How do you improve your facilitation skills and keep up with adult learning trends?

Another way that I improved my facilitation was by recording myself with a phone. Setup a phone and record yourself going through the presentation. Make sure you can’t see yourself as you present, as you’ll auto-correct and not realize little things you do without realizing it. Then, as painful as it is, watch yourself back. My biggest questions to myself is: - As a learner, what am I taking away from this person speaking? - Am I bored? - Do I feel engaged - what could this person do differently to engage me better? Those few questions truly helped me in becoming a better facilitator when I didn’t have the luxury of having someone else evaluate my facilitation skills.

I worked as a newscaster on a national television for many years, and therefore watched myself speak before a virtual audience, where it is difficult to monitor the mood of the people you are talking too, and whether they are listening to you at all. So to be sure that I was communicating, I learnt to deflect my voice to redirect attention back to what I am saying. This has proven very useful in the face to face engagements I have when facilitating and event. the sometimes low, sometimes high, a drawl here and a high pitch there actually does get people to listen than a monotone from greeting , talk, discussion to goodbye.

Improving your facilitation skills and staying up-to-date with adult learning trends is crucial if you want to be an effective facilitator or trainer. Here are some steps to help you in this endeavor: Continuous Learning: Commit to being a lifelong learner. Stay curious and open to new ideas and approaches. Attend workshops, courses, and conferences related to adult learning and facilitation. Network: Network with other facilitators and educators. Sharing experiences and insights with peers can be incredibly beneficial. Adaptability: Be open to change. The field of adult learning is dynamic. Adapt your methods and techniques to align with emerging trends and technologies.

Engage your audience. Adults learners have the tendency to lose focus quickly. Engaging them in the session by either asking questions, checking their understanding, role play, etc will keep them focused. Break your content into chunks, avoid long sessions. Gamilfy your content, dull content has minimal impact.

Improving your facilitation skills and staying up-to-date with adult learning trends is essential for providing effective training and educational experiences. Here are steps to help you enhance your facilitation skills and stay current with adult learning trends: Continuous Learning and Professional Development Online Courses and Platforms Participate in Communities of Practice Seek Mentoring and Coaching Attend Workshops and Training Sessions Practice Facilitation Regularly Observe Seasoned Facilitators Experiment with New Tools and Technologies Stay Informed about Learning Technologies Participate in Research Seek Feedback and Self-Assessment By actively engaging in continuous learning, you'll be able to enhance your facilitation skills

Con la metodologia de aprender haciendo he ido desarrollando mas habilidades que me permiten desarrollar una mejor facilitacion del tema a compartir. Al final se pasa una hoja de evaluacion que permite al grupo sugerir en que puedo mejorar. With the learning-by-doing methodology, I have been developing more skills that allow me to develop a better facilitation of the topic to be shared. At the end, an evaluation sheet is passed that allows the group to suggest where they can improve.

It is always a great idea to observe other facilitators in action when possible. Everyone has unique practices, ideas, and methods of facilitation that you can learn from. This, alongside expanding your network, acts as a strong base to building and maintaining your facilitation skills.

I agree with this but believe that one must first be self aware so that you are intentional about learning from other facilitators that you have similarities with. That was you stay authentic

One of the main rules to improve more: do not hesitate to ask questions, gain new knowledge, observe and communicate with more experienced facilitators than you. This approach will give you chances to touch best practices, expand your network and get new ideas.

A few things I’ll do whenever I get the chance to watch others facilitate is: - Write down what I like that they do - Write down phrases that seemed to engage the audience - Write down what captured the audiences attention - Go talk to them after Let them know what really stood out to you in their facilitation. It’s an incredible way to ask them more about why they try certain things, and help them reinforce the amazing things their doing. As a facilitator, I feel as though I never get as much feedback as I’d like, so whenever someone comes up to me giving specific pieces of encouragement, I’m happy to chat further with them. And it’s also makes the other person feel nice, which is a relief since facilitating can be exhausting sometimes.

At the completion of all my training courses, I would go around the room and ask every participant--"Tell me one thing you learned today." It was rather powerful. Some "learnings" seemed inconsequential, but they had to come up with something.

C'est toujours intéressant de croiser les regards et les compétences avec des co-Animations. C'est très nourrissant. On confronte nos manières de transmettre, on fait évoluer nos supports et à la fin on analyse nos pratiques pour balayer les frustrations et observer les marges de progression.

Observation is one of the skills that makes learning easy. Whenever I get an opportunity to co-facilitate/observe the session of other facilitators, I observe- 1) How questions are being put to the audience which makes them think and contribute to group wisdom. Usually open-ended questions help in De-briefing and harvesting of wisdom. 2) How are difficult situations being handled by the facilitator who is in charge? 3) The opening and closing of the session. 4) Most importantly how the factor of interest is being induced when the audience starts to loose the interest which is mostly after lunch. 5) Observing how audience is responding to various tools and activities.

The biggest lesson I learned listening to other facilitators, is being quick in remembering or reading participant names and using their names to address them. When you address a person directly without saying "Yes, you", or "the lady in a green dress", or 'the gentleman in the back", makes the participant feel valued for their opinion. Another thing is the use of ice-breakers and how different facilitators use them.

Think about your facilitating style. Is it engaging with humour and empathy? Looking at people you admire who have these strengths. A huge skill gap as I facilitated I faced was story telling, looking at who engages me - I watched how Kevin Hart builds his stories and keeps an audience engaged throughout. Do you want to add a professional tone to content or get a summary of industry updates ? Use Ai tools, so many are free.

To make adult learners more engaged in the process of learning we need to generate more specific content and add information to expand their involvement with using some practice tools (e.g. gamification) based on the first meeting discussions (to gain more information about learners' experiences, objectives, expectations and etc.) prior starting learning process.

In my experience working with adult learners who are not very literate is to use more of the pictorial facilitation tools, that tools that require them to read and write. I realised when notebooks and pens are brought out, people do not participate well. However in a room of no writing tools, the learning atmosphere greatly improves and participation is higher.

How Adults Learn It is what the learner says and does that creates learning and not what the trainer says and does. When planning for lessons, we should look no further than the excellent research from Dr Barak Rosenshine an educational psychologist. Barak Rosenshine (1930 – 2017) was a professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois. Along with Robert Stevens, he explored teacher instruction, and identified the approaches and strategies that were features of the most successful teachers’ practice. See Rosenshines’ Principles of Instruction

The Flow of your presentation should be activity-based having the involvement of all participants. It should have short stories and humor to engage Adults in the Facilitation Programme for result-oriented learning rather than just only downloading.

The best teachers are often the best learners. What does this mean? They're curious, open-minded, and always trying to hone their craft. An instructor delivers insights. When they are in learning mode, they can deliver new insights that motivate them in the moment.

Technology is your friend; don't be afraid to experiment as a facilitator. Technology plays a pivotal role in adult learning in today's fast-paced digital world. Don't hesitate to explore new available technologies. Consider incorporating Generative AI (though it's essential to assess potential risks before implementation) to personalize and enhance the learning experience. Utilize various quizzing and testing tools to gauge the learners' progress and comprehension. As a facilitator, our primary role is to guide and support the learning process of our participants. If technology can aid in achieving this goal, why not embrace it?

We were faced with the challenge of training our peer mentors for the second quarter of the year. Their morale were low and the budget was tight. We decided to have a campus scavenger hunt with an educational element to it, edutainment we call it. We used Google forms to create photo based challenges where peer mentor teams had to share photos of where they checked in on certain campus locations. Raising awareness of the support services available to them, while fostering connection and teamwork. On the day of the scavenger hunt we all got together in one venue, had introductions, and from there they had 1 hour to complete the challenges. People had so much fun, creativity and Google forms did not cost us a thing!

Read journals and articles but most importantly take part in great professional development. Watch presenters and facilitators, see what works with which bits of the audience, observe the natural ebbs and flows and make notes. Take it back and implement it. See what works for you. Watching someone you admire deliver training is amazing for your own development.

Social media often provides us well-measured examples of what will work well in a training setting. There is plenty of educational content on TikTok and YouTube. By studying format, length, and style of educational videos on social media, this gives us the roadmap to providing valuable and engaging content at work or for our own audiences.

More recently I have found it quite useful to keep abreast using AI especially ChatGPT. Previously I would go the long way to search key words like new techniques for facilitation of grassroot engagements, and run through thousands of articles. But now the same key words in ChatGPT brings up only what I really want to learn about and keep abreast with even though I do not need to use the information at that point in time.

Continuously assess the effectiveness of your training programs. Use feedback, assessments, and data to make improvements and adapt to changing needs. Not everything is written in stone. There's always an opportunity to learn from students since each is a completely different world.

See towards which areas your energy is going - look what interests you, what makes you feel excited. Could be a book you read on a concept or something you read here on LinkedIn and then do your research.

Something what makes facilitation special is remembering that this is an opportunity to bring individuals together. As a society, we’re searching for connection, and remembering this during trainings can help level up your skills. You showing excitement and engaging learners is simply a connection moment. Bringing groups together to learn about a topic is an incredible opportunity. As the facilitator, it’s your job to help them understand WHY it’s important and why it matters to them. If they don’t understand why it’s important and feel connected to it, then it doesn’t matter how incredible your presentation is, they won’t walk away remembering anything. Facilitation should be fun!

One of the greatest tips I was given, that has stuck with me over many years is the three taps. The first tap is - the persons in the group you are taking to/with, you explore all of their understanding and knowledge in full. Once this tap is dry you can move to tap two. The second tap is - the rest of the group. The same as tap one, explore everything fully and once this is dry you can move to tap three. The third tap - is your own knowledge and skills as the facilitator. Hopefully taps one and two cover all of the information, discussion that you are aiming to have so that you won’t need this one. This has probably made the biggest different to being a dynamic facilitator rather than having a more dyadic lecturing style.

To improve your facilitation, connect deeply with your why. Why do you love training & development facilitation/delivery? Where does your passion come from? How do you draw your energy as a facilitator? Stay grounded in your why and your passion will spill over to your participants, even if the material itself is a bit dull

Recall is key. It is not how you put it in, it is how you pull it out. When it comes to making a deep memory, researchers have found that they were looking in the wrong place. It turns out now that it is not how memory comes in, it is how it comes out. Access a memory and the memory gets stronger and embeds itself. This is called recall. Every time you access a memory you make it more comfortable and easier to access. Therefore, when we plan lesson’s we need to give the leaner lots of opportunities to demonstrate and consolidate their learning. It is no longer acceptable to offer one method of demonstrating the learning.

My commitment to excellence involves continuous improvement and staying abreast of adult learning trends. Regular self-reflection and soliciting participant feedback guide refinement of my facilitation techniques. Embracing technology, I integrate innovative tools for interactive sessions. Engaging in industry forums, attending workshops, and collaborating with peers ensure I remain at the forefront of adult learning methodologies. This dynamic approach guarantees that each facilitation is not just a session but an evolving, cutting-edge learning experience. I continuously research on the new trends in the market. If for e.g. Heutagogy is the latest, how can I start engaging with the participants using this is my endeavour.

Don't change things, just because you are bored of facilitating it the same way, or something more "trendy" comes along. Instead, only change if the learners will benefit from it. The first principles of adult learning or the human brain haven't changed that much!

Remember that the field of adult education and training is dynamic, and staying relevant and effective requires a commitment to lifelong learning and adaptability.