you process information by hearing it (both hearing yourself and others speak). If your choice was ‘b’ you’re likely a kinesthetic learner – you learn by doing. And if you answered ‘c’ you’re probably a visual learner – you learn by seeing things (pictures, graphs, charts, text etc.)
How does your answer to the above affect your training & development? Trainers often create training content based on their own dominant learning style. I see this over & over with people I teach how to teach.
If you’re kinesthetic, it’s likely that you won’t lecture for 3 hours but rather you’ll have your participants up & moving around a lot. If you’re audio you’ll probably talk a lot & encourage your participants to talk. Visual means you’re most likely a whiz at powerpoint slides, flipcharts and handouts. Design will be important to you- how stuff looks will be your priority.
During one workshop I taught, after explaining visual learners, a woman stood up & said “that’s what those damn flipcharts are for, I never could fathom why people would ever use them.” A visual learner she was not.
What’s the problem with teaching to your own learning style? Nothing …. if you have a class of learners exactly like you. In today’s diverse classes you can bet your last P&B sandwich that you’ll have a mix.
Which means you’ve got to mix it up. In order for your training content to be accessible & inclusive examine it to see if there’s a bias – a slant to one way of learning.
Go ahead. Check your next training workshop content to see if you’ve got an even mix between audio, kinesthetic & visual. Let me know how it goes.
To make your training more accessible & inclusive:
- know your own learning style, as it will most likely influence how you teach
- examine your training content to make sure it includes techniques that will appeal to ALL the learning styles
If you want to know more about your own learning style check out this self-assessment.
So, can you guess why it blew me away that Sara nor anyone else wrote anything down? It’s because I’m not an audio learner and they obviously were. As they’re musicians this makes sense because they make their way through life with sound.
P.S. I’m happy to report that the baby bump you see in the photo above is now lovely little Maya. That’s proud poppa David Muthami in the background.
Tags: access and inclusion, audio, david muthami, kinesthetic, learning style, messenger of truth, sara mitaru, visual
If you hit this sign you’ll hit this bridge; self-evident T&D musings
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Business & organizational development, Training & development
This picture came to me via Sally Khallash, a Futurist, with the Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies.
I laughed when I saw it and then thought about how some things about training & development should be equally obvious.
We, as learning specialists, should be setting a sumptuous smorgasbord of learning opportunities so participants can’t help themselves but dive in …. a smorgasbord that offers learning opportunities that is:
- inclusive
- engaging
- accessible
- intriguing
Why then is the traditional university lecture still held up as the epitome of learning?
Tags: copenhagen institute for future studies, learning opportunities, sally khallash
World famous mountain climber Catherine Destivelle celebrates carrots AND mountains
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Business & organizational development, Change management & wellness, Training & development
Can you imagine dangling from a few thousand meters up a mountain, alone, in the middle of winter? Catherine Destivelle can. She’s one of the “most adventurous and exciting female climbers in the world today.”
When I saw her speak at the W.I.N. conference in Paris I was struck by how her laser attention to detail (a common quality of Carrot Life Lenses™, 1 of 8 lenses into how we see the world) allows her to climb mountains (Mountain Life Lens™ being the opposite of a Carrot Life Lens™). The attention she pays to the smallest of details has likely saved her life on more than one occasion.
I enjoyed hearing Catherine’s stories because her Carrot Life Lens™ qualities allowed her to climb mountains. Literally. In the language of the lenses, Carrot Life Lenses™ and Mountain Life Lenses™ lie at different ends of the same continuum.
We’re often forced into boxes that narrow our choices and limit our growth. We’re encouraged to live along straight lines with nary a curve. B always follows A. 1,2,3. Society slaps dichotomous thinking on the back with a hearty ‘yes’.
Instead we should resist this easy, seductive thinking and way of being.
Rather than ‘either / or,’ ‘black / white,’ or ‘yes / no,’ Catherine is a case of ‘and’.
Yes, and, both. Step up, climb up.
Celebrate the carrot. Celebrate the mountain.
Tags: carrot lens, catherine destivelle, either or thinking, life lenses, mountain lens, W.I.N.
Do you recognize this sound? It’s the sound of change
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Change management & wellness, Training & development
Ahh the sound of change. A similar clip was played by Graeme Codrington of tomorrowtoday.uk.com at the recent W.I.N. conference in Paris. While he was playing the clip his 11 year old daughter walked into the room and asked what it was.
I can guarantee you that my 9 and 13 year old kids wouldn’t recognize the sound either.
And so it is with change.
What is known and normal to us in the field of training and development, especially when it comes to educational technology, can quickly become unknown and not normal.
While the known and the ‘normal’ bring ease and comfort, they certainly don’t bring innovation or welcome change.
As an example I’ll be diving into the opportunities that prezi.com presents, a tool which my good friend Tara Fenwick told me about. It’s an astonishingly easy to use and engaging tool to create not only presentations but help you plan out your projects.
I welcome how Dyana Valentine handily uses adobe acrobat to record her sessions with clients. Not only do you get her laser insight but you get the audio recording too. The video on her homepage is even more amazing when you know she did it in one take (and yes, she’s that exuberant and intriguing in person).
Danielle LaPorte is another great example. She’s embedded some stunning videos in her Firestarter e-book.
I rarely do a workshop without using short video clips. They’re lively, they’re engaging and they’re fun. You can see my resources, including videos, on my delicious site.
Delicious is another handy educational technology, it’s a free social bookmarking site – where you can say good bye to not being able to find your favourite online resources because they’re all handily catalogued for you once you bookmark them.
All the technologies above are fairly easy to use but you first have to put out the welcome matt in your brain and create space to make it work.
And you? What welcome matt are you putting out? What new educational technology are you using?
Tags: change, danielle laporte, delicious, dyana valentine, Educational technology, Graeme Coddrington, Instructional Technology, Paris, presentation software, prezi.com, social book marking, Tara Fenwick, Tomorrowtoday, WIN conference
When it comes to life (& that includes training) expect the unexpected
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Conflict resolution, Humor & comedy, Training & development
Tags: conflict, corporate training, learning & development, training & development
Linking learning with selling raffle tickets
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Employee retention, Training & development
This summer, as I’ve done for the past some 30 years, I volunteered at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival on the media committee. I get my hit of music from the world over and I get to give back, make a contribution.
I also get to meet interesting characters, like Louise, a fellow volunteer, pictured above. Aside from volunteering on the media committee she’s also volunteered selling FolkFest raffle tickets. I was curious about that task so I sat down with her to ask her about it. I found 7 lessons that apply to training & development in general.
1. The time to sell raffle tickets is NOT while the music is playing. People come with a agenda, to listen to music, and they don’t want to be interrupted.
- Implications for learning: be aware of what (multiple!) agendas your participants bring with them and how it influences their learning
2. People at festival stages 2 & 4 tend not to move (hmmm, something to do with shade perhaps).
- Implications for learning: some participants come eagerly, wanting to suck everything they can from the learning while others are more reticent and don’t want to move much. Know where are your participants on that spectrum and how does it affects your training.
3. Get one person sitting in a single row to buy a ticket and often the entire row will buy.
- Implications for learning: know who the influential participants are in your training, those who can influence the others. Get them onside, motivated and working with you.
4. Dressing up in costume and having fun makes selling raffle tickets easier.
- Implications for learning: okay you may not want to dress up in costume but do everything you can to make learning fun. It will increase both retention and engagement.
5. Make yourself identifiable. People should know at a glance that you’re selling tickets.
- Implications for learning: know how your dress, how you stand, your tone of voice, your cadence of speaking etc. all affect how you’re perceived as a learning and development specialist. Make sure they all fit the organizational culture.
6. Sex sells. Louise noticed that raffle ticket sellers dressed in skimpy costumes sold tickets faster.
- Implications for learning: while I DON’T advocate dressing skimpily I do advocate knowing the effect that your gender has on your training. It’s part and parcel of being aware of power and privilege issues.
7. Find captive people, like those lined up to go to the bathroom. Louise would approach them saying if you buy now you won’t be interrupted again. It worked.
- Implications for learning: find opportunities for teachable moments where participants are open to learning. Training can (and should) happen anywhere and everywhere.
Speaking of training happening anywhere and everywhere, thanks Louise for the lessons in learning via raffle tickets.
Tags: learning & development, Louise Kelaher, sales, selling, training & development, Vancouver folk music festival
Amsterdam driving lessons include what to do if you find yourself underwater
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Human resources, Training & development, Travel
Ever found yourself underwater in your car? No? Me neither.
However as all good training and development specialists know, learning is deeply dependent upon context. And so it is with learning to drive in Amsterdam.
Recently I found myself around and about in Amsterdam, meeting with a wonderful colleague Professor Gerd Junne. Check out his work with the Network University.
He kindly offered to meet with me as I was going to be in the neighbourhood while on my way to present at the WIN conference in Paris.
(‘In the neighbourhood’ being a decidedly North American context, as I’m not sure Europeans would consider Paris and Amsterdam in the same neighbourhood.)
One of the many things we talked about (more about that later in future posts) was the effects of the many canals there. If you’ve not been fortunate enough to visit Amsterdam know that it is crisscrossed with canals like ribbons in a child’s hair.
Turns out that some canals don’t have barriers between where you park and the edge of the water (see the picture above as an example). Turns out that part of learning to drive in Amsterdam includes learning what to do if you find yourself having inadvertently driven into a canal.
Gerd tells me that you must do what is counter intuitive. Rather than scrambling madly to get out of the car you must wait until the water is almost to the top of the roof. Craning your neck up and forcing your mouth into the air pocket until the last minute, it’s only then that the pressure will have equalized enough between outside and inside the car for you to be able to open the door and swim up and out.
Driving lessons have their own learning context. My lessons didn’t include what to do if I found myself underwater in my car but perhaps they included something Gerd’s didn’t.
Like with training and development context is paramount. What do you need to know about your learner’s context in order to create engaging learning opportunities that are rife for the uptake?
Tags: amsterdam, context, driving lessons, gerd junne, learning context, network university, training & development
The creme de la creme of learning
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Human resources, Training & development, Travel
I’ve just returned from a whirlwind trip around Europe, speaking at the WIN conference in Paris, launching Life Lenses™, visiting old friends and meeting new ones.
I spent one weekend in Scotland, in a tiny village near Stirling, where an old friend Tara Fenwick has started ProPEL, a “collaborative, multi-professional international network to promote research and knowledge exchange in leading issues of professional education, practice and learning”.
One of my favourite memories of the weekend involved cream. Yes cream.
More specifically shopping for and eating it as part of dessert.
I grew up eating one kind of cream, whipping cream and so I found the wall of cream choices that faced me in the Scottish grocery store daunting.
Facing me in the cooler were extra thick Channel Island double cream, clotted cream (so thick you’d need a knife to cut it), extra thick double cream, extra thick single cream and half fat creme fraiche, just to name a few. Richard, another friend who’s British was practically salivating at the thought of imbibing his favourite childhood treat.
So off we trundled, desserts in hand, including the precious cream, which we all thoroughly enjoyed after dinner.
The moral of this tale?
Learning happens in a context. The context can curtail, cushion or expand the learning.
To me cream means whipping cream. Period.
For Richard cream means an endless list of types to choose from, down to the kinds of cows that the cream comes from. (I understand Channel Island cows are particularly gifted at making cream.)
The deeper you dive in the more there is to know.
For the creme de la creme of learning dive deep.
Tags: context, creme de la creme of learning, learning, life lenses, ProPEL, scotland, Stirling University, Tara Fenwick, training & development
The global launch of Life Lenses™ is today!
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Communication, Human resources, Teambuilding, Training & development, Travel
I’m over the moon to officially announce (drum roll please) that the Life Lenses™ online assessment launches today. I’m in Paris for the launch and will be leading a Life Lenses™ workshop today at the W.I.N. conference.
- clear, affirming, inspiring ~ Danielle LaPorte, White Hot Truth
- fun, enlightening, educational ~ Fiona Walsh
- illuminating, clarifying, essential ~ Dyana Valentine
- easy, professional, thought-provoking ~ David Vogt, Mobile Muse
- see more clearly
- understand others easily and be more easily understood
- highlight your bright spots
- illuminate your blind spots
- Cheryl Breitkreutz, Canada
- Gerd Junne, Netherlands
- Dawn Christopher, USA
- Cadi Jordan, Canada
- Leigh Morlock, Cambodia
- Gayle Bertsch, USA
- Bwiira Joshua, Uganda
- Ken MacAllister, Canada
Tags: bwiira joshua, cadi jordan, cheryl breitkreutz, dawn christopher, gayle bertsch, gerd junne, ken macallister, launch, leigh morlock, life lenses, self-assessment, training & development
Countdown continues- 1 more day to the global launch of Life Lenses™
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Communication, Human resources, Teambuilding, Training & development
New! Today we’re shining the light on Journey (love the process) and Destination (geared to get things done) Life Lenses™. Which do you think you are?
Simply click here to answer a few questions and enter the contest to win a free Life Lenses™ assessment ($60 US value) . There will be multiple chances to win. We’ll let you know who the lucky winners are on launch day.
Here’s what we’ve heard from those who’ve answered the call so far …
From a self-proclaimed Journey Life Lens™ – “To me, how stuff gets done is more important than actually something accomplished. If you don’t pay attention to the process you’re in trouble later.”
From a Destination Life Lens™ – “I’m always focused on my next goal, the next thing I’m trying to accomplish.”
Stay tuned for more!
Life Lenses™ is an interactive, self-assessment tool designed to identify the invisible lenses that you wear, the lenses that colour your perspective and shape how you see the world. Life Lenses™ teaches you how to see yourself, understand others and makes communicating easier than you ever imagined it could be.
Are you ready to see clearly?
Tags: destination lens, journey lens, life lenses, self-assessment