The Trainer Academy: How to Teach Online or In-person (Part 1)

June 15 & 22, 2021

You may be looking for ways to turn your expertise into a training that helps nonprofit people. Or maybe you have already been delivering trainings and are wondering how to shift that curriculum into an online world. You might be someone who teaches people every day as a consultant or coach and are wondering what you can do to make sure people are able to take action on what you need them to know.

The Trainer Academy is an online course that gives you the knowledge, skills, and tools you need to be an effective trainer (both in-person and online). Over 2 two-hour sessions, you will learn how to design an effective workshop and how to deliver that workshop in a way that maximizes participation. You will receive materials and assignments before and after each session to give you a way to practice what you learn. You will end the series ready to deliver an effective learning experience that helps people transfer what they learn back into their work.

The Trainer Academy is designed for both novice and veteran trainers. If you are new to training, you will gain a framework to help you get started. If you have trained for a while, you will have the chance to refresh your approach and reflect on how to bring the latest in adult learning into your approach. Are you interested in presenting at conferences? This session will give you space to refine your plan towards a compelling workshop proposal.

Effective Workshop Design | Design learning experiences that change practice
This session is all about the design of workshops or webinars. Before we dive in, we’ll use action mapping to make sure a workshop is really needed. (There are many ways to help people.) A great workshop design ensures that information is balanced with opportunities to practice, even when delivered online. It has a clear narrative that guides people forward in ways that support memory and reduce overload. It hooks people at the start, makes space for reflection, and closes with time to transfer learning to where it will be used. We’ll use a workshop planner to capture what would work best for you.

After we anchor ourselves in an effective structure for a training, we’ll explore these important design topics:

• Prioritizing content to do the hard work in the room
• Getting your people to flow: how to level your session
• Supporting learning through asynchronous job aids, checklists, templates, and more

Your homework will be to refine your workshop plan and get ready for making your session engaging to be the people who will attend.

Show time: Instruction that inspires and motivates | Deliver engaging sessions online or in-person
At this point, you have a well-designed plan for your workshop. It’s show time: let’s explore how to deliver an effective training in any environment, with a particular focus on virtual training.

In this session, we talk about how to:

• Connect with participants in an authentic way
• Keep your audience’s attention
• Increase interaction between audience members
• Assess what people are learning through regular feedback and evaluation

You will complete this session with your workshop plan fully fleshed out with activities and engagement strategies.