This week we are helping a member of the Effective and Fun Training Techniques Group on LinkedIn to tackle an interesting topic.

Below you will find her question, and our answer to her 🙂

“What is the best way to keep people interested? Going from teaching 7th graders to teaching adults has been a difficult transition for me. Something I am really struggling with is shifting the focus of the training session from me talking to whole time to getting the people involved. It has become mostly me talking at them, and them asking questions. But i do not know how to get it to be more of a conversation. Any ideas? Thank you in advance!” (from Maria Morlando, Director of Training and Development at Enjoy Your Party Franchising, LLC., Effective and Fun Training Group, LinkedIn)

“Dear Maria, {…} Introducing interactive tools is key to be able to engage adults. Also I find asking them questions about what they think is much more productive than simply giving them the solution.

As a corporate trainer, I always try to shift my behavior from the “teacher” (who needs to pretend he/she knows it all – which is unfortunately what we do with kids) to the “coach” who is here to mentor them in their learning journey.

Adults – and kids – can learn most things on their own and need a coach to help them stay on track, inspire and challenge them. This also makes it so much more enjoyable and relaxing for the trainer (you) because you feel like you are here for the added-value stuff, not just repeating the same information over and over again.

I have also been experimenting with “group self-learning” lately and it works wonders: people in small groups learn together. Naturally the stronger elements of the group will help the weaker ones!”(from Marion Gioda, COO, Belinguo)