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Sharon L. Bowman, M.A. PROFESSIONAL TRAINER & SPEAKER

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Quick Links New Books Book Ordering Streaming Video Photo Gallery For book purchases, go to www.amazon.com	Try This! Sharon’s suggestions for common questions teachers and trainers ask. Listed in order of most recent, from August 2006 - June 2005. Click on photo to enlarge picture August 2006 - Independent Trainer. Question: How do I get started as an independent trainer, i.e. working for myself rather than for one specific company? Suggestions: Here are a few ideas, in no particular order - * Go within. First, get clear inside your own mind, heart, and spirit with what you feel passionate about and what you want to do with that passion. Separate yourself from your ego, if you can (that’s a hard one for all of us!) and discover what it is about training that calls you, apart from the fame and fortune (both of which may take awhile to manifest!). A fabulous book to help you begin this inward journey is Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way (FYI - it isn’t about art!). * Do it for free. Create two or three small (one hour or so) workshops that you can offer to local community groups, businesses, churches, and the like, and do them “pro-bono,” i.e. gratis. Also, send in presentation proposals to major conference events in your specific field of expertise (two in the general training field are: www.vnulearning.com and www.astd.org). Usually, conferences don’t pay their presenters, but it is good exposure and practice. This will give you practical experience with your material and with different groups of people. Always get written feedback about what worked and what could be improved. * Ask the experts. No two journeys are alike, and each independent trainer that I know had his/her own way of beginning the journey. So ask around, talk to people, read books, go to workshops, and gather as much information as you can. Then follow your own heart and mind - know that your journey will be as unique as you are, and that’s the way it should be. Two great sources for learning from the experts are: www.summitconsulting.com (get Alan Weiss’s book Getting Started In Consulting, as well as his free website articles) and www.nsaspeaker.org (National Speakers Association - you can attend the NSA conferences even if you aren’t a member. NSA is a wonderful resource for learning about the business of speaking and training). * Keep your day job (at least for awhile). It doesn’t have to be either/or. It can be both/and. You can do workshops on weekends, holidays, and vacation days. Sometimes your employer may let you take unpaid leave to speak or train. Or, within your own organization, you can collaborate with your company’s training department to offer your specialized workshops (if that isn’t already part of your job). * Take baby steps. No, you don’t have to have a business plan, business card, brochure, flyers, marketing capital, office, public relations agent, or a lot of money - at least not at first. Many independent trainers who have all this now didn’t start their journeys with these pieces in place. You do what you can, choose one or two small steps to move you in the direction of your heart’s desire, and then walk through the doors when they begin to open. * “Leap and the net will appear.” When you want something passionately enough to say “Yes!” to the risk, the work, and the challenge, and to walk towards it in spite of your fears, it almost magically appears. Maybe small things happen first (someone asks you if you can give a little talk to a community group), and later, larger opportunities appear (you get a call from a business person who heard you speak at a conference and wants to know what your fees are). In effect, “We learn to do something by doing it - there is no other way!” (Author John Holt). * “Desire, ask, believe, receive.” From: The Artist’s Way. Enough said! back to top	Click on photo to enlarge picture Try This! August 2006 - Independent Trainer. June 2006 - Successful Learning. May 2006 - Resistant Learner. April 2006 - Death by Powerpoint. January 2006 - Best Tips. November 2005 - Audience Participation. September 2005 - Beginning Interaction. August 2005 - Pre-Training Questions. July 2005 - Participant Buy-In. June 2005 - Reluctant Learners. Click on photo to enlarge picture
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	June 2006 - Successful Learning. Question: What is the one thing I can do to make my learners more successful? Suggestions: Involve them in the learning - every step of the way. As teachers and trainers, we need to remind ourselves of this every time we stand in front of a group of learners. They are the ones who need to be talking, questioning, writing, discussing, experimenting, doing. We need to present new information in active learning formats using one-minute review activities such as Pair-Shares and Shout Outs, collaborative group activities, graphic organizers and other note-taking tools, games, projects, demonstrations, and the like. The more we hand the learning over to our learners, the more they will learn - easily, willingly, joyfully, The one question to ask yourself before each class or training is: *How can I invite my learners to participate in this learning experience?* back to top ***************************** May 2006 - Resistant Learner. Question: As a trainer, what should you do about the training participant who crosses his arms, leans back, fixes you with a glare, and silently dares you to teach him (or her!) anything! Suggestions: 1. Let him be. If he (or she) is not interfering with the learning of others or of the group, then leave him alone. Eventually, he may loosen up and become involved. Or he may be learning even if he isn’t actively involved. 2. Don’t make assumptions. It may not be about you. It may not be about the training. There is even the possibility that you are misinterpreting the body language (for example, some people may look angry when they really aren’t, or someone’s intense stare may really be a look of concentration). 3. Check it out. If you wish, and if the appropriate private moment becomes available, you may want to ask him quietly, “Are you okay? Is something wrong?” Depending upon his answer, you may be able to change something that is, in fact, bothering him. Or you may not. Either way, you will now know what’s going on. 4. Take a break. If his behavior is bothering learners around him, or if it escalates and begins to disrupt the training, it’s time to call a short break. During the break, ask him to step aside to a private place in the room or hall with you. Then do five things: A. Describe the behavior you are observing and what it is doing to the group. B. Ask him for his response to your observations. C. Describe what changes need to occur in order for him to stay in the training. D. Ask him for a commitment to making those changes. E. Thank him for his willingness to listen and to change. If he chooses not to change the distracting behavior, then at that point, you have the option of asking him to leave the training. Remember: Never sacrifice the group for the individual. You can figure out what to do with this person later, rather than letting the group flounder while you spend time taking care of the situation. 5. Trust yourself.** Often you already know, intuitively, what to do. Trust yourself to do what is best. And if, perchance, it doesn’t work out, then try something else. It’s okay to make mistakes. It’s okay to pick up the pieces and try again. And it’s absolutely okay to trust your own judgment. back to top ***************************** April 2006 - Death by Powerpoint. Question: What about tips to help prevent “death by Powerpoint?” Suggestions: Four ideas, just for starters - 1. Simplify, simplify. Cut the number of Powerpoint slides in half that you use for one presentation or training – or at least make that your goal. What to use instead of the slides you leave out? Wall charts, handouts, note-taking pages, stories, metaphors, and quick, one-minute review activities. 2. Use the “need-to-know” rule. Only put on the slides the “need-to-know” information – the facts your learners need to remember. The “nice-to-know” information can go on a handout for later reference. 3. Picture it. Include a graphic for at least every three slides. Your graphic can be a cartoon, icon, photo, clipart - anything that represents or is related to what you are teaching. Metaphors, stories, and analogies also create mental pictures. The human brain thinks in images, so a picture will stick in the mind longer than printed words. 4. Lose the template.** Okay, don’t lose it. Just realize that anything used over and over again becomes fodder for the human brain’s “automatic pilot” or “brain secretary” (aka “reticular activating system”) which says, “I’ve seen this slide a hundred times and I don’t need to pay anymore attention to it.” So the RAS screens out any data – including Powerpoint templates – that it deems routine and irrelevant. Solution? If you must use the templates, use them only for some slides, or include a variety of graphics to make the slides comes alive again. back to top ***************************** January 2006 - Best Tips. Question: What are some of your best tips for 2006? Suggestions: Here they are – use as you wish! 1. Chunk your stuff. Divide your lecture time into segments of about 10 – 20 minutes in length. In between each segment, involve your learners in a quick, 60-second review of the information you have just covered. These reviews can be simple activities like Pair-Shares, Think-and-Writes, Shout Outs, Pop-Ups, Doodle Drawings, etc. Download the free articles on this web site for the descriptions of some of these activities. Or you can find 150 one-minute activities in my newest book The Ten-Minute Trainer, available on www.amazon.com. And be sure to check back on this web site every month or so for more free articles. 2. Be gentle with yourself – and your learners. Change takes time. As you experiment with new ways of teaching and training, give yourself and your learners time to adjust to the new activities. Allow yourself to make mistakes, to laugh, to learn. 3. Include the right to pass. Always give your learners the choice of either participating or observing. This lessens any initial resistance some folks may feel, and it puts the choice of active participation in learners’ hands instead of yours. As long as the observers do not interfere with the group’s learning, leave them alone – they will participate when they feel safe enough to do so. 4. It’s not about perfection. It’s about the process of learning, and learning is messy stuff. So let go of the ego need to be the perfect teacher, trainer, presenter. Instead, focus on your learners and all the ways you can involve them as they learn. 5. Change the “I” to “we.” Begin to listen to how often you use the word “I” in your training. Or have a friend count how often you do so in a certain block of training time. This will indicate how much you bring the focus of the lecture or activity back to yourself. Practice using the inclusive “we” instead, whenever you can, as in: “When we as trainers do this …. We can choose to include …. When we teach this subject, we can try ….” The difference between using “I” and “we” is the subtle difference between being the subject matter expert versus giving learners the message that they are the experts as well. 6. Nothing works all the time.** Know this and be okay with it. Sometimes you let go of everything you’ve planned and fly by the seat of your pants, using your own intuition or gut-sense of what to do as your guide. Sometimes great activities will bomb and the best lesson plan will fall to pieces. You don’t need to do likewise! Just pick yourself (and your learners) up, dust yourselves off, be real, laugh if you can, and begin anew. Oh, and cheer yourself on for doing so! back to top ***************************** November 2005 - Audience Participation. Question: What is one of the quickest and easiest ways to get audiences participating - without the embarrassment of them having to stand up in front of the group and without wasting a lot of training time? Suggestions:** The easiest, quickest, and psychologically the safest way to begin involving audiences in the learning - without wasting valuable time - is the tried-and-true "Pair-Share." Sometimes called a "Think, Pair, Share" and sometimes called a "Dyad Dialog" or "Neighbor Nudge," the activity is a simple, quick, 30-seconds to one-minute audience participation technique. You, as the presenter or trainer, simply invite learners to turn to someone sitting near them and talk for 30 seconds to one minute about something pertaining to the topic. For example, at the beginning of your presentation or training, you might say, "Introduce yourself to someone sitting near you and tell that person one fact you already know about this topic." Another example: During the middle of your presentation, stop and say, "Now turn to a person near you and tell that person the most important thing you've learned so far about this topic." A final example: At the end of your training, you invite learners to partner with someone and explain how they plan to use what they've learned. You can have learners ask each other questions, share opinions about what they've learned, add to what they know with other topic-related, facts, debate the pros/cons of a topic-related issue, or solve a topic-related problem. One group management caveat: Always remind your audiences to make sure that no one around them is left out - triads are okay too. That way everyone gets a chance to take part in the Pair-Share. This activity is quick, easy, low-risk, and takes no more than a minute or so of time. If you have more time, you can invite a few volunteers to tell the whole group what they shared with their partners. Or, if time is short, simply thank the group for participating in the Pair Share and continue the presentation or training. back to top ***************************** September 2005 - Beginning Interaction. Question: What is the most comfortable way to begin using interactive instructional strategies, especially when you aren't used to teaching that way? Suggestions: The first thing you need to do is to "chunk" your material by dividing it in half. For example, if you're used to lecturing for an hour, divide your lecture material into two 30-minute segments. Then, in between each segment, insert a one-minute review activity (log onto www.Bowperson.com** for free articles regarding one-minute review activities). Practice saying the activity instructions before the training so that you can direct learners easily and quickly. Time the activity to last about one minute (close enough is okay). When you are comfortable with this, then begin to include more one-minute activities: one at the beginning of the class or training, one in between each lecture segment, and one at the end of the class or training. To get learner buy-in, tell them why you are including these activities and that they have the right to pass if they wish. Above all, be patient with yourself and your learners - changes, even little ones like a 60-second interactive exercise, take time and practice in order to be completely comfortable using them in your teaching. back to top ***************************** August 2005 - Pre-Training Questions. Question: What kind of information is good to know about training participants before they even walk in the door - and how do I get this information prior to the training? Suggestions:** Here are some of the questions you can ask your training contact person to get a sense of who is coming to your training, and what their backgrounds/prior knowledge levels are (you can also send out an email survey to participants, if you know who they are beforehand): What kinds of training have the participants attended related to this topic? How experienced are the participants regarding the topic? How many participants are new/experienced in their jobs/fields? What kinds of changes are happening in the workplace that are affecting the participants? What are your expected outcomes? What do you want the participants to be able to do once they complete the training? What follow-up support will the participants have after the training is over? What are some other constraints related to the training or to the participants? Is this training mandatory or optional for the attendees? back to top ***************************** July 2005 - Participant Buy-In. Question: I have a group of very serious training participants who are offended by “fluff” and “touchy-feely” kinds of activities. What should I do? Suggestions: You can teach them in the ways they’ve come to know and expect (most probably lecture-only with occasional slides or overheads - or deluged with PowerPoint until they are pretty-much brain-dead). OR you can do five things to move them in the direction of interactive learning: 1. Explain the educational rationale for using activities. Let them know that they learn best when ALL their senses are involved in the learning - seeing, hearing, saying, doing. And explain the reason for each activity (make sure the activity is related to the topic). 2. Give learners the right to pass. Only a few may take you up on this offer because many people, even in a serious crowd, are kinesthetic learners and want/need to move, talk, and join in. 3. Give the activities adult titles. Examples: a Dyad Dialogue instead of a Pair Share, or a Collaborative Review instead of a Group Talk. Let the participants know that these activities are about serious learning - nothing “fluffy” here! 4. Begin with low-risk activities. These are ones where training participants can join in without calling attention to themselves. Examples: talking to the person sitting next to them, writing on a note-taking worksheet, being part of a small discussion group, moving around the room with the whole group. Log onto www.Bowperson.com and download the free articles that contain more low-risk, interactive ideas. 5. Cut yourself and your learners some slack*. In other words, be patient with yourself and your learners. When you use interactive instructional strategies, you are changing the teaching/learning paradigm. Change takes time. As your learners become more at ease with each other and with you, they will join in with enthusiasm! back to top* ***************************** June 2005 - Reluctant Learners. Question: How should I handle reluctant learners - those who do not want to participate in any of the training activities? Suggestions:** If they aren’t disturbing the training, or distracting the other learners, leave them alone. Some folks are strong “watchers,” rather than “doers.” The watchers need more time to reflect on what they are learning, so they may appear to simply sit back and watch when, in fact, their minds are quite active. When you begin any activity by giving learners the right to pass, you lessen the watchers’ resistance to the “doing.” Now they have a choice to join in or not, and either way works for them, the other learners, and you. back to top *******************************