Train the Trainer

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Written by Heather Buckley – 20.03.07

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The following pages provide a useful reference guide for trainers, including advice, how-tos, hints and tips. We also run a comprehensive hands-on Train the Trainer training course, delivered by an award winning trainer.

If you have been training for some years, either in a dedicated training role within your organisation, or as a manager with a training brief, you will have developed many skills which have moved you on from the novice trainer you once were! If you remember your first training events, you were more than likely nervous, probably over-prepared and maybe inflexible and unable to respond to the real needs of your group. Now, with these nightmares behind you, you can reflect on your achievements and consider in what ways you can still improve your training work.

If you are new to the training role, you will soon realise both the challenge and the satisfaction being a trainer can bring. To be a tool for the motivation and empowerment of others is heady stuff!

Remember: Training is a two-way process: both the trainee and the trainer learn and both teach! Certainly when drawing up training plans, both need to be taken into consideration.

Trainees must:

• Be prepared and fully briefed for the learning experience
• Be given sufficient time, resources and support to complete and implement their learning
• Preferably have input into their own learning plan and what is important to them
• Be motivated
• Be willing to learn
• Be given feedback on their performance, during and after training

Trainers must:

• Be fully conversant with the requirements of the trainees and their managers
• Include input from trainees in their own learning plan, where possible
• Make available adequate resources for the training event
• Provide a safe space for trainees to participate with confidence
• Give feedback during and after the training event
• Ensure that the whole organisation is aware of possible repercussions of their training events

How we learn and how we teach

When you plan your training event, it must appeal to all trainees. For example, you must appeal to those who like visuals and those who like discourse; those who benefit from activity and those who profit from greater reflection. How others learn will influence the way you teach your topic.

Key points that assist adult learning

• The chance to review progress
• The opportunity to discuss similar experiences with others
• An atmosphere where learners can discuss openly
• Considering the application of their learning in the workplace
• Getting feedback on their development

To summarise three different theories of learning:

1. the trainer sets the goals
2. the learner sets his/her own goals
3. the trainer stimulates learning by provoking curiosity, exploration and achievement

In most training situations, you will have a mix of all three. So sometimes:

• …you set the goals for your trainees
• …your trainees are expected to set (and reach) their own goals
• …you assist your trainees learning by stimulating their thinking through a mix of directed home study, tutorials, assignments, project work and so on

Similar resources you may like

1. Planning training
2. Using experiential training methods
3. Feedback skills
4. Training in learning organisations
5. Train The Trainer Quotes

Tags

adult learning, Advice for trainers, course, courses., how adults learn, How we learn, HR, hr training, learn to train, new to training role, personal development, train the trainer, Train the Trainer Course, Train the Trainer Training, Training

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