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This guide will show you the behind the scenes design of a train the trainer course.

Have you been wondering about:

Why create a train the trainer program at your organisation?

How to design a train the trainer course?

What are the essential ingredients of a train the trainer course?

With this comprehensive post, we'd like to support you on your path to designing a train the trainer workshop.

You will find a detailed breakdown of a 7-day, intensive train the trainer program including essential theories and concepts, practical tips and activities. And all this with a detailed explanation of why the course is designed as it is.

Train the trainer courses can vary in length, scope, and design, though we hope you can take some inspiration from seeing a full intensive train the trainer course and build a program suitable for your needs.

Have questions about train the trainer? See our FAQ section for quick answers to your burning questions about train the trainer courses.

We will cover important elements of a train the trainer curriculum in this guide, such as:

Team building

Basic Presentation and Facilitation Skills

Training Design principles

Visualisation

Learning Space Design

Classroom Management

Group Facilitation, Interaction and Group Dynamics

Put on your trainer goggles and let's get started!

Save time with our train the trainer template!

The Train the Trainer Model

In our ever-changing world, one of the biggest challenges organisations face is how to stay on top of their game while adapting to new markets, new requirements and environments. To stay competitive, their workforce needs to be up-to-date with the latest trends and technologies, so it is not uncommon for employees to attend trainings in the workplace.

A lot of training sessions call for a lot of trainers. Thus, unless you have an endless budget to hire external trainers, you might be better off training your own internal experts who can transfer skills and knowledge to other employees. A competent and skilled group of internal trainers will also help a lot in supporting any future change and transformation initiatives that your organisation might undertake. Additionally, having internal trainers allows an organisation to pass on domain or organisation-specific knowledge from experienced employees to newer ones.

The train the trainer model provides an effective strategy to equip employees and subject matter experts with new knowledge on how to teach others and how to foster an environment where everybody feels welcome to improve their skills.

Types of Train the Trainer Courses

Our team members at SessionLab have both participated in and organised various train the trainer events over the past years. Train the trainer courses are among the most challenging and comprehensive types of training courses. That is why we love designing and delivering them! 🙂

Perhaps you need to design short, 2-3 day programs aimed at equipping subject matter experts with training design and facilitation skills. Or maybe you are preparing a 2-week-long intensive train the trainer course to develop competency in designing and delivering soft skill training sessions.

In either case, there are a lot of interesting questions about how to build up an effective program. We have had the opportunity to observe a wide range of train the trainer programs at several international NGOs, and from them we have drawn some best practices outlined in the next chapters.

Let's start with a brief categorisation. There are a myriad of options on how to structure a train the trainer course depending on your needs and timeframe. Here are some of the most common train the trainer formats:

Short intense (2-3 day event ~ 20 learning hours): This covers the essentials and is typically used to empower subject-matter-experts with basic facilitation and training design skills. The goal is to empower trainees to deliver effective training sessions in their own fields of expertise.

Long, scattered over weeks: (10-20 days, usually one day per week ~ 80-160 learning hours): If you don't have an opportunity for a live intense train the trainer event, then a course format with recurring weekly training days can be a great option to cover all your needs for your first train the trainer course. Having a week of time between each (set of) course days gives an opportunity for extra assignments and 'homework' activities so trainees can practice and prepare for each session. This is particularly useful if you have a diverse group of trainees who won't need to work as a team later on but want to learn much of the advanced content of a train the trainer course.

Long intense: (1-2 week event ~ 40-80 learning hours): Beyond the basic skills, it allows for some of the more complex interpersonal topics that a trainer needs to master, such as group dynamics, group facilitation and interaction. Trainees are usually expected to design and deliver sessions on a wide range of non-technical topics (e.g. "soft skills" training sessions). This format is particularly useful if your group of trainees will work together in the future, as the length and intensity of the event will accelerate their team development.

Train the Trainer Course Agenda Overview

While there is no single best way to design a train the trainer event for each of the categories above, we have created a high-level template agenda to show the essential topics we would include in a train the trainer program over the course of a week.

The agenda below is optimised for a live week-long event, but you might also break this down into smaller blocks over a more extended period.

Train-the-Rrainer Event Agenda Overview

First, let's start with the length of the event. 7 days? That sounds like a lot of time to ask of both participants and the organisation. And funding such an initiative is a big commitment.

Remember, the people you train to become trainers themselves will make a tremendous impact on your organisation. They will likely train hundreds of people each year. That adds up to thousands of employee hours spent on training. Makes sense to ensure they will be trained by someone competent, right?

In the course agenda above, you will find the most essential elements of a train the trainer program designed into a coherent flow. Let's see below how it is structured and what purpose each session has to offer:

Train the trainer event schedule overview

Day 0 : Introduction and get-to-know / team building sessions. (The depth of team building may vary based on what your organisation needs.)

Day 1 : Practice and improve the essential soft skills required for delivering training sessions: presentation skills, facilitation skills and giving effective feedback.

Day 2 : Trainees will be introduced to essential training design principles and will design the agenda for their first Practice Training session.

Day 3 : The focus is on equipping your trainees with practical skills for creating and using visuals in their upcoming training sessions and giving useful tips on how to manage the delivery itself. In the afternoon, everyone has their Practice Training delivery session and receives feedback from the trainers.

Day 4 : Days 2 and 3 are mostly about the 'hard skills' of designing and delivering a training session. Day 4 is for the 'finer' soft areas where your trainees will be trained on how to interact with their own participants during a training session. A lot of advanced topics will be touched upon with the goal of giving actionable tips on how to interact with the group in a session. (Many of these topics can be more focused subjects of an advanced train the trainer course.)

Day 5 : Time for a break! - Give your trainees a mental break by taking the morning off. The second part of the day should be used to prepare for their final training delivery / exam.

Day 6 : Your trainees deliver their Final Training session (2-hour sessions) and receive feedback. You finish the day highlighting their future path and opportunities as a trainer in your organisation. Close the event with a neat official ceremony.

And now, let's dive into a day-to-day breakdown of the agenda with a detailed explanation about what each session is for.

Kick-off and Team Building (Day 0)

Introduction / Kick-off

Every training course needs a proper framing, and it is no different with a train the trainer event. This is the right moment to present the agenda and discuss the expectations you have of your trainees. Make sure also to discuss the expectations the trainees themselves have of the course.

One of the beauties of a train the trainer course is the 'meta aspect' of each session. Whatever you do as a trainer during a particular session does not only serve the purpose of that specific session, it also models to your trainees how to do certain things as a trainer.

For instance, when you collect expectations during the kick-off, it has a double purpose:

1. Collect, review and align expectations from participants and yourself (needs assessment)

2. To demonstrate how to collect, review and align expectations at any given training session.

Pointing out this 'meta' aspect of the course instantly makes the whole course more fun and complex for your participants.

Beware: trainees still primarily need to be active participants in your course and not just observe the process from the outside. This is important to emphasise whenever you want to shift attention to the 'meta-process' of a particular session.

Team Building

It is always useful to have some time dedicated to team building before things get serious and the intense learning begins. Team building activities enhance group cohesiveness and help participants get to know each other. It is often an integral part of training courses because it creates a safe, welcoming atmosphere and helps participants check in to the event mentally. This is an important learning point for your trainees.

Now, should you plan just a few activities to warm up the group and break the ice, or do you need a more elaborate process to facilitate the forming of a real team?

This really depends on what your organisation needs.

If the group of trainees will be working together in the future, then you might want to put an extra accent on team building. Also, if you want them to have stronger peer support at the beginning of their 'career' as a trainer, it is useful to give the bonding process a boost.

Lastly, it is highly useful for your participants to experience a few practical team building activities themselves so they will already have a few familiar tricks up their sleeves when they need a team building game for one of their future sessions.

Optional Exercise for Soft Skills Assessment

We have also included an optional exercise for the welcome day - an opportunity for trainees to get on the stage and a chance for you to assess their skills. This exercise requires that you give trainees an assignment well before the course starts - to prepare a short presentation or knowledge transfer session on a topic of their expertise.

During this intro day, participants are given the opportunity to present what they prepared. You might even brief them to facilitate a short discussion afterward so that you get an initial idea of what their facilitation skills are like. And the big benefit is that it enables you to tailor the next day's skill development session to their specific needs.

In general, this intro day may range anywhere from 1-2 hours to a full day. If you need to do thorough team building and want to take advantage of the initial presentation activity, then you may take the whole day. Otherwise, you can just do the essential Introduction and Expectations sessions to kick off the course.

Essential Skills Practice (Day 1)

Most of the time spent at in-classroom training can be divided into a few distinct interaction types:

1. you present as a trainer

2. you facilitate a discussion

3. your participants work on an exercise either alone or in groups.

For the first two categories - beyond some degree of subject matter expertise - you will need to be able to present and facilitate effectively. This is why we have included one session to focus on presentation skills practice and another session to cover the most essential facilitation skills.

Presentation Skills Practice

As a trainer, you will frequently have the responsibility of standing in front of the room and presenting material. The amount of time you spend presenting theory as a trainer may vary largely on the types of training sessions you will run. But in any case, it is important to have solid presentation skills to be able to introduce concepts and theories in an understandable, structured way.

The point of this session is to practice both how to structure a presentation and to practice different aspects of presenting, such as body language, voice and eye contact.

Your trainees should get an opportunity to deliver short (a few minutes) presentations in front of each other and receive feedback from the group on their performance.

And what is better than practice? More practice! 🙂

So, after learning some tips from you, they will have another round of presenting and receiving feedback.

It is best to do this exercise in small groups of 4-6 participants. This allows sufficient time for everyone to practice presenting, and you can also assign each 'audience' member to observe a different aspect of the presenter's performance (e.g. body language).

Facilitation Skills Practice

Facilitation skills are essential for any session, but especially for in-classroom trainings filled with human interaction. The focus of this session is to practice the 'soft skills' aspect of facilitation, that is, the various small tools and methods that a trainer may use to interact with the group, facilitate a group conversation or lead a debriefing session.

There is a separate session on Day 4 to introduce further facilitation techniques to expand trainees' 'facilitation toolboxes'. Those techniques are considered 'hard skills' where the focus is on understanding the process of running an activity (Brainstorming, Brain writing, Six Thinking Hats, 1-2-4 Dialogue, etc.).

In contrast to that one, in this session, trainees will practice essential verbal skills, such as Probing, Rephrasing, Redirecting questions and comments, and so on.

Verbal Tools for Training Facilitation

Importantly, each trainee should have an opportunity to facilitate a group conversation during the session. While they facilitate, they should apply the various facilitation techniques they have learned.

Most of the time, your participants will have varying levels of experience, so you can choose between these different tactics:

Design a session that covers the basics of presentation and facilitation and includes plenty of opportunities for practice and feedback. This allows everyone to learn tips and tricks from one another, and more experienced trainees can help younger ones.

Split up your participants into smaller groups based on their experience / skill level and have differentiated sessions for beginners and those with experience. Keep in mind, this requires that you really have a prior opportunity to properly observe and evaluate the skills of your trainees before the session. It is very important here that you as the trainer evaluate participants personally and do not rely solely on self-evaluations from the trainees themselves.

Lastly, you can benefit a lot from a short session that gives a shared baseline for your preferred method of giving feedback. People often have very mixed views about feedback, so it's useful to get everyone on the same page and use one (or a few) models consistently during the event. Whether you choose ' I-statements ' or any other method, the point is to have a short and effective practice session.

How to Design a Learning Experience (Day 2)

One of the most essential skills for any trainer is to know how to structure and build a training session to be engaging and effective.

It is important to understand the basics of how people, particularly adults, learn, what kind of learning styles they may have, and how to design a training program that respects different learning styles while also covering your learning objectives.

These are topics that could be their own full course; however, when there is only one day to cover the basics and give actionable learning during a train the trainer program, we would include the following:

How to conduct Needs Assessment

Setting Learning Objectives

Learning Styles: introduce a learning styles theory (for instance, Kolb and 4MAT) that you prefer your trainees to follow. Guide participants through the design process with this framework.

Schedule Design

How to design an exercise

Adult Learning

Before jumping into the detailed design of this day's agenda, let's have a quick look at adult learning. There are a few general principles that can help you orientate yourself while designing your training sessions for your train the trainer course.

When we learn as adults, it is a different experience than when we were children. We are better able to make decisions, draw conclusions, and recognise patterns. We are less likely to do something just because, because we expect logical reasons and arguments to do it. Malcolm Knowles, an expert in adult learning, identified four principles that help us create an environment where adults learn best.

Adults need to be involved in the planning and evaluation of their training.

Experience, including mistakes, provides the best basis for learning activities.

Adults are most interested in learning subjects that have immediate relevance and impact on their job or personal life.

Adult learning is problem-centered rather than content-oriented.

These are key principles that should always be kept in mind when designing training sessions, so getting these clarified early in the training program gives a useful reference point.

And now let's review how to proceed with a full day that is dedicated to the topic of Training Design.

Needs Assessment

Before you start preparing for any training project, you need information in order to know exactly what is expected of you. You need to understand what the needs of the participants are: what are their current situations, and what do they want to improve?

Needs assessment is an analysis conducted to determine what kind of needs exist in a group/organisation and if the training is the best possible way to solve these needs.

Sometimes a training is not going to fulfill certain needs, and this is something that must be considered by, and communicated early to, your trainees!

Trainees should also understand that it is their responsibility to communicate their own needs for the needs assessment and to establish good communication with the sponsor / requestor of the training.

Some of the critical things that should be clarified during training needs assessment:

Goals of the training

Topics to focus on

Who the participants are

Number of participants

Experience level of participants for each focus topic

How long the training event is - How many hours is the effective training time?

When and where the session will take place

Logistics (rooms, equipment, visuals, etc.)

You can explain to your trainees that the methods of their needs assessment will primarily depend on the time they have and the availability of their future participants. Surveys and interviews with key stakeholders, including the sponsor of the training and key participants, are essential tools toward getting a good understanding of the group's needs.

When there is finally enough information to work with, it is time to craft that information into learning goals.
Course Note: Due to the constraints of this specific train the trainer course (participants have already picked the subject of their practice delivery by this time), trainees will not have the opportunity to do a real needs assessment here. So, the focus of this session is to communicate the proper mindset and approach to needs assessment.
Setting Learning Objectives

Every training session needs clear Learning Objectives, and in this session trainees will practice how to formulate sound Learning Objectives. Fulfilling the Learning Objectives will be the most important guideline for the rest of the preparation process.

In fact, as a principle, your trainees should learn to keep their Learning Objectives fixed and the content and process flexible in order to facilitate great learning experiences.

In general, the Learning Objectives should come out of the needs assessment. It frequently happens that you can't address every need and expectation, but that's perfectly okay. It is better to have fewer goals that are attainable than have too many goals and shift the topic every 15 minutes.

A practical way for your trainees to familiarise themselves with setting learning objectives is if they start working on their Practice Training and set the relevant learning objectives. When setting up Learning Objectives for a training session, they should be measurable, so the trainer can decide at the end of the training if the goals were achieved or not.

Giving your trainees an exercise to set up their SMART goals will help make objectives measurable so they can decide at the end of the training what went well and how to improve on the session next time.

If you prefer a different method to set goals, then go ahead with that one. The essence of this session is the importance of just setting goals, even if they're based on a different model.

Learning Styles

When dealing with a group, it is essential to know that most people learn and acquire knowledge in their own way. To fully involve everyone in a training session, trainers need to create an environment where every participant is able and welcomed to learn.

There are various popular theories about learning styles that respect the diversity of people's preferences when it comes to learning: Kolb's learning cycle, the 4MAT model, Fleming's VAK learning preferences, The 7 Learning Styles - the list could go on.

Often times, an organisation may already have a preference for a model they already use for planning training programs. If not, then you have an opportunity to choose which model you prefer!

For this template agenda, we would go with either the Kolb cycle or 4MAT. We have found that they work well for teaching structured agenda design at train the trainer events where there are time constraints, as in our course agenda.

If you have already chosen a different one, just switch to the model you prefer in this block of the train the trainer event. What is important is that your own trainer team must be confident and knowledgeable in using the learning styles framework you choose.

The Kolb Cycle

David Kolb created his learning styles model more than 30 years ago. His experiential learning theory works on two levels: a four-stage cycle of learning and four separate learning styles.

The Kolb cycle emphasizes the cognitive process of how people go through an experience to form patterns based on that experience. Therefore, the Kolb learning style theory is presented as a learning cycle with four stages where learners should go through the full cycle.

Effective learning happens when a person progresses through a cycle of four stages in the following sequence:

1. Having a concrete experience

2. Observing and reflecting on that experience

3. Formulating abstract concepts and general conclusions

4. Testing the hypotheses in future situations (based on the conclusions generated), resulting in new experiences.

It is important to ensure that activities in a training session are designed in a way that allows each learner to engage with the content in the style that suits them best.

Ideally, a training session agenda should be developed in a way that includes each stage and offers a balance of these stages in the process.

Kolb's learning theory also sets out four distinct learning styles that are based on the experiential learning cycle. These learning styles are determined by two fundamental aspects: how we approach a task and what our reactions to it are.

You may dive deeper into individual learning styles, although it is important to note that the key takeaway here is the balanced design of a training session. Primarily, the role of the Kolb cycle is to provide a framework for you and your trainees to include activities in a training plan in a way in which participants will have the opportunity to engage with a concept in different ways.

The 4MAT Model

Another popular theory, building further on the Kolb experiential learning cycle, is the 4MAT model. This model works around the idea that people need to know:

Why they are learning something

What they are learning

How it works

And What will happen if they apply this concept

In the case of 4MAT, the emphasis is more on 'learning preferences' than 'learning styles', which helps to avoid labelling learners with a particular learning style. Regarding training design, the underlying idea is very similar to the Kolb cycle. When designing a training session, try to incorporate the complete 4MAT cycle for each learning block you have.

In practice, it looks like this:

1. Assign an initial experiential exercise that lays the foundations of why a particular topic will be relevant. (This includes the debriefing of the activity.)

2. Provide the theory, and explain what the concept is.

3. Give opportunities for participants to practice how to apply the knowledge they have learnt. This practice may take place with close mentoring, as the focus here is on learning a particular skill.

4. Provide an opportunity for participants to adapt the freshly-learned skills themselves. What if they try applying their new skills in a new context?

You may find more details on the 4MAT framework at the 4MAT for Education and 4MAT for Business sites.

So to sum up the Learning Styles discussion, make sure you teach your prospective trainees to provide multiple ways to engage with a topic in the training sessions they design.

Rather than trying to provide instructions tailored to an individual participant's learning style, offer a variety of learning experiences/techniques within a training session.

In this detailed session plan about Training Design, you will find a specific example with detailed steps on how to run a learning block on Learning Styles. Your trainees should get the opportunity to start designing their own session plan, familiarise themselves with either the Kolb cycle or the 4MAT cycle, and then re-design their own session outline based on what they have just learned.

Schedule Design

After learning about the preferred learning styles theory of your course, trainees will start completing their training agenda for the Practice Training. They should get an overview of what it takes to prepare a complete training agenda and then start working toward achieving it.

This is a very practical session where trainees are presented with the variety of different training modules they might use in a training session, such as agenda review, collecting expectations, group discussions, coffee breaks, etc. Discuss each item briefly, and share best practices on how to calculate and manage timing during training design and delivery. The only exception is the main exercise which can be left as a placeholder at this point since the next session is about Exercise Design.

The Most Common Elements of a Training Agenda

You may also Introduce a training agenda template that all trainees should use to complete their session design. Having a consistently-used template by trainees will make it easier for your team to monitor the preparations and provide mentoring as needed.

You may choose our SessionLab template, a tool specifically developed for training design, or any spreadsheet template you prefer for this purpose.

Exercise Design

Exercises are an integral part of any experiential learning activity. While designing effective experiential learning exercises requires a lot of practice and experience, you need to start somewhere.

This session will be a starting point for your trainees in understanding the types of exercises they might use and how to design them. You should provide an overview of the types of exercises in a training session and give guidance on how to choose the right type of exercise.

Your trainees should have practical working time to design the main exercise in their Practice Delivery, and your team of trainers must mentor them and give useful tips on designing exercises that achieve Learning Objectives.

Practice Makes Perfect (Day 3)

The highlight of this day is the first big practice opportunity for trainees to deliver their own training sessions, or to be precise, to practice an abbreviated session, since the 45-60 minutes they have available is really just enough for the one learning cycle that they designed the previous day.

Before the Practice Training sessions start, there are still a couple of practical sessions left to help trainees get prepared.

Visualisation

The goal of this session is to give an introduction to the visualisation tools and techniques participants may use when delivering their training sessions. It is worthwhile to introduce the most common practices for using visuals in a training session (flipcharts, whiteboards, and PowerPoint or Keynote).

As we often do, in this introductory train the trainer course we will focus on actionable advice, so the emphasis is on giving practical tips and suggestions for each visualisation method.

It makes sense to put an extra accent on the method that trainees will use during their Practice Delivery. In our case, flip charts are used, so by the end of the session trainees should have prepared flip chart sheets for the Practice Training

Lastly, before the Practice Training deliveries start, there is a short session that will provide some practical suggestions for trainees related to the in-classroom training delivery.

There are a lot of small details to pay attention to when running a session, ranging from logistics issues (making sure that all materials needed are taken care of, the room is set up, and other common issues) to body language during the session. These are the final suggestions for trainees before they start their first Practice Training Delivery!

Drumroll...!

First Practice Delivery

Practice makes perfect - that is why you will see two occasions in this course where participants get the opportunity to design and deliver their own training sessions.

This first one is only a short practice (a 45-60 minutes training module) but should be sufficient for your participants to apply training design principles, practice the art of delivering in front of other participants, and get candid feedback on their performance.

Trainees should co-deliver in pairs, and you should make sure that each pair has a trainer from your team observing the session. Depending on the number of your trainees - in our case, 16 trainees - this probably requires two rounds of delivery.

One small but very important thing is to make sure that you have volunteers (not trainees) organized who will attend the Practice Training sessions, so every trainee has an opportunity to practice in front of a real audience.

The goal is fairly straightforward here: get a real delivery experience after trainees have built up their session design, and then provide detailed feedback on their performance so they know what to focus on for their Final Training at the end of the course.

If you have a coaching / mentoring program running throughout the course, which I definitely recommend, you may close the day with optional coaching or mentoring sessions to provide individual or peer group support.

Managing the Group and the Space (Day 4)

There is so much that must be done for an engaging training session beyond just a trainer stepping on the stage, sharing knowledge and facilitating exercises. A lot of this is 'soft' stuff and comes with years of practice.

So, this day is dedicated for all the soft trainer's skills that make a well-designed session run smoothly in the classroom where flesh-and-blood participants interact with each other and the trainer.

The truth is, many of the subjects that we touch upon this day can be their own subjects of advanced train the trainer events. Debriefing an experiential learning exercise, group facilitation and team dynamics - each are highly complex topics, and covering them in-depth during a single day is not a realistic endeavour.

Now, consider that your trainees are on their fourth day of a really intense learning experience, and they still have their final training delivery session in front of them.

What you really want here is to give them instantly actionable knowledge and tips in order to make their deliveries properly interactive. After they graduate from this starter train the trainer course and have already delivered a few dozen training sessions of their own, then it is probably the right time to dig deeper into the subtler aspects of experiential learning and group dynamics. By then, your trainees will have their own real-life experience to reflect upon.

So, here are the topics we would include if we had one single day to spend on training essential interaction skills for new trainers:

Setting up the Learning Space

Classroom Management

Group Facilitation and Interaction Types

Experiential Learning and Debriefing

Using Questions

Group Dynamics

Learning Space Design

This session will focus on teaching the fundamentals of how to arrange the classroom to facilitate an interactive learning experience.

The way the room is set up will influence the interaction within the group and the participants' learning process. For instance, having the session's flip charts on the walls around can help remind participants of the essential theory of a session. A set of flip charts full of post-it notes created by participants themselves during exercises can provide a sense of creativity and progress.

Table and chair arrangements likewise affect the learning process, as do the kinds of settings you use for group work and individual presentations. It is essential to have enough room for people to do interactive exercises in groups without feeling chained to their seats.

Therefore, participants will be taught how to arrange the space so it helps achieve the desired outcome. This includes the important aspect of selecting the room and arranging seating (classroom, circle, semi-circle, breakout groups), tables, visuals, and so on. A thoughtful design of the training room is an important aspect of facilitating learning, and here are the more common types of room arrangements, recapped by Beth Kanter:

During this session, if location permits, try out the various set-ups with your participants. Discuss the characteristics of each room set-up and which arrangements are best for which activities.

Group Facilitation and Interaction Types

To keep a group of participants engaged throughout a training session, a trainer needs to have a solid toolkit of facilitation techniques at hand. Using different group facilitation techniques is essential to having a balanced interaction during a training session.

If your participants sit in a theater-style arrangement during a whole session, sooner or later you will hear snoring sounds. Likewise, if you only switch between plenary discussion and individual work, your participants might get bored of the monotony. That is why your trainees should be aware of the most frequently-used methods to facilitate interaction within a group:

One-way presenting

Individual reflection

Working in groups
In pairs, triads and bigger groups

Plenary discussion (with the whole group)

There are also practical combinations of the techniques above, such as the 1-2-4 Dialogue method, idea generation techniques and decision-making techniques. You may also introduce facilitation techniques that help to manage bigger groups, for example, World Café, Rotating Flipcharts and Open Space Technology.

Growing one's personal toolbox is a continuous personal development activity for a trainer, and this session should pique their interest beyond the starter kit.

Optionally, you may also introduce the VAK (Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic) Learning Styles concept as a supplementary theory to help trainees in thinking about how to keep a session interactive for participants with varying learning styles.

Classroom Management

We've established that managing the attention and energy of people in the room is an essential responsibility of trainers. Beyond generic tips on how to keep up engagement and monitor the energy/attention level in the room, this session also covers how to deal with difficult participants and handle conflicts in the classroom.

When people from different backgrounds and life experiences meet to go through an intense learning event, there will inevitably be various reactions. Some might sit back, others will fully engage, and there will be some who will adopt blocking roles. This is a natural response to some sessions or specific tasks, so it is important that trainees be prepared to handle such situations.

These are situations with which most everyone has some previous personal experience, so a structured sharing session can be the right approach to leverage trainees' existing knowledge.

As part of this block, arrange a facilitated group discussion or a rotating café style conversation to discuss different topics in smaller groups:

Keeping up the attention level (using different interaction techniques)

Handling difficult participants

Handling conflict situations.

If you look for a specific exercise to address challenging behaviours during a training session, then you might find useful the group exercise "Participants from Hell". It gives a handy framework for letting participants brainstorm rules or guidelines for handling different kinds of disruptive behaviours.

Participants from Hell #train-the-trainer #disruptive participants #thiagi #structured sharing #issue analysis
This is a structured sharing activity that enables us to explore techniques for handling participants who disrupt interactive training sessions.
Different teams receive envelopes labeled with different types of disruptive participants. Participants brainstorm guidelines for handling disruptive behaviours, record the guidelines on a card, and place the card inside the envelope.

Teams rotate the envelopes and generate guideline cards for handling other types of disruptive participants. During the evaluation round, team members review the guideline cards generated by other teams and identify the top five suggestions.

Experiential learning and debriefing

If you want participants to achieve long-lasting learning in any training event, then experiential learning is a very effective way to do that. In this segment, your trainees will practice how to brief and debrief an experiential learning activity..

Debriefing is the key that enables participants to identify and connect lessons from workshop or training activities to their real world.

We suggest a practical debriefing exercise for this: conduct a real experiential exercise during this session, then focus on the experience of how the briefing and the debriefing were done by the trainers.

This way participants will have the chance to first take part in a debriefing as participants and then analyse the experience they just had.

Using Questions

Using questions is essential during a training session, especially during a debriefing session. Give an overview of good questioning techniques and how to ask questions properly.

In addition, if your trainees are also expected to coach or mentor other people in the future during their career as a trainer, you may dedicate more time on how to use powerful questions effectively in coaching / mentoring situations.

Group Dynamics

Group dynamics play an important role not just in the training room but in our everyday lives, too. As a trainer, it is highly useful to be conscious of the dynamics taking place in the group and to be aware of the best ways to deal with a group depending on its dynamics. In this session, therefore, we introduce the topic of group dynamics and its influence on the training process.

A 90-minute session, as scheduled in our template agenda, gives only enough time to scratch the surface of this topic. Actually, this is an excellent topic for an advanced train the trainer course, where participants already have hundreds of training hours behind them and thus many personal experiences to refer to .

But until then, you have to start somewhere, and this is the point for that.

The commonly used Tuckman & Jensen group dynamics theory, although mostly applicable to teams, may also be used in the training field to explain processes happening within groups going through a long-term training program.

This theory also supports a common view on how a trainer should react throughout each stage of the process.

Aside from starting this session with group dynamics theory, the lesson should be tailored to the group's needs. For example, you may decide to deliver a sharing and reflection session so participants can reflect on their own group development supported by elements of group dynamics theory.

Of course, your trainees won't become masters of group dynamics immediately after this session, but they can learn the importance of observing, and reacting to, the dynamics in their own future sessions.

Break and Final Training Preparations (Day 5)

By this point, your trainees have gone through over four very intense days of learning and self-development. It is time to give them a short break before they set out to prepare their Final Training which they will deliver the following day.

Therefore, the schedule for this day is split into two parts:

Free time in the morning

Preparation time in the afternoon

It might be tempting for you to try squeezing in more content with another session in the morning. However, our experience is that trainees do reach the tipping point by this day, and some real mental rest helps them to process the learnings of the course so far.

Offering individual free time is one way to go; however if your setting allows, it is best to organise a group leisure activity - something that keeps trainees both physically and mentally busy (e.g. some kind of outdoor activity).

Here's one tip that might come handy: if you truly want to give space for your trainees to recharge, don't brief about tomorrow's Final Training Delivery details yet; save it for the afternoon. Fresher minds will be more effective in tackling the job.

Since this Final Training Delivery will also be done in pairs - everyone will deliver with a co-trainer - you need to make sure that pairs and their topics are chosen in advance. As the trainer of the course, it is your responsibility to facilitate this process. If you prefer, you can directly assign pairs that challenge participants in a healthy way. (Create pairs with complementing strengths, so each person can learn something from the other in the training design and delivery process.)

Or you might poll participants by the topics that each of them prefers to deliver. They won't have too much time to prepare, so they should be comfortable with the topic of their training session in order to save their focus for the process instead of the content.

After pairs and topics are set, trainees can start preparing for the Final Training Delivery, which will be a 2-hour training session. There is half a day dedicated for preparations. Make sure to have a mentor assigned to each pair who will keep an eye on the training design process. Mentors help whenever trainees are stuck and should make sure that everyone gets a sound training agenda designed by the end of the day.

Lastly, the Final Training Deliveries will take place in two rounds where everyone will be the trainer in one of the rounds and a participant in the other.

To help trainees sign up themselves, create a schedule of the Final Deliveries so everyone can see when they deliver their session and so they can also sign up as participants for one of the sessions in another time slot.

Make sure that you get further participants for the Final Deliveries the following day, not only your trainees, and that those people are also distributed evenly between the Final Deliveries.

Final Delivery & Closing (Day 6)

This is the last day of our program, and time for trainees to put into practice everything they have learnt over the past days. The highlight of this day is the Final Training Delivery, where trainees conduct one more session to practice their freshly-gained interaction skills and to implement the feedback they received from their first delivery.

Final Training Deliveries

Similarly to the Practice Training three days before, the scheduling of these sessions depends on the time you have available and the size of your team. Trainees should again deliver in pairs to practice the experience of co-delivery, and it is essential that one trainer from your team is there to observe and give feedback on the performance.

In our example template with 16 participants, we have split the Final Training sessions into two rounds of 2-hour deliveries, each followed by a round of feedback. You may even decide to record the session if you want to provide really thorough feedback by your whole team of trainers.

The ideal length of this session is somewhere between 2 and 4 hours - that should give trainees a thorough and hands-on experience of how it feels to deliver a complete session. This is the main assignment of the course, and completing it will provide your participants with a sense of accomplishment and closing.

Trainer Development Path

Your trainees have practically completed the course and passed their Final Delivery by this point.

This is just the beginning of their journey as a trainer, and now it is time to point out the various development opportunities they will have in your organisation.

Present the skill development opportunities your trainees can have in the future (including further training opportunities, advanced train the trainer courses).

Discuss how they can keep supporting each other in their development path after this course is over.

Present future expectations and practical next steps they will have as a trainer in your organisation.

Evaluation and Closing

As the event winds down, there will be a few formal but important steps left.

Firstly, make sure that your trainees take the time to reflect upon the week's program and share their feedback on how to improve your train the trainer course for the future.

You may provide them with a detailed survey soliciting answers around the various aspects of the event and their learning journey. These evaluations should give you useful insights on how to adjust the agenda and scope of your train the trainer event next time.

Don't forget to schedule time with your own trainer team, too, after the course is over for an evaluation round.

Lastly, prepare a nice, official closing ceremony for your trainees and hand out certificates for completing the course. They went through a really intense learning process and hopefully built bonds with their fellow trainees that will support them in their upcoming careers as trainers. Your trainees worked hard! Now celebrate the beginning of their journey as a trainer!

Train the trainer FAQ

If you are new to the concept, a train the trainer course can be difficult to get your head around. Here are some of the most frequently asked questions associated with the train the trainer approach.

The answers here can also be useful if you're trying to explain why training the trainer is important to clients or internal stakeholders. Let's dig in!

What does it mean to train the trainer?

Simply put, train the trainer is a learning method where a group is trained on a subject while also being taught the skills and capabilities they need to pass that training on to others.

It's a great way of upskilling members of an organization and enabling them to upskill others.

What is the purpose of train the trainer?

The purpose of train the trainer is to not only share skills with the group being trained but enabling those people to then pass those skills on to even more people. Train the trainer teaches people the skills they need to be effective trainers and facilitators so they can pass on their training to others effectively.

It's not enough to be an expert - train the trainer is great for improving management and leadership teams and ensuring that important training and skillsets trickle down through an organization successfully.

Good managers are not necessarily good trainers, and so train the train is designed to bridge that potential skill gap and make for healthier, better-trained teams.

Why is train the trainer important?

In an increasingly competitive and distributed working environment, it's integral that skill gaps and team development projects are approached intelligently and efficiently.

Train the trainer is important for ensuring everyone doing training has the skills to do the best job they can and ensure that any training programs stick - saving time and money in the long run. Training the trainer makes for more effective managers and trainers, thus leading to better teams and stronger organizations.

One of the dangers for any team is a siloing of skillsets and knowledge. Staff will inevitably have areas of focus or ownership, but there are always competencies that should be proliferated throughout a team or organization in order to be at your most productive.

It should be a given that training is important. Training the trainer means that you are ensuring those training sessions are effective and beneficial to everyone involved.

How do I build a train the trainer program?

The best train the trainer courses and programs may contain bespoke materials tailored to the industry, organization, and group the trainer is working with, though there are some key elements that should be present in every train the trainer course and which you should consider when designing or building your course.

1. Identify the purpose of the training

Start with identifying the purpose of your training program. Though this is broadly the same for all train the trainer courses in that you are teaching the skills people need to be effective trainers, the specifics of the group and organization will require some bespoke elements.

Every train the trainer course will likely have larger organizational goals and objectives behind the initiative which will need to be taken into account.

2. Determine the scope and scale of the program.

This often means factoring in the needs and other commitments of the group and choosing the right type of train the trainer course.

You will also want to ensure that you select the right people to be in the room and that the group is the correct one for your train the trainer program.

3. Liaise with stakeholders and carefully design the course for the needs of all involved.

Start with a template or follow the train the trainer examples and outline above to get a sense of what needs to be included. You will want to ensure to include a mix of training and activities that not only teach your group the skills they need to be effective trainers but keep them engaged.

Keep the purpose and group in mind when designing your course. Remember each of the skills you want to develop and ensure that and you cover each of these in your agenda. Use a planning tool to make the course design process easy.

What skills do you need to be a trainer?

Not everyone tasked with delivering training has all the skills to be a great trainer. Here are some of the most important skills you need to be a trainer and to deliver effective training, whether you are running a train the trainer course or delivering standard training to a team.

Active listening

Research and analysis

Communication

Consulting

Group management

Creativity

Critical thinking

Empathy

Flexibility

Leadership

Mentoring

Public speaking

Presenting skills

Facilitation skills

Organization

Planning

Workshop design

Problem-solving

Record keeping

Time management

Self-awareness

How can I be a successful trainer?

Successful trainers use a variety of skills, techniques, and methods to be at the top of their game. Here are some tips for being a successful trainer.

Keep learning

Be an active listener

Do your research

Plan, plan, plan

Develop your facilitation skills

Consider the process as much as the content of your training

Be confident and develop authority as a trainer

Design your training workshops intelligently and with the group in mind

Be engaging

Remember you are there for the group, not yourself

Be present both mentally and physically in every session

Invite feedback

Measure your results and iterate

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed this train the trainer design guide and that it gave you some inspiration. Keep in mind, there are a lot of different options for designing and running a train the trainer program.

You can have shorter events, or you can have a more extended program scattered over several weeks. You may go more in-depth on certain topics, such as learning styles or group dynamics, and you may set aside some topics as follow-up rounds in the form of an advanced train the trainer course.

You may even combine online and offline learning in a course. You might even transition to virtual training!

Ultimately, it is your own organization's needs that should determine what the best formats are for you to teach capable new trainers. For this reason, you should not spare running a proper needs assessment before jumping into the exciting work of designing a course agenda.

And that's about it!

Now It's Your Turn

That's it for this train the trainer design guide. Now, we'd like to hear from you:

Do you have any questions about designing train the trainer courses? Anything specific about this 7-day course template?

Or maybe you have a cool tip that we didn't include here.

Either way, let us know by leaving a comment below.

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Train the Trainer Course - A Complete Design Guide (With Examples) | SessionLab

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This guide will show you the behind the scenes design of a train the trainer course. Have you been wondering about: Why create a train the trainer program at your organisation? How to design a train the trainer course? What are the essential ingredients of a train the trainer course?

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Our professional development resources for teachers are all aligned to the professional practices in the Continuing Professional Development framework for teachers. At the British Council, we recognise that developing in key areas of classroom practice is something which continues throughout our careers and has the biggest impact on student learning.

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Research and insight

We have hundreds of case studies, research papers, publications and resource books written by researchers and experts in ELT from around the world.
See our publications, research and insight

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Teacher educators support the professional development of prospective and practising teachers.

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Are You A Participant, Passenger, Protester, Prisoner Or Pilot?

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The next time you have a staff meeting or you find yourself in a CPD session then think about the 5Ps. Generally speaking, a group is made up of 5 different folks: 1. Participant Someone who gets i…

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Team effectiveness is enhanced by a team's commitment to reflection and on-going evaluation. In addition to evaluating accomplishments in terms of meeting specific goals, for teams to be high-performing it is essential for them to understand their development as a team. Most of us are familiar with the concept of "the terrible twos" in early childhood; understanding that developmental stage makes it easier to accept the constant stream of "No No No No No" that we might hear from a two-year old.

Teams go through stages of development. The most commonly used framework for a team's stages of development was developed in the mid-1960s by Bruce W. Tuckman. Although many authors have written variations and enhancements to Tuckman's work, his descriptions of Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing provide a useful framework for looking at your own team.

Each stage of team development has its own recognizable feelings and behaviors; understanding why things are happening in certain ways on your team can be an important part of the self-evaluation process.

The four stages are a helpful framework for recognizing a team's behavioral patterns; they are most useful as a basis for team conversation, rather than boxing the team into a "diagnosis." And just as human development is not always linear (think of the five-year old child who reverts to thumb-sucking when a new sibling is born), team development is not always a linear process. Having a way to identify and understand causes for changes in the team behaviors can help the team maximize its process and its productivity.

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Team effectiveness is enhanced by a team's commitment to reflection and on-going evaluation. In addition to evaluating accomplishments in terms of meeting specific goals, for teams to be high-performing it is essential for them to understand their development as a team.

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Retain and improve your staff

BASIC coaching will improve relationships across the school, helping to retain staff for longer periods

Introducing coaching across your school will help early career teachers to become middle leaders more quickly and successfully

Create a shared language around coaching

Using the BASIC Method of coaching and feedback will help to develop language around conflict and challenge that won't scare staff and parents and allow you to resolve difficulties more quickly

Using BASIC coaching will create a shorthand for both culture and climate and help schools to improve as an organisation through more effective leader communication

A coaching mindset will help schools to improve at pace and manage the challenge of change

Equip all staff to manage the challenges of teaching

As schools engage with more of young people's lives, BASIC coaching will help staff to communicate more effectively in these more challenging areas

BASIC Coaching helps staff to develop a wider range of dynamic skills to meet the higher expectations of the profession

BASIC Coaching is and affordable way to help all staff to support students and parents to become better and to be more effective at improving the school

Andy Buck has taken what can sometimes feel like a very complex and overwhelming topic and created a concise and powerful method for coaching.

Mandy Coalter, Founder, Talent Architects

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Best-selling author and speaker Andy Buck has taken the latest thinking and research from the field of coaching and translated it into his tried-and-tested BASIC method, which is easy to learn and simple to apply.

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What are facilitation skills & how do you facilitate?

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Facilitation is a distinct discipline which is used at every level in organisations, to help people in meetings to reach a decision

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Learn how to plan well, keep members involved, and create real leadership opportunities in your organization and skills in your members.

What are facilitation skills?

Why do you need facilitation skills?

How do you facilitate?

How do you plan a good facilitation process?

Facilitating a meeting or planning session: What's it all about?

Facilitator skills and tips

Dealing with disrupters: Preventions and interventions

What are facilitation skills?

Community organizations are geared towards action. There are urgent problems and issues we need to tackle and solve in our communities. That's why we came together in the first place, isn't it? But for groups to be really successful, we need to spend some time focusing on the skills our members and leaders use to make all of this action happen, both within and outside our organizations.

One of the most important sets of skills for leaders and members are facilitation skills. These are the "process" skills we use to guide and direct key parts of our organizing work with groups of people such as meetings, planning sessions, and training of our members and leaders.

Whether it's a meeting (big or small) or a training session, someone has to shape and guide the process of working together so that you meet your goals and accomplish what you've set out to do. While a group of people might set the agenda and figure out the goals, one person needs to concentrate on how you are going to move through your agenda and meet those goals effectively. This is the person we call the "facilitator."

So, how is facilitating different than chairing a meeting?

Well, it is and it isn't. Facilitation has three basic principles:

A facilitator is a guide to help people move through a process together, not the seat of wisdom and knowledge. That means a facilitator isn't there to give opinions, but to draw out opinions and ideas of the group members.

Facilitation focuses on how people participate in the process of learning or planning, not just on what gets achieved

A facilitator is neutral and never takes sides

The best meeting chairs see themselves as facilitators. While they have to get through an agenda and make sure that important issues are discussed, decisions made, and actions taken, good chairs don't feel that they have all of the answers or should talk all the time. The most important thing is what the participants in the meeting have to say. So, focus on how the meeting is structured and run to make sure that everyone can participate. This includes things like:

Making sure everyone feels comfortable participating

Developing a structure that allows for everyone's ideas to be heard

Making members feel good about their contribution to the meeting

Making sure the group feels that the ideas and decisions are theirs, not just the leader's. Supporting everyone's ideas and not criticizing anyone for what they've said.

Why do you need facilitation skills?

If you want to do good planning, keep members involved, and create real leadership opportunities in your organization and skills in your members, you need facilitator skills. The more you know about how to shape and run a good learning and planning process, the more your members will feel empowered about their own ideas and participation, stay invested in your organization, take on responsibility and ownership, and the better your meetings will be.

How do you facilitate?

Meetings are a big part of our organizing life. We seem to always be going from one meeting to the next. The next session in the Tool Box covers planning and having good meetings in depth. But here, we're going to work on the process skills that good meeting leaders need to have. Remember, these facilitation skills are useful beyond meetings: for planning; for "growing" new leaders; for resolving conflicts; and for keeping good communication in your organization.

Can anyone learn to facilitate a meeting?

Yes, to a degree. Being a good facilitator is both a skill and an art. It is a skill in that people can learn certain techniques and can improve their ability with practice. It is an art in that some people just have more of a knack for it than others. Sometimes organization leaders are required to facilitate meetings: thus, board presidents must be trained in how to facilitate. But other meetings and planning sessions don't require that any one person act as facilitators, so your organization can draw on members who have the skill and the talent.

To put it another way, facilitating actually means:

Understanding the goals of the meeting and the organization

Keeping the group on the agenda and moving forward

Involving everyone in the meeting, including drawing out the quiet participants and controlling the domineering ones

Making sure that decisions are made democratically

How do you plan a good facilitation process?

A good facilitator is concerned with both the outcome of the meeting or planning session, with how the people in the meeting participate and interact, and also with the process. While achieving the goals and outcomes that everyone wants is of course important, a facilitator also wants to make sure that the process if sound, that everyone is engaged, and that the experience is the best it can be for the participants.

In planning a good meeting process, a facilitator focuses on:

Climate and Environment

Logistics and Room Arrangements

Ground Rules

A good facilitator will make plans in each of these areas in advance. Let's look at some of the specifics.

Climate and Environment

There are many factors that impact how safe and comfortable people feel about interacting with each other and participating. The environment and general "climate" of a meeting or planning session sets an important tone for participation.

Key questions you would ask yourself as a facilitator include:

Is the location a familiar place, one where people feel comfortable? Face it, if you're planning to have an interactive meeting sitting around a conference table in the Mayor's office, some of your folks might feel intimidated and out of their environment. A comfortable and familiar location is key.

Is the meeting site accessible to everyone? If not, have you provided for transportation or escorts to help people get to the site? Psychologically, if people feel that the site is too far from them or in a place they feel is "dangerous," it may put them off from even coming. If they do come, they may arrive with a feeling that they were not really wanted or that their needs were not really considered. This can put a real damper on communication and participation. Another reminder: can handicapped people use the site as well?

Is the space the right size? Too large? Too small? If you're wanting to make a planning group feel that it's a team, a large meeting hall for only 10 or 15 people can feel intimidating and make people feel self-conscious and quiet. On the other hand, if you're taking a group of 30 folks through a meeting, a small conference room where people are uncomfortably crunched together can make for disruption: folks shifting in their seats, getting up to stretch and get some air. This can cause a real break in the mood and feeling of your meeting or planning session. You want folks to stay focused and relaxed. Moral: choose a room size that matches the size of your group.

Logistics and Room Arrangements

Believe it or not: how people sit, whether they are hungry and whether they can hear can make or break your planning process. As a facilitator, the logistics of the meeting should be of great concern to you, whether you're responsible for them or not. Some things to consider are:

Chair arrangements: Having chairs in a circle or around a table encourages discussion, equality, and familiarity. Speaker's podiums and lecture style seating make people feel intimidated and formal. Avoid them at all costs.

Places to hang newsprint: You may be using a lot of newsprint or other board space during your meeting. Can you use tape without damaging the walls? Is an easel available? Is there enough space so that you can keep important material visible instead of removing it?

Sign-In sheet: Is there a table for folks to use?

Refreshments: Grumbling stomachs will definitely take folks minds off the meeting. If you're having refreshments, who is bringing them? Do you need outlets for coffee pots? Can you set things up so folks can get food without disrupting the meeting? And who's cleaning up afterwards?

Microphones and audio visual equipment: Do you need a microphone? Video cameras? Can someone set up and test the equipment before you start?

To build a safe as well as comfortable environment, a good facilitator has a few more points to consider. How do you protect folks who are worried their ideas will be attacked or mocked? How do you hold back the big talkers who tend to dominate while still making them feel good about their participation? Much of the answer lies in the Ground Rules.

Ground Rules

Most meetings have some kind of operating rules. Some groups use Robert's Rules of Order (parliamentary procedure) to run their meetings while others have rules they've adopted over time. When you want the participation to flow and for folks to really feel invested in following the rules, the best way to go is to have the group develop them as one of the first steps in the process. This builds a sense of power in the participants ("Hey, she isn't telling us how to act. It's up to us to figure out what we think is important!") and a much greater sense of investment in following the rules. Common ground rules are:

One person speaks at a time

Raise your hand if you have something to say

Listen to what other people are saying

No mocking or attacking other people's ideas

Be on time coming back from breaks (if it's a long meeting)

Respect each other

A process to develop ground rules is:

Begin by telling folks that you want to set up some ground rules that everyone will follow as we go through our meeting. Put a blank sheet of newsprint on the wall with the heading "Ground Rules."

Ask for any suggestions from the group. If no one says anything, start by putting one up yourself. That usually starts people off.

Write any suggestions up on the newsprint. It's usually most effective to "check -in" with the whole group before you write up an idea ("Sue suggested raising our hands if we have something to say. Is that O.K. with everyone?") Once you have gotten 5 or 6 good rules up, check to see if anyone else has other suggestions.

When you are finished, ask the group if they agree with these Ground Rules and are willing to follow them. Make sure you get folks to actually say "Yes" out loud. It makes a difference!

Facilitating a meeting or planning session

As we've already said, the facilitator is responsible for providing a "safe" climate and working atmosphere for the meeting. But you're probably wondering, "What do I actually do during the meeting to guide the process along?" Here are the basic steps that can be your facilitator's guide:

Start the meeting on time

Few of us start our meetings on time. The result? Those who come on time feel cheated that they rushed to get there! Start no more than five minutes late, ten at the maximum and thank everyone who came on time. When latecomers straggle in, don't stop your process to acknowledge them. Wait until after a break or another appropriate time to have them introduce themselves.

Welcome everyone

Make a point to welcome everyone who comes. Don't complain about the size of a group if the turnout is small! Nothing will turn the folks off who did come out faster. Thank all of those who are there for coming and analyze the turnout attendance later. Go with who you have.

Make introductions

There are lots of ways for people to introduce themselves to each other that are better than just going around the room. The kinds of introductions you do should depend on what kind of meeting you are having, the number of people, the overall goals of the meeting, and what kind of information it would be useful to know. Some key questions you can ask members to include in their introductions are:

How did you first get involved with our organization? (if most people are already involved, but the participants don't know each other well)

What do you want to know about our organization? (if the meeting is set to introduce your organization to another organization)

What makes you most angry about this problem? (if the meeting is called to focus on a particular problem)

Sometimes, we combine introductions with something called an "ice breaker." Ice breakers can:

Break down feelings of unfamiliarity and shyness

Help people shift roles--from their "work" selves to their "more human" selves

Build a sense of being part of a team

Create networking opportunities

Help share participants' skills and experiences

Some ways to do introductions and icebreakers are:

In pairs, have people turn to the person next to them and share their name, organization and three other facts about themselves that others might not know. Then, have each pair introduce each other to the group. This helps to get strangers acquainted and for people to feel safe--they already know at least one other person, and didn't have to share information directly in front of a big group at the beginning of the meeting.

Form small groups and have each of them work on a puzzle. Have them introduce themselves to their group before they get to work. This helps to build a sense of team work.

In a large group, have everyone write down two true statements about themselves and one false one. Then, every person reads their statements and the whole group has to guess which one is false. This helps folks get acquainted and relaxed.

Give each participant a survey and have the participants interview each other to find the answers. Make the questions about skills, experience, opinions on the issue you'll be working on, etc. When everyone is finished, have folks share the answers they got.

When doing introductions and icebreakers, it's important to remember:

Every participant needs to take part in the activity. The only exception may be latecomers who arrive after the introductions are completed. At the first possible moment, ask the latecomers to say their name and any other information you feel they need to share in order for everyone to feel comfortable and equal.

Be sensitive to the culture, age, gender and literacy levels of participants and any other factors when deciding how to do introductions. For example, an activity that requires physical contact or reading a lengthy instruction sheet may be inappropriate for your group. Also, keep in mind what you want to accomplish with the activity. Don't make a decision to do something only because it seems like fun.

It is important to make everyone feel welcome and listened to at the beginning of the meeting. Otherwise, participants may feel uncomfortable and unappreciated and won't participate well later on. Also, if you don't get some basic information about who is there, you may miss some golden opportunities. For example, the editor of the regional newspaper may be in the room; but if you don't know, you'll miss the opportunity for a potential interview or special coverage.

And don't forget to introduce yourself. You want to make sure that you establish some credibility to be facilitating the meeting and that folks know a bit about you. Credibility doesn't mean you have a college degree or 15 years of facilitation experience. It just means that you share some of your background so folks know why you are doing the facilitation and what has led you to be speaking up.

Review the agenda, objectives and ground rules for the meeting

Go over what's going to happen in the meeting. Check with the group to make sure they agree with and like the agenda. You never know if someone will want to comment and suggest something a little different. This builds a sense of ownership of the meeting and lets people know early on that you're there to facilitate their process and their meeting, not your own agenda.

The same is true for the outcomes of the meeting. You'll want to go over these with folks as well to get their input and check that these are the desired outcomes they're looking for. This is also where the ground rules that we covered earlier come in.

Encourage participation

This is one of your main jobs as a facilitator. It's up to you to get those who need to listen to listen and those who ought to speak. Encourage people to share their experiences and ideas and urge those with relevant background information share it at appropriate times.

Stick to the agenda

Groups have a tendency to wander far from the original agenda, sometimes without knowing it. When you hear the discussion wandering off, bring it to the group's attention. You can say "That's an interesting issue, but perhaps we should get back to the original discussion."

Avoid detailed decision-making

Sometimes, it's easier for groups to discuss the color of napkins than the real issues they are facing. Help the group not to get immersed in details. Suggest instead, "Perhaps the committee could resolve the matter." Do you really want to be involved in that level of detail?

Seek commitments

Getting commitments for future involvement is often a meeting goal. You want leaders to commit to certain tasks, people to volunteer to help on a campaign, or organizations to support your group. Make sure adequate time is allocated for seeking commitment. For small meetings, write people's names down on newsprint next to the tasks they agreed to undertake.

One important rule of thumb is that no one should leave a meeting without something to do. Don't ever close a meeting by saying "We'll get back to you to confirm how you might like to get involved." Seize the moment! Sign them up!

Bring closure to each item

Many groups will discuss things ten times longer than they need to unless a facilitator helps them to recognize they're basically in agreement. Summarize a consensus position, or ask someone in the group to summarize the points of agreement, and then move forward. If one or two people disagree, state the situation as clearly as you can: "Tom and Levonia seem to have other feelings on this matter, but everyone else seems to go in this direction. Perhaps we can decide to go in the direction that most of the group wants, and maybe Tom and Levonia can get back to us on other ways to accommodate their concerns." You may even suggest taking a break so Tom and Levonia can caucus to come up with some options.

Some groups feel strongly about reaching consensus on issues before moving ahead. If your group is one of them, be sure to read a good manual or book on consensus decision making. Many groups, however, find that voting is a fine way to make decisions. A good rule of thumb is that a vote must pass by a two-thirds majority for it to be a valid decision. For most groups to work well, they should seek consensus where possible, but take votes when needed in order to move the process forward.

Respect everyone's rights

The facilitator protects the shy and quiet folks in a meeting and encourages them to speak out. There is also the important job of keeping domineering people from monopolizing the meeting or ridiculing the ideas of others.

Sometimes, people dominate a discussion because they are really passionate about an issue and have lots of things to say. One way to channel their interest is to suggest that they consider serving on a committee or task force on that issue. Other people, however, talk to hear themselves talk. If someone like that shows up at your meeting, look further ahead in this chapter for some tips on dealing with "disrupters."

Be flexible

Sometimes issues will arise in the meeting that are so important, they will take much more time than you thought. Sometimes, nobody will have thought of them at all. You may run over time or have to alter your agenda to discuss them. Be sure to check with group about whether this is O.K. before going ahead with the revised agenda. If necessary, ask for a five-minute break to confer with key leaders or participants on how to handle the issue and how to restructure the agenda. Be prepared to recommend an alternate agenda, dropping some items if necessary.

Summarize the meeting results and needed follow-ups

Before ending the meeting, summarize the key decisions that were made and what else happened. Be sure also to summarize the follow-up actions that were agreed to and need to take place. Remind folks how much good work was done and how effective the meeting hopefully was. Refer back to the objectives or outcomes to show how much you accomplished.

Thank the participants

Take a minute to thank people who prepared things for the meeting, set up the room, brought refreshments, or did any work towards making the meeting happen. Thank all of the participants for their input and energy and for making the meeting a success.

Close the meeting

People appreciate nothing more than a meeting that ends on time! It's usually a good idea to have some "closure" in a meeting, especially if it was long, if there were any sticky situations that caused tension, or if folks worked especially hard to come to decisions or make plans.

A nice way to close a meeting is to go around the room and have people say one word that describes how they are feeling now that all of this work has been done. You'll usually get answers from "exhausted" to "energized!" If it's been a good meeting, even the "exhausted" ones will stick around before leaving.

Facilitator skills and tips

Here are a few more points to remember that will help to maximize your role as a facilitator:

Don't memorize a script

Even with a well-prepared agenda and key points you must make, you need to be flexible and natural. If people sense that you are reading memorized lines, they will feel like they are being talked down to, and won't respond freely.

Watch the group's body language

Are people shifting in their seats? Are they bored? Tired? Looking confused? If folks seem restless or in a haze, you may need to take a break, or speed up or slow down the pace of the meeting. And if you see confused looks on too many faces, you may need to stop and check in with the group, to make sure that everyone knows where you are in the agenda and that the group is with you.

Always check back with the group

Be careful about deciding where the meeting should go. Check back after each major part of the process to see if there are questions and that everyone understands and agrees with decisions that were made.

Summarize and pause

When you finish a point or a part of the meeting process, sum up what was done and decided, and pause for questions and comments before moving on. Learn to "feel out" how long to pause -- too short, and people don't really have time to ask questions; too long, and folks will start to get uncomfortable from the silence.

Be aware of your own behavior

Take a break to calm down if you feel nervous or are losing control. Watch that you're not repeating yourself, saying "ah" between each word, or speaking too fast. Watch your voice and physical manner. (Are you standing too close to folks so they feel intimidated, making eye contact so people feel engaged?) How you act makes an impact on how participants feel.

Occupy your hands

Hold onto a marker, chalk, or the back of a chair. Don't play with the change in your pocket!

Watch your speech

Be careful you are not offending or alienating anyone in the group. Use swear words at your own risk!

Use body language of our own

Using body language to control the dynamics in the room can be a great tool. Moving up close to a shy, quiet participant and asking them to speak may make them feel more willing, because they can look at you instead of the big group and feel less intimidated. Also, walking around engages people in the process. Don't just stand in front of the room for the entire meeting.

Don't talk to the newsprint, blackboard or walls--they can't talk back!

Always wait until you have stopped writing and are facing the group to talk.

Dealing with disrupters: Preventions and interventions

Along with these tips on facilitation, there are some things you can do both to prevent disruption before it occurs to stop it when it's happening in the meeting. The most common kinds of disrupters are people who try to dominate, keep going off the agenda, have side conversations with the person sitting next to them, or folks who think they are right and ridicule and attack other's ideas.

Preventions. Try using these "Preventions" when you set up your meeting to try to rule out disruption:

Get agreement on the agenda, ground rules and outcomes. In other words, agree on the process. These process agreements create a sense of shared accountability and ownership of the meeting, joint responsibility for how the meeting is run, and group investment in whether the outcomes and goals are achieved.

Listen carefully. Don't just pretend to listen to what someone in the meeting is saying. People can tell. Listen closely to understand a point someone is making. And check back if you are summarizing, always asking the person if you understood their idea correctly.

Show respect for experience. We can't say it enough. Encourage folks to share strategies, stories from the field, and lessons they've learned. Value the experience and wisdom in the room.

Find out the group's expectations. Make sure that you uncover at the start what participants think they are meeting for. When you find out, be clear about what will and won't be covered in this meeting. Make plans for how to cover issues that won't be dealt with: Write them down on newsprint and agree to deal with them at the end of the meeting, or have the group agree on a follow-up meeting to cover unfinished issues.

There are lots of ways to find out what the group's expectations of the meeting are: Try asking everyone to finish this sentence: "I want to leave here today knowing...." You don't want people sitting through the meeting feeling angry that they're in the wrong place and no one bothered to ask them what they wanted to achieve here. These folks may act out their frustration during the meeting and become your biggest disrupters.

Stay in your facilitator role. You cannot be an effective facilitator and a participant at the same time. When you cross the line, you risk alienating participants, causing resentment, and losing control of the meeting. Offer strategies, resources, and ideas for the group to work with, but not opinions.

Don't be defensive. If you are attacked or criticized, take a "mental step" backwards before responding. Once you become defensive, you risk losing the group's respect and trust, and might cause folks to feel they can't be honest with you.

"Buy-in" power players. These folks can turn your meeting into a nightmare if they don't feel that their influence and role are acknowledged and respected. If possible, give them acknowledgment up front at the start of the meeting. Try giving them roles to play during the meeting such as a "sounding board" for you at breaks, to check in with about how the meeting is going.

Interventions. Try using these "Interventions" when disruption is happening during the meeting:

Accept or legitimize the point or deal. If there is someone who keeps expressing doubts about the group's ability to accomplish anything, is bitter and puts down others' suggestions, keeps bringing up the same point over and over, seems to have power issues:
Try one or more of these approaches: Show that you understand their issue by making it clear that you hear how important it is to them. Legitimize the issue by saying, "It's a very important point and one I'm sure we all feel is critical." Make a bargain to deal with their issue for a short period of time ("O.K., let's deal with your issue for 5 minutes and then we ought to move on.") If that doesn't work, agree to defer the issue to the end of the meeting, or set up a committee to explore it further.

Confront in the room If all else has failed, if you're sure it won't create backlash, if the group will support you, and if you've tried everything else:
Confront the disruptive person politely but very firmly in the room. Tell the person very explicitly that the disruption needs to stop now. Use body language to encourage other group members to support you. This is absolutely the last resort when action must be taken and no alternatives remain!

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Section 2. Developing Facilitation Skills

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Learn how to plan well, keep members involved, and create real leadership opportunities in your organization and skills in your members. What are facilitation skills? Why do you need facilitation skills? How do you facilitate? How do you plan a good facilitation process? Facilitating a meeting or planning session: What's it all about?

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The cognitive load of a learning resource is the balance between task demand (how hard it is and how long it takes) and available resources (students' prior knowledge and the resources they have to hand).

If the cognitive load is too high, students become overwhelmed and disengaged.

If it's too low, they won't be challenged.

Design features can either enhance a learning resource or add unnecessary cognitive load.

David Didau explains how to get the balance right.

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What can cognitive science tell us about how to design learning experiences?

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Educational consultant and writer David Didau explores some key theories about learning - as well as debunking some widely-held beliefs along the way.

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The cognitive load of a learning resource is the balance between task demand (how hard it is and how long it takes) and available resources (students' prior knowledge and the resources they have to hand).

If the cognitive load is too high, students become overwhelmed and disengaged.

If it's too low, they won't be challenged.

Design features can either enhance a learning resource or add unnecessary cognitive load.

David Didau explains how to get the balance right.

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What can cognitive science tell us about how to design learning experiences?

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Educational consultant and writer David Didau explores some key theories about learning - as well as debunking some widely-held beliefs along the way.

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Short films to support teachers of pupils who have dyslexia, with a particular emphasis on 7-14 year-olds. These films offer practical suggestions on how best to support pupils, with lively graphics and clear advice from children themselves.

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Deliberate practice is a promising approach to improve knowledge and skill, but I've been exploring its limits, prompted by a challenge from Lorna Shires, who suggested that it's useful for skills which can be drilled and copied (like rebounds in basketball or classroom management techniques), but not for more sophisticated aspects of sports (or teaching) like game play, analysis and decision making. This post considers how deliberate practice can promote effective 'game play' in the classroom, by helping teachers make better decisions.

I'll frame this by suggesting a rough division between three questions teacher educators face:

What principles and practices matter most in teaching? Teacher educators need to select and sequence the strategies and techniques they will promote: they might encourage teachers to introduce ideas using models and clear explanations, for example.

How can teachers master these principles and practices? Having decided what matters in the classroom, teacher educators must teach teachers to use these strategies and techniques: using deliberate practice is crucial; teachers can script, prepare, practise and refine models, for example.

When should teachers apply these principles and practices? Teacher educators must help teachers tailor their actions to specific situations: knowing what to do (use models) and how to do it (how to create an effective model) is of little use unless teachers can choose when to do it (an excellent model at the wrong moment may overwhelm students).

Teacher education only helps teachers if it addresses all three questions. Deliberate practice isn't a complete solution, but it can refine teachers' analysis and understanding of situations, their decision making, and their game play, in four ways.

1) Practice creates space to think

Practice builds fluency, fluency frees us to stop thinking about what we're doing now, and instead assess the situation and decide what to do. With practice, actions become routine: we find habits easier, thinking and worrying less about them (Wood, Quinn and Kashy, 2002). We can combine individual fluent actions creatively and spontaneously (Binder, 1996): football player Johann Cruyff described how practice helps in the moment when responses have to be "quicker, where instead of having two meters to control the ball, you have half a meter (Lemov, Woolway and Yezzi, p.37)." Just as students who know their times tables can tackle more complicated sums, teachers who have practised posing challenging questions, monitoring student reactions and maintaining student focus, can combine them and think about where to guide the discussion, not just whether students are listening. Deliberate practice makes space for judgement: it lets us think about where we're going, not just what we're doing.

2) We can practise decisions

We make classroom decisions fast, before an exacting audience: practice can help. Experts assess situations and make decisions based on their knowledge and experience (Berliner, 1988; Livingston and Borko, 1989). Teacher educators cannot simply leave teachers to accumulate experience through trial and error: teachers can practise, not just how to do things (how to respond to a misconception), but deciding when to do things (which misconceptions should we respond to immediately, for example). Examining case studies which ask what should be done next is a "natural way to produce the flexibility of thought that is needed" by teachers (Berliner, 2001, p.476). Case studies can also help teachers grapple with fundamental debates (about the merits of testing, for example) through specific dilemmas (Ball and Forzani, 2009). Teacher educators can write cases: ' John states that he can't see the point of maths during a test: what do you do?' or they can show classroom video, pausing to discuss what viewers have noticed, what options the teacher has, and their relative merits: a student makes an error; did viewers notice? What would they do next? Anything can be practised: this includes analysing classroom situations and deciding how to respond.

3) We can review judgements

Classroom judgements are irrevocable: deliberate practice allows us to stop the clock and refine them. It is hard to learn from past decisions: teachers are among those professionals whose decisions cannot be second-guessed (Lipsky, 1980); the classroom is so complicated that a colleague will struggle to improve on a decision they didn't witness. We can review past successes and failures, but we can also use deliberate practice to go beyond discussion and test alternatives. A teacher educator can pause practice to offer feedback, test teachers' understanding, or elicit suggestions; they can, for example, suggest to the teacher practising that "This would be a good time to start to ask students what they notice about all of the numbers (Lampert et al., 2013, p.232)." One review suggested that "Deliberate practice in the company of others" helps teachers develop "an organized system for knowing when, why, and how aspects of their competency are relevant to any particular situation, (Ibid., p.228)"; another highlighted the importance of helping teachers make their "dilemmas and uncertainties" public (Kazemi et al., 2016, p.24). We cannot rewind once we have challenged an off-task student, but deliberate practice allows us to pause, test alternatives and gain feedback. Practice takes us beyond discussion and hones our understanding of the consequences and merits of our actions.

4) Practise integrates deciding and acting

I began by noting that knowing what to do and how to do it was of little use unless we know when to act; the reverse is also true: good decisions are useless unless teachers can act on them. TNTP (a teacher training organisation in the USA) described how, before adopting deliberate practice, they asked teachers to:

Think about how they would handle the various classroom management challenges they were likely to face and create a blueprint for how they would address them. The result, not surprisingly, was a lot of teachers who had thoughtful, thorough classroom management blueprints-and chaotic classrooms (2014, p.10)."

Deliberate practice is the only way we can integrate decisions and action - unless we want to make our mistakes in the classroom. As a mentor, we might see a teacher focus on one disruptive student and suggest that they, 'Keep scanning the room while talking to an individual'. But we can't guarantee the teacher will act accordingly, or that it will solve the problem. Deliberate practice allows us to recreate classroom situations, so teachers can learn to identify good decisions and to act upon them.

Conclusion

These four methods all offer what the classroom denies us: space and time to review our actions, think about them, and test alternatives. Deliberate practice creates mental space while we're acting: it allows us to practise decisions, review past judgements and practise making better ones work. Deliberate practice allows teacher educators to approximate teaching, so that teachers can "learn to do adaptive teaching while developing their knowledge, skill, and identities (Lampert et al., 2013, p.238)." A review of simulation in nursing education argued that:

"The potential risks to patients associated with learning 'at the bedside' are becoming increasingly unacceptable, and the search for education and training methods that do not expose the patient to preventable errors from inexperienced practitioners continues (Lewis, Strachan and McKenzie Smith, 2012, p.82)."

This review noted two intriguing findings: first, a training programme which incorporated deliberate practice and theory found no effect for the theory (but an effect for practice); second, comparing two teams which had received the same training, eight hours simulated practice improved their performance; an eight hour shift in hospital caused no improvement (Ibid.). Deliberate practice is not the only way to improve judgement, but it has a crucial role, not just in mastering skills, but in applying them when they are needed in the classroom.
If you found this interesting, you may like:
References
Ball, D., Forzani, F., (2009) The Work of Teaching and the Challenge for Teacher Education. Journal of Teacher Education 60(5) 497-511 Berliner, D. (1988) The Development of Expertise in Pedagogy. Charles W. Hunt Memorial Lecture presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (New Orleans, LA, February 17-20, 1988).
Berliner, D. (2001). Learning about and learning from expert teachers. International Journal of Educational Research 35, pp.463-482.
Binder, C. (1996). Behavioral Fluency: Evolution of a New Paradigm. The Behavior Analyst, 19 (2), pp.163-197.
Kazemi, E., Ghousseini, H., Cunard, A., Turrou, A. (2016) Getting Inside Rehearsals: Insights From Teacher Educators to Support Work on Complex Practice. Journal of Teacher Education 67(1), pp.18-31.

Lampert, M., Franke, M., Kazemi, E., Ghousseini, H., Turrou, A. Beasley, H., Cunard, A., Crowe, K. (2013) Keeping It Complex: Using Rehearsals to Support Novice Teacher Learning of Ambitious Teaching Journal of Teacher Education 64(3), pp.226-243.
Lemov, D., Woolway, E., Yezzi, K. (2012) Practice Perfect: 42 Rules for Getting Better at Getting Better. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Lewis, R., Strachan, A. and McKenzie Smith, M. (2012). Is High Fidelity Simulation the Most Effective Method for the Development of Non-Technical Skills in Nursing? A Review of the Current Evidence. The Open Nursing Journal, 6, pp.82-89. Lipsky, M. (1980 [2010]) Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the individual in public services. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
Livingston, C., Borko, H. (1989) Expert-Novice Differences in Teaching: A Cognitive Analysis and Implications for Teacher Education. Journal of Teacher Education 37. 36-42.
Supovitz, J. (2013) The Linking Study: An Experiment to Strengthen Teachers' Engagement With Data on Teaching and Learning. CPRE Working Papers. TNTP (2014) Fast Start: Training better teachers faster, with focus, practice and feedback. Wood, W., Quinn, J., and Kashy, D. (2002). Habits in Everyday Life: Thought, Emotion, and Action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83(6), pp.1281-1297.

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Deliberate practice: improving teacher decision making

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Deliberate practice is a promising approach to improve knowledge and skill, but I've been exploring its limits, prompted by a challenge from Lorna Shires, who suggested that it's useful for skills which can be drilled and copied (like rebounds in basketball or classroom management techniques), but not for more sophisticated aspects of sports (or teaching) like game play, analysis and decision making.

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Every day teachers ask their pupils to practise in their lessons in order to put theory into fluent practice - or bridge what Daisy Christodoulou calls 'the knowing-doing gap'. As educators and lifelong learners, should our trainee teachers be doing the same as they develop as educators?

I would argue that it's not if they should, but how.

Doing it on purpose

Ericsson's deliberate practice is a great starting point for teacher educators supporting trainee development. Ericsson defines deliberate practice as, "purposeful practice that knows where it is going and how to get there." He says this requires a clear model of what expert performance looks like and what actions need to be taken to achieve that level of performance. This in turn requires guidance and feedback from someone more skilled.
There's a common myth of 'the 10,000 hours rule' (based on a misquoting of Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers: The Story of Success) that places importance on practice. But it isn't just the amount of time put into practising skills that matters, it's what and how you practise - and how deliberate the practice is.

Mental models

In , Ericsson talks about the adaptability of the human brain. It's commonly believed that humans have a limit to what and how much we can achieve. Ericsson challenges this by referring to research in a new area of psychology - the science of expertise - from which the idea of deliberate practice was born. "The right sort of practice carried out over a sufficient period of time leads to improvement. Nothing else", he argues.

Put simply, we gain expertise through the improvement of our mental processes, and it's possible to develop mental models of what 'good' looks like in any domain through training.

All the world's a stage

To build these mental representations of expertise, all teachers (not just trainees) need time to practise skills and actions to the point of making them automatic. Deliberate practice is largely about seeing teaching as a performance-based profession, so we can practise many of the skills needed until we've mastered them and then 'go live' in front of our audience (our classes) with the most refined version of our 'act'.

Lemov and Woolway in Practice Perfect compare this process to sports coaching, where micro-actions are practised over and over before athletes compete for real. They also make the case that not all practice is equal. Through research and insight into hundreds of classrooms, they conclude that practice needs to be 'efficiently run, well planned and intentionally executed' - in other words, deliberate.

Healthy habits

How does deliberate practice benefit trainee teachers, and why have we included it in our series of ten things every teacher educator should know? Quite simply, it sets firm foundations.

The habit of practice instilled during initial teacher training is a foundation not just for a successful training year, but for a career of continuous improvement. It also instils the ability to adapt in an ever-changing climate of education.

Getting unstuck

Any professional who has worked with a trainee knows that there are always moments of feeling like they are 'stuck' or that they know what they want to do but just don't know how to go about it. This is where the teacher educator can use practice as a way of strengthening and developing a trainee to move towards mastering the technique, skill or action. Practice is flexible and adaptable, meaning that it's suitable for everyone. Through practice we can work toward success whilst responding to errors in the moment and correcting them immediately and positively (as a teacher in a classroom would).

Case study

I was able to use deliberate practice to good effect with one of the NQTs with whom I worked on the second year of the Teach First training programme. When I began working with her, pupils generally entered her lessons in quite a chaotic way. We therefore focused on practising the Threshold technique from Teach Like A Champion 2.0. Threshold supports teachers to focus on the actions they take and words they say to establish a calm and purposeful entry to the classroom by pupils. I supported the teacher to plan and script where she would stand, what she would say and how she would respond to various pupil behaviours, with each step practised deliberately and refined based on my feedback. For this teacher it took time to build the mental models and automaticity that were needed use Threshold effectively, but by focusing on specific actions and phrases, scripting, and rehearsing, she was soon achieving calm starts to lessons that set her classes up for success.

A culture of practice

On a visit to the US to see high-performing Charter Schools the principal of Troy Prep High School in New York once told me: "school is culture". It's the customs, habits, beliefs, traditions, mindsets and institutions of a nation of people. We as Teach First and as teacher educators are a 'nation of people' with a common culture. For me, practice is one of the core habits helping us to support the development of exceptional trainee and early career teachers.

About the author

Sian is a teacher educator working for Teach First in the East Midlands. Find her on Twitter @sbornes722.

About this series

We train thousands of new teachers each year, but this is only around 5% of all new teachers. So we wanted to share some of the thinking behind our teacher education in this series of blogs. We hope these blogs will be helpful for the thousands of schools that support new trainee teachers each year, and act as a starting point for conversations with other teacher educators - so we can all keep learning and improving.

This is our current thinking but we're always reviewing and learning from research, other organisations and practice. We want your views and feedback: What do you agree with? Is there anything you disagree with? What have we missed? Let us know on twitter - you can chat to our teacher education leads @FayeCraster and @Reuben_Moore (and we're on @TeachFirst)

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Lead deliberate practice - '10 things every teacher educator should know'

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Every day teachers ask their pupils to practise in their lessons in order to put theory into fluent practice - or bridge what Daisy Christodoulou calls 'the knowing-doing gap'. As educators and lifelong learners, should our trainee teachers be doing the same as they develop as educators?

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Before the training: preparing your material

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Before the training: preparing your material

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1) Ensure you know the content thoroughly
2) Clarify the key learning points for each segment
3) Adapt the materials as necessary for any individual needs
4) Read the FAQs
5) Anticipate key questions and prepare responses

How this could be learnt and practised:
- prepare a training together at a training support session or another informal meeting (for those with less experience)
- prepare a training and discuss with your mentor (for those with more experience)

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A little more than a year ago, on a trip to Nairobi, Kenya, some colleagues and I met a 12-year-old Masai boy named Richard Turere, who told us a fascinating story. His family raises livestock on the edge of a vast national park, and one of the biggest challenges is protecting the animals from lions-especially at night. Richard had noticed that placing lamps in a field didn't deter lion attacks, but when he walked the field with a torch, the lions stayed away. From a young age, he'd been interested in electronics, teaching himself by, for example, taking apart his parents' radio. He used that experience to devise a system of lights that would turn on and off in sequence-using solar panels, a car battery, and a motorcycle indicator box-and thereby create a sense of movement that he hoped would scare off the lions. He installed the lights, and the lions stopped attacking. Soon villages elsewhere in Kenya began installing Richard's "lion lights."

A version of this article appeared in the June 2013 issue of Harvard Business Review.

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For more than 30 years, the TED conference series has presented enlightening talks that people enjoy watching. In this article, Anderson, TED's curator, shares five keys to great presentations: Frame your story (figure out where to start and where to end).

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Resources, articles and ideas for training

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Resources, articles and ideas for training

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Scroll right for:
- 'Train the trainer' courses and resources
- Facilitation skills
- Group management articles and techniques
- Presentation skills 1
- Presentation skills 2
- Coaching resources
- Activity toolkits

Scroll down for:
- Methodkit's workshop planning kit
- Hyper Island's toolbox

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Promote, deliver, and design high-quality learning opportunities.

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Free CC download available at the bottom of the page

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MethodKit for Workshop Planning - MethodKit

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60 cards to discuss and plan how to conduct workshops.

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Facilitator Cards: A Deck for You, Not Your Participants

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Tools for facilitation planning, running meetings with a co-facilitator, & improvising when the unexpected comes up. Creative, engaging trainings made easy.

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Facilitation card decks give you an entire facilitation toolbox in your pocket.

Because these decks remind us of card games, they feel like play. Participants leave their work personas behind and embrace silliness, vulnerability, and fun.

Some decks help you plan your entire workshop flow. Some are great for prompting meaningful conversation and making every voice heard.

Others help you pivot during a session if needed with a quick activity. Some cards are very methodical and structured, while others are versatile-encouraging playfulness and creativity.

To help you pick the best deck for your workshops, we've gathered recommendations from the Butter Community that cover:

Session design

Creativity and ideation

Innovation and strategy

Starting conversations and improving team dynamics

Debriefing and reflection

We'll be keeping this post updated, so make sure to bookmark it and check back any time you need a little creative inspiration!

And if you want to take these decks from the physical to the virtual, we've introduced flashcard decks as a tool in Butter -so you can pre-load your favorite cards and activities to your virtual sessions and use them whenever you want.

Card Decks for Session Design

All the decks in this category make it easier to plan your next workshop or to adapt your workshop on the fly by giving you activities, frameworks, and methodologies for an awesome session.

1. Facilitator Cards

Available at: Facilitator.cards

Deck type: Session design

Facilitator Cards is a 60-activity card deck designed by Meg Bolger and Sam Killermann of Facilitating.XYZ.

Facilitator Cards offer many activities that make it easy to plan your workshops, but they're also helpful in-session when something unexpected happens and you need an activity to pivot on the spot.

In addition to the physical deck, they also have Virtual Facilitator Cards.

😍 Why we love them: Facilitator Cards are categorized into four color-coded categories (Emotion, Ideation, Clarification, and Execution), making it super easy to pick a relevant activity on the fly!
📒 Further reading: How to increase workshop participation with Facilitator Cards & Butter

2. Workshop Tactics

‍ Available at: Pipdecks.com

Deck type: Session design, ideation, strategy

Designed by Charles Burdett, Workshop Tactics is a curated list of the best agile and design-thinking workshop techniques for product teams.

You can use each tactic independently as a mini workshop, or combine multiple cards and tactics to plan entire sessions.

In the deck, you'll find creative ideation workshops, energizers, icebreakers, retrospectives, root-cause analysis workshops, decision-making matrices, and core facilitation techniques.

😍 Why we love them: Their Workshop Strategy System decision tree helps you choose the right workshop at the right time. It's a great place to start if your team needs to get unstuck.

Available at: TheLiberators.com
3. Liberating Structures Cards

Deck type: Session design

Liberating Structures are built on the idea that conventional structures are either too inhibiting (e.g., presentations and status reports) or too disorganized (e.g., brainstorms). Liberating Structures are intentionally simple activities that help you get more out of your group.

Created by Holisticon, Liberating Structures are easy-to-learn microstructures that enhance relational coordination and trust, quickly fostering lively participation for groups of any size.

For example, the Wise Crowds Liberating Structure provides a session structure where some participants act as consultants and others act as clients, allowing you to learn from the collective expertise of a group.

Each deck comes in a paper box with 33 cards, one for each Liberating Structure. It also includes four cards with additional information.

You can also access all Liberating Structures for free at LiberatingStructures.com.

😍 Why we love them: Because they help you create strings and combine Liberating Structures, these cards make it easy to design full workshops, team meetings, or scrum events.

4. Foresight Cards

Deck type: Session design, strategy

Foresight Cards are used to assess your external environment-for example, to discuss uncertainties, stress test a business model, or to create awareness of past, current, and future changes.

This pack of cards contains 125 external forces from macro/contextual environments. The forces are classified based on STEEP categories (social, technological, economical, environmental and political).

create awareness

stress testing business models

determine key uncertainties for scenario planning

These cards can be used for many types of strategy sessions, including SWOT analysis, Porter analysis, business model, system diagram, and scenario planning.

The deck also contains three complete workshops:

Available at: beyondstickynotes.com
😍 Why we love them: The cards are all multilingual, so each card features English, Nederlands (Dutch), Deutsch (German), and Español (Spanish).

5. Model of Care for Co-design Cards

Deck type: Session Design, team dynamics and cohesion, wellbeing

If you want to be more inclusive in your co-design sessions, consider using this thoughtful deck from Kelly Ann McKercher.

As Kelly Ann explains in their blog about the Model of Care for Co-design, "We need to work harder to create and maintain safety with traumatised and historically under-invested in groups of people. Without safety, it's hard (if not impossible) to join-in, stay included and express our creativity."

Available at: untoldplay.com
This deck starts with the belief that we need to care for each other during co-design activities, and then turns this philosophy into simple prompts that promote care during the co-design process.

😍 Why we love them: The 16 cards offer concrete tips that encourage you to care of your participants' needs by creating a safe space together before jumping straight to doing. The cards are distributed in two categories: "Before togetherness" and "Together and beyond".

1. Assess: Help learners assess a variety of options

2. Arrange: Help learnings arrange or structure new materials

3. Create: Exercises to develop new ideas and ways of thinking

4. Solve: Activities and tools to integrate puzzles and challenges

5. Apply: Tools to help participants apply learning to their real world

6. Transform Deck

Deck type: Session design

Available at: petranovskaja.com
The Transform Deck, designed by Untold Play founder Terry Pearce, was made to transform your learning content into engaging activities.

The 45 cards are sorted into five categories:

😍 Why we love them: While the deck won't create your training for you, it will provide inspiration and streamline your workshop design process. Plus, each card comes with concrete tips on how to use each method effectively.

7. WonderCards

Deck type: Session design

Speed up your workshop preparation time and adapt on the fly with this deck by Nadja Petranoskaja. The 40-card deck comes with warm-ups, models, exercises, energizers, and workshop formats for groups of any size.

The deck is great for designing any workshop, training, or team development activity.

‍ 😍 Why we love them: The deck is available in both Tarot and Pocket size, so you can choose whether you prefer visibility or mobility! Plus, the cards are also available in German here.

8. MethodKit for Workshop Planning

Available at: methodkit.com

Deck type: Session design

The MethodKit for Workshop Planning gives you 60 illustrated cards to plan your workshops. You can use them for brainstorming, planning, discussing, prioritizing, and evaluating your work.

Each of the 60 cards has a key issue to keep in mind when planning a workshop. For example, there's a card for props and materials, a card for facilitation styles, and a card for creating an engagement atmosphere.

Available at: 75toolsforcreativethinking.com
The deck is primarily intended for helping you plan workshops as a group, but the cards are also useful as an individual facilitator as they give you a visual overview of all the building blocks of your workshop.

😍 Why we love them: MethodKit also released the digital version of these cards, which you can download here, available in 10 languages. But wait, that's not all! MethodKit has this great article on all the possible ways you can use the card decks in your workshops.

Card Decks for Ideation and Creativity

Need to spark your next great idea? Need to get people in the creative zone before a larger session? These decks are all designed for next-level brainstorming and ideation.

9. 75 Tools for Creative Thinking

Deck type: Session design, ideation

This set of cards takes you through the entire ideation process with fun and out-of-the-box activities. They can be used by anyone who's looking for some creative inspiration.

The deck takes you through five stages. You start with activities to explore and better understand the challenge you're facing. Then, you can collect insights and gather feedback from participants to better understand their needs. You can then structure these insights before moving on to ideation. Finally, finish by defining the criteria and evaluating ideas to pick the best ones.

😍 Why we love them: In addition to the physical card deck, 75 Tools For Creative Thinking is also available as an iPad and iPhone app.

10. IDEO Method Cards

Deck type: Session design, ideation

IDEO Method Cards are meant for inspiring designers looking for a creative spark in their work. Each of the 51 cards describes one ideation method and includes a brief story about how and when to use it.

It's not a how-to guide-it's a design tool meant to explore new approaches and help you develop your own. Use the deck to get a fresh perspective, inspire a team, turn a corner, or try a new approach.

😍 Why we love them: The cards are divided into four categories: Learn, Look, Ask, and Try, making it easy to choose the right cards for your session.

11. Triggers Ideation Cards

Deck type: Session design, ideation, strategy

Triggers has 14 different decks available, so it was hard to choose just one. They have decks on Brand Strategy, Business Design, Human-Centric Design, Innovation, and more. They come in a variety of packages, which you can check out in their online shop.

If you're a design agency that works with all kinds of different creative projects, the Complete Triggers Collection contains all of their decks and will help you with any type of ideation project.

This pack includes 780 Triggers cards (60 per deck) with questions that will help you generate ideas as an individual or with your team.

😍 Why we love them: Triggers has a deck for nearly every design use case, so it's a great place to start!

12. Creative Whack Pack Deck

Available at: creativewhack.com

Deck type: Ideation, creativity

Designed by Roger von Oech from Creative Whack Company, the 64-card Whack Pack deck is packed with stories, examples, and questions that are designed to "whack" you out of your usual ways of thinking and to inspire your creativity.

The deck is divided into four different suits, each representing roles or creative types: Explorer, Artist, Judge, and Warrior. Some cards show you how to discover new information, others offer decision-making advice, and others give you techniques on how to come up with new ideas.

If you're looking for a way to stimulate thinking in workshops, give these a try!

1. 10 Questions to provoke creative thinking

2. 10 Nouns to make you think about the "what" and the "who"

3. 10 Verbs to put your focus on actions and thinking patterns

4. 5 Quotes to inspire you

5. 8 Images to spark your imagination and help you visualize ideas

😍 Why we love them: Beyond the activities on the cards, the hand-drawn illustrations on the cards are enough to jog your mind. The deck is also available as a mobile app, where you can find the 64 original cards, plus 20 extra Heraclitus strategies to stretch your thinking even further.

13. Know Brainer

Available at: ideachampions.com
Available at: thesolutionpeoplestore.com

Deck type: Ideation

Designed by Gerald Haman, the Know Brainer cards help your workshop participants navigate the "Accelerated Innovation" process, which is broken into four stages:

Each stage has five stimulus types designed to spark innovation:

😍 Why we love them: In addition to having an awesome pun for a name, this deck is versatile. It can be used in innovation and creativity sessions, for facilitating change and growth, in coaching sessions, or even as a tool to help you plan more creative products, services, brands, events and basically anything else!

14. Free the Genie

Deck type: Ideation, creativity

Designed by Mitch Ditkoff, Free the Genie is a 55-card deck that helps you bring something new and extraordinary into your life, business, or the world.

The deck gets its name from its purpose: it's a personal genie for open-minded thinkers. It's a 24/7 oracle that's always ready to help you realize your vision.

The cards are divided into five categories: Attend, Intend, Suspend, Extend, and Connect. You can use them as an individual or as a team to "seek counsel, clarity, and increased personal insight."

These cards lift you up to higher ground to a place where you'll find creativity, inspiration, breakthrough ideas, and commitment to those ideas.

😍 Why we love them: You can also use the deck as a team card game. The deck can help your team brainstorm, solve problems, and accelerate the innovation process.

15. ThinkPak

Substitute something

Combine something

Adapt something

Modify or magnify something

Put something to another use

Eliminate something

Reverse or rearrange something

Available at: amazon.com

Deck type: Ideation

ThinkPak was designed based on the idea that every new invention is just a modification of something that already exists. So coming up with your next great idea is about seeing your problem in a new light.

Designed by Michael Michalkom this deck gives you a step-by-step methodology to coming up with new ideas, products, services, processes, and more.

You can shuffle, mix, and match the cards to generate new insights, and then use the deck's critical evaluation techniques to distill your ideas into realistic solutions.

Shuffle, mix and match the cards to spark fresh insights, then use the critical evaluation techniques to test and refine your creative ideas into realistic and feasible solutions.

Find inspiration

Take bigger creative risks

Test your ideas in the real world

😍 Why we love them: The cards follow the famous SCAMPER creativity method coined by Bob Eberle. This theory assumes that all innovative breakthroughs come from at least one of these principles:

16. Design Kit Travel Pack

Available at: designkit.org

Deck type: Ideation

Need some design inspiration? Created by IDEO.org, the Design Kit Travel Pack is a set of "bite-sized tools to spark creativity and collaboration" based on human-centered design principles.

This 32-card deck is full of exercises that help creatives shift their thinking about a project to be able to move it forward. The deck helps you overcome roadblocks to deliver top-notch products and services.

The deck is divided into three sections to help you:

😍 Why we love them: The cards are beautifully designed! Each colorful card has a hand-drawn illustration to give you a little extra design inspiration.

17. Make It Pop

Available at: makeitpopgame.com

Deck type: Ideation, conversation starter

"Let us help you unlock your inner creative baddass!" That's the website tagline for Make It Pop, and we couldn't say it any better ourselves.

Make It Pop takes inspiration from Cards Against Humanity and turns it into a framework for coming up with unconventional design tasks.

It's very simple: choose a black task card (e.g. Design a landing page for...), then choose a white or red client card (e.g. Bob Ross), and get started!

😍 Why we love them: This activity makes an awesome icebreaker for designers or creatives that gets them in the right mode of thinking rather than defaulting to the usual "get to know you" questions.
Available at: innovation.tools
18. Oblique Strategies

Help you look at a situation in new light

Trigger a brainstorming or ideation session

Practice your creativity

Launch or rebrand a business, product, or service

Deck type: Ideation, creativity, conversation starter

We're throwing it waaaay back with this deck.

Back in 1975, artist Peter Schmidt and musician Brian Eno created the original Oblique Strategies card deck. They drew on their own work as artists to develop a deck of 100 cards, each of which suggests a course of action or thinking to help you in any creative situation.

Available at: lmi-academy.com
The deck is brutally simple. Each card has a cryptic phrase or remark to prompt ideation or brainstorming activities.

😍 Why we love them: The prompts in this deck feel constraining, but these constraints can be mentally freeing. By narrowing your thinking down with constraints, it actually becomes easier to see a clear path to a solution. Limitation can be very useful!

19. Killer Questions Card Deck

Deck type: Innovation, creativity

Available at: keithsawyer.com
The Killer Questions deck is made to help you come up with killer ideas! Whether you use it alone or as a team, you can use the 40-question deck to:

The deck was created by Phil McKinney, author of Beyond the Obvious: Killer Questions That Spark Game-Changing Innovation, and the host of the podcast Killer Innovations.

1. ASK: How to Ask the Right Questions

2. LEARN: Prepare Your Mind

3. LOOK: Spot the Answers Around You

4. PLAY: Imagine Possible Worlds

5. THINK: How to Have Great Ideas

6. FUSE: How to Combine Ideas

7. CHOOSE: Make Good Ideas Even Better

8. MAKE: Make Your Ideas Visible.

😍 Why we love them: The deck has 40 question cards, but each question card comes with a number of extra so-called "sparking" questions to help you dig deeper for ideas as you go exploring. So there's lots of value in a small deck.

20. SPARK

Deck type: Creativity, conversation starters, team dynamics and cohesion

If a picture's worth a thousand words, then you're getting a quarter of a million words in this deck!

The Spark deck has over 250 photographs taken by over 100 photographers. Each photo was chosen to spark feelings, memories, and sensations. The pictures depict concepts, metaphors, and stories to inspire self-reflection, ideation, communication, and even relationship building.

😍 Why we love them: The deck also comes with an image appreciation technique card that gives you practical tips on how to "read" the images in the deck.

21. Zig Zag Creativity Cards

Deck type: Innovation, creativity

The Zig Zag deck is inspired by scientific research on how people create. The deck is based on Dr. Keith Sawyer's book, Zig Zag: The Surprising Path to Greater Creativity.

The deck's 52 techniques are grouped into eight powerful and yet simple steps:

To develop these techniques, Sawyer explored the stories and habits of exceptional creators as well as the science on everyday creativity. He explored how creative people question assumptions, get beyond their creative blogs, and how they deal with adversity.

‍ 😍 Why we love them: This deck is versatile, as you can use the cards for solo games, group games, or as facilitation techniques.

22. A Few Minutes of Design

Available at: amazon.com

Deck type: Creativity, innovation

Configuration: Profit Model, Network, Structure, Process

Offering: Product Performance, Product System,

Experience: Service, Channel, Brand, Customer Engagement

Desinged by Emily Campbell, this colorful, handy deck gives you 52 exercises to get your creative juices flowing at the start of a new design project or to help you get unblocked in a project you can't quite finish.

Each exercise digs into the small details of great design. For example, how could you establish a pattern or continue a series? Or how could you say something without words?

These cards are sometimes playful, sometimes challenging, but always inspiring!
Available at: myndset.cards
😍 Why we love them: The activities are practical and hands on, but can all be done in under 15 minutes! They're the perfect way to kick off a design workshop or ideation session.

Card Decks for Innovation and Strategy

1. The first deck helps you develop a vision of how you want to achieve your goal

2. The second deck focuses on trends and technology that might help you

3. The third deck focuses on understanding your target audience

4. The fourth deck focuses on the emotions you want your audience to feel

5. The fifth deck helps you formulate your pitch

These cards challenge participants' ways of thinking, stimulate innovation, and help you evaluate your strategic choices.

23. Innovation Tactics Cards

Available at: artefactshop.com
Available at: doblin.com

Deck type: Innovation, strategy

Doblin 's Innovation Tactics Cards are based on their Ten Types of Innovation framework. Their model breaks innovation into three groups:

To help you turn these innovation categories into business ideas, they've created over 100 Innovation Tactic cards to inspire ideation activities.

😍 Why we love them: If you're looking for specific, actionable tactics rather than abstract prompts, this is your deck. The tactics in this deck are very specific, so they're the perfect companion for your product and service innovation sessions or business strategy workshops.

Available at: amazon.com
24. Myndset Cards

Deck type: Innovation, strategy

The Myndset Cards game is a 30-minute workshop meant to inspire innovative ideas backed by emotions.

The deck consists of five decks:

😍 Why we love them: Myndset Cards come with a companion app that lets you scan your Myndset cards to find more detailed information and additional content for each card. Plus, the team behind the product made a free Udemy course explaining how to best use the card deck.

25. FUTREP Cards

Deck type: Strategy, futurecasting

If you want to work out your product design skills, FUTREP Cards are a great place to start.

By pulling combinations of characters, objects, systems, and environments from the deck, you'll be given a scenario for which you'll have to design a response.

1. Looking: methods for observing human experience

2. Understanding: methods for analysing challenges and opportunities

3. Making: methods for envisionining future possibilities

The cards were designed with flexibility in mind. Rather than giving you long, drawn-out scenarios, they provide you with seemingly unconnected concepts that stretch you to your creative limits.

😍 Why we love them: The cards are cut to the same dimensions as their Artefact Plus cards -blank, colored cards that allow you to visually capture your thoughts on the cards, and design your own processes and prompts from scratch.

26. Kickstart Creativity

Available at: xplane.com
Deck type: Innovation, creativity

Kickstart Creativity is a 50-card deck that's designed to prompt unexpected ways of thinking.

The cards are divided into three categories: Intention, Action, and Perspective. The action cards teach you new skills, perspective cards make you look at the world in a novel way, and intention cards help you make more meaningful decisions.

At the start of a personal challenge or group project, you can draw three cards from the deck and then reflect on how they relate to your current challenge.

😍 Why we love them: You can also use cards from the deck as a daily creativity booster. For example, they recommend drawing one card at random to start your day for a quick hit of inspiration with your coffee.

27. Innovating for People

Available at: luma-institute.com

Deck type: Decision design, strategy

This wonderful 36-card deck by LUMA Institute introduces you to their human-centered design system.

The 36 methods are organised into three key design skills that take you through the full design cycle:

Each card has a photo of the method in use, a short description, a quick guide, and helpful hints.

😍 Why we love them: The deck is great for running design thinking sessions, but you can also use it to teach human-centered design methods in a more tactile format.

28. Barriers to Change Cards

Deck type: Strategy

This deck, designed by Xplane, helps you introduce empathy to your strategy sessions. It helps you close the gap between your current state and where you want to be.

The deck covers the most common reasons people resist change, including how to overcome those barriers to make stuff happen!

😍 Why we love them: The team at Xplane wrote a helpful article detailing how exactly you can use the cards in a workshop to probe the stage that your team or organization is currently at when it comes to understanding and embedding change.

29. Think Clearly Question and Strategy Cards

Available at: thnkclrly.com

Icebreakers: Fan out a handful of cards and ask which card each participant most identifies with

Conversation starters: Give each participant a card and ask them how the card relates to the discussion topic or problem at hand

Past, present, future: Give each participant three cards and ask them to choose which card represents their past, present, and future

Deck type: Conversation starter, strategy, creativity

We're absolutely obsessed with the simplicity of these two free sets of printable cards, designed by Mathias Jakobsen from Think Clearly.

The Question Cards can be used for both individual and group reflection. They are divided into four categories: Beginnings, Feelings, Insights and Actions.

Available at: intuiti.it
The Strategy Cards include cards that provide structure for the conversation, as well as cards that prompt discussion.

😍 Why we love them: Their minimalistic black and white design really keeps your focus on what matters most: the prompts. The best part? Both decks are available for free download here.

Card Decks for Starting Conversations and Creating Connections

These decks are made for starting meaningful conversations, promotion wellbeing, creating connections, and facilitating cohesion.

30. Catalyst Cards

Available at: catalyst.cards

Deck type: Versatile and creative, conversation starters

Available at: uncommongoods.com
Created by Rich Goidel of Dangerous Kitchen, Catalyst Cards draw on the power of metaphorical thinking to tap into deep-seated mental models to form complex thoughts.

Each of the 52 cards in the deck features a hand-drawn archetype used to trigger visual association as a gateway to the conscious and subconscious.

The cards themselves are simple-for example, "A day at the beach," "Goldfish," or "A wizard's hat."-but they can be used as mental triggers or starting-off points for all kinds of activities.

For example:

You can play around with the online beta version here.
Available at: ridersandelephants.com
😍 Why we love them: Whereas most of the other cards on our list contain activities these cards serve as metaphorical inspiration. Because the cards are so versatile, they can be used for any type of session-from team building to retrospectives, innovation sessions, creative exploration workshops, personal development, and more.

31. Intùiti® Creative Cards

Deck type: Versatile and creative, conversation starters

Combining concepts from design, Tarot, numerology and Gestalt psychology, Intùiti is an inspirational pack of 78 hand-drawn cards and tales that help you unlock your creativity.

Designed by Matteo di Pascale at the Polytechnic University of Milan and initially funded on Kickstarter, Intùiti cards are a rich collection of archetypes-each related to a thinking model that belongs to our culture.

The deck is made up of 22 primary cards linked to archetypes and existential moments (e.g. The Beginning, The Gestation, The Change) and 56 secondary cards linked to the four elements and emotions (e.g. Air/Mind, Water/Emotion, Earth/Material).

For a complete guide on how to use Intùiti, check out their free manual.

Intùiti is available in both English and Italian.

😍 Why we love it: The cards are beautifully illustrated. You can explore them all in the Intùiti Virtual Experience.

32. The Box of Emotions

Deck type: Wellbeing, conversation starters

Available at: superpowers.sypartners.com
This set of 80 cards is a tool to help groups put words to their feelings. The deck was designed by researchers at the Centre for the History of the Emotions in London to help you make sense of your moods and to develop your sense of self-awareness.

Each card features a specific emotion, a miniature essay on its nuances, and a visual to match.

You'll find the classic emotions like cheerfulness, irritation, or calm, along with some new ones, like 'fago'-a unique blend of compassion, sadness, and love.

😍 Why we love it: Sometimes, our emotions block us from coming up with great ideas or taking the next step. Using these cards to name your emotion and work on resolving it can be mentally freeing.

Available at: meetingspicer.com
33. The Emotional Culture Deck

Deck type: Wellbeing, conversation starters

Micro activities: 30-second activities designed to help your team examine their habits, goals, and team dynamics in order to take more responsibility for their actions and be more present. There are start cards for the beginning of each meeting (e.g. "Ask everyone to think silently for 20 seconds about what outcome they expect from the meeting") and end cards (e.g. "Ask someone remoteIf we achieved just one single thing today, what is it?"

Role cards: Meeting participants are given roles and responsibilities for the meetings, such as "Time Keeper" or "Call Facilitator."

Time cards: Double-sided time cards that you can hold up to show how much time is remaining for a topic or activity.

Designed by Riders & Elephants, ​​The Emotional Culture Deck is a unique card game that facilitates face-to-face human conversations about what matters. It nudges vulnerability, builds empathy, creates connections, and fosters trust within teams.

The Emotional Culture Deck is a simple card game toolkit that helps leaders uncover what motivates their people and then map your team's desired team culture.
Available at: holstee.com
You can either use the deck with organizational leaders or employees. Each person gets their own deck to avoid groupthink. For leaders, it asks questions like "How do we want our people to feel at work?", which leads to a collective agreement on how people should behave at work.

😍 Why we love them: They have a free PDF that you can download and experiment with right away!

34. At My Best Cards

Available at: atmybest.com

Available at: theschooloflife.com
Deck type: Wellbeing, team dynamics and team cohesion

At My Best has a series of card decks that are based on the principles of positive psychology-helping people develop narratives around their own strengths and successes.

They currently have two physical card decks available, Strengths Cards and Good Questions Cards, as well as a collection of virtual card decks at deckhive.com (which is still in beta).

😍 Why we love them: Sometimes all that's needed is a little positive encouragement. These decks are great for reminding yourself of why you're awesome!

35. Superpowers

Deck type: Team dynamics and cohesion, conversation starters

Superpowers is a tool to help participants and teams learn about their individual superpowers, and how to use them to be at their best. It's designed by SYPartners and available as a physical card deck and as a paid Apple or Android app.

The deck is designed to help teams understand how each member can uniquely contribute to the whole of the team. The deck features 21 superpowers, such as empathy, motivation, and creative thinking.

😍 Why we love them: For remote teams, it can be hard to get to know each other's greatest strengths-as most remote icebreakers focus on personal questions. Superpowers is a great way to learn more about your team's "work" selves.

36. The Meeting Spicer

Deck type: Team dynamics and team cohesion, conversation starters

Are most of your meeting unproductive? The Meeting Spicer is a coaching tool designed to help teams own and hack their meeting culture.

The deck consists of three types of card:

😍 Why we love them: It's easy to agree on best practices for meetings, but hard to enforce them on a regular basis. The Meeting Spicer deck builds structure into your meetings without a lot of prep work.

37. Holstee Reflection Cards

Deck type: Team dynamics and team cohesion, conversation starters

Tired of the same old team-building icebreaker questions? Holstee's Reflection Cards are a fun way to spark meaningful conversations and deepen relationships with your team or the people in your life.

Every 52-card deck includes over 100 thought-provoking questions centered around mindful themes like adventure, creativity, and resilience.

😍 Why we love them: The Reflection Cards are great for team building, but you can also use them with friends, family, and coworkers.

38. Digital Connection Cards

Deck type: Team dynamics and cohesion, Conversation starter

This deck's tagline says it all: "Foster Closeness at a Distance". This Digital Connections deck contains exercises, questions, and prompts designed to foster richer interactions.

In a nutshell, these cards help us communicate and build authentic connections online.

Available at: management30.com
‍ 😍 Why we love them: The deck's tone is a mixture of humorous, kind, vulnerable, and touching. The prompts aren't your typical icebreaker questions. Some of them invite participants to sit in silence for 80 seconds, others invite them to draw their feelings in an abstract way, while others might invite a personal and vulnerable conversation around things we'd like to forgive, or things we regret.

39. We! Connect Cards

Deck type: Team dynamics and cohesion, conversation starters

Use these 60 square cards to spark conversations that built trust and connection.

Designed by Chad Littlefield, the deck provides you with fast-paced prompts that move beyond icebreaking in favor of fostering real connections.

The questions are designed to break down communication barriers and management hierarchies within teams and organizations.

Check-out the We! Engage Cards as well-a deck of 56 cards, each with an inspiring, thought-provoking quote on one side and a powerful photo on the other.

‍ 😍 Why we love them: The cards are divided into three categories: the green cards ask fun and light questions, the blue cards go a bit deeper, and the 20 purple cards encourage self-reflection. This allows you create safety as you move from green to blue to purple.

40. ULEAD Facilitation cards

Available at: uleadinc.org

Deck type: Team dynamics and cohesion, conversation starters

This multi-faceted 54-card deck will help energize your group, inspire participation, manage change, overcome resistance, and most importantly, promote fun!

The deck comes with 5 activity cards with 10 concrete activities that use different combinations of quotes, questions, letters, images, emotions, and animals.

😍 Why we love them: The activities are awesome for getting people up and moving. For a preview of the activity cards, have a look here. They also come in a metal flip-top case, which is a treat in and of itself!

41. The Values Cards

Available at: qcards.com.au

Goal: "How is your understanding of the goal different now?"

Process: "How could you have made the process more/less pleasant?"

etc.

Deck type: Strategy, team dynamics and cohesion

The Values Cards by Qcards help individuals, couples, teams, and organizations explore what truly matters to them in their relationships or work.

This exploration helps clarify core values and inspires positive changes. The words used in each of the 53 values in the cards are deliberately open to individual interpretation, which helps participants express their own values.

😍 Why we love them: The authors have also included three blank cards for values that may crop up in conversation, but are not represented in the set.

42. Improv Cards

Deck type: Conversation Starters, Team Dynamics and Cohesion, Creativity

Want to get participants out of their comfort zones? Improv Cards are perfect as a little creative icebreaker.

Improve Cards teach people how to be better communicators and stretch their personal limits as you work through change management or work on increasing employee engagement.

They're impossibly simple: you pull as many cards as you want and ask someone to improvise a story based on the drawings on the card. You can place constraints on the activity or just let the imagination run wild.

😍 Why we love them: You don't even have to wait for your printed deck to arrive. You can screenshare their fully digital version as part of your next remote workshop.

43. Teamwords: The Working Deck

Available at: askthesherwins.com

Deck type: Team dynamics and cohesion, session design

If you're ever aligning new teams, helping teams that are in trouble, planning for future growth, or encouraging dialogues around cultural differences, give these cards a whirl.

They help you identify your team's goals, describe your shared values, and agree on what behaviors will lead to success.

😍 Why we love them: The deck simplifies the process of identifying and talking about our individual values and then linking these with concrete behaviours. They make a topic that's usually fluffy and ground it in reality.

Card Decks for Debriefing

Alright, so we only have one deck in this category. But it's a good one!

44. The Debriefing Cube

Available at: kilearning.net

Deck type: Debriefing and reflection

The Debriefing Cube is a debriefing set designed by Chris Caswell and Julian Kea with the goal of helping teams solidify their learnings after group sessions, games, or workshops. Each set consists of 61 cards, 4 dice, and either a wooden or paper box.

The six sides of the dice represents a different reflection lens or perspective (Goal, Process, Group Dynamics, Communication, Emotions, and Take-away). Each perspective is represented by a color in the deck, so participants can choose debriefing questions that relate to their perspective, allowing you to answer questions, such as:

😍 Why we love them: Besides the beautiful wooden box, you can also download the debriefing cube PDF for free here.

Butter up your flashcard decks

With the release of Butter Flashcard Decks, you can now use your favorite flashcards directly within the window of your next virtual session-there's no more need to hold up physical cards to your screen.

With Butter's Flashcard decks tool, you can easily recreate any of the above decks as a tool in your Toolbox, and then use the decks again and again in any session.

Here's a quick demo from Jakob, our CEO, on how to upload your own Flashcard Deck:

For full directions, you can check out the Flashcard Decks page in the Butter Handbook.

To try flashcards in your next session, try Butter for free right now!

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44 facilitation card decks to inspire your next workshop

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Facilitation card decks give you an entire facilitation toolbox in your pocket. Because these decks remind us of card games, they feel like play. Participants leave their work personas behind and embrace silliness, vulnerability, and fun. Some decks help you plan your entire workshop flow.

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Introduction

When you feel included and engaged, do you do a better job? Do you think teams in which people work well together produce much better results? Have you noticed the best ideas often come from unexpected sources? Do you want to work at the top of your intelligence and give the same opportunity to others?

If YES, we have found this is the kind of organization and community that people want to be part of. AND, Liberating Structures help make it happen.

So why is it that so many organizations of all stripes are filled with disengaged workers, dysfunctional groups and wasted ideas?

While there will always be some justification for blaming leaders (or professors and administrators in education), the more compelling and useful explanation is not that people involved are bad, stupid or incompetent, but rather that the practices they have all learned are neither adapted to today's realities nor designed to achieve the ideals listed above.

Unwittingly, the conventional structures used to organize how people routinely work together stifle inclusion and engagement.

Conventional structures are either too inhibiting (presentations, status reports and managed discussions) or too loose and disorganized (open discussions and brainstorms) to creatively engage people in shaping their own future. They frequently generate feelings of frustration and/or exclusion and fail to provide space for good ideas to emerge and germinate. This means that huge amounts of time and money are spent working the wrong way. More time and money are then spent trying to fix the unintended consequences.

Liberating Structures start with something so simple and essential as not to seem worth doing and end with something so powerful and profound that it hardly seems possible.

This website offers an alternative way to approach and design how people work together. It provides a menu of thirty-three Liberating Structures to replace or complement conventional practices.

Liberating Structures used routinely make it possible to build the kind of organization that everybody wants. They are designed to include everyone in shaping next steps.

Liberating Structures introduce tiny shifts in the way we meet, plan, decide and relate to one another. They put the innovative power once reserved for experts only in hands of everyone.

This alternative approach is both practical and feasible because Liberating Structures are quite simple and easy to learn. They can be used by everyone at every level, from the executive suite to the grassroots. No lengthy training courses or special talents are required. Mastery is simply a matter of practice. LS routinely unleash a vast reserve of contributions and latent innovations waiting to be discovered.

Every person interested in leading change-in schools, hospitals, foundations, agencies, and businesses-can use Liberating Structures to generate innovation and great results.

Liberating Structures are easy-to-learn microstructures that enhance relational coordination and trust. They quickly foster lively participation in groups of any size, making it possible to truly include and unleash everyone. Liberating Structures are a disruptive innovation that can replace more controlling or constraining approaches.

Click on any Liberating Structure below.

Leaders know that they would greatly increase productivity and innovation if only they could get everyone fully engaged. The challenge is how. Liberating Structures are novel, practical and no-nonsense methods to help you accomplish this goal with groups of any size.

Liberating Structures spark inventiveness by minimally structuring the way we interact while liberating content or subject matter. Very simple constraints unleash creative adaptability, generating better than expected results. Individual brilliance and collective wisdom are unbridled. Such a dramatic shift cannot be THAT simple, engaging, and powerful but it is. Read Getting Started if you are ready to liberate yourself.

By design, Liberating Structures distribute control so that participants can shape direction themselves as the action unfolds.

Learning Events

Immersion workshops are a great way to get started. Like a foreign language immersion course that temporarily relocates you away from a familiar culture, a LS immersion experience is a very effective way to learn. There are no presentations, facilitated discussions, status reports, brainstorming sessions, or open discussions. Only Liberating Strucutres arepracticed. Organizing a workshop for people in your working group can accelerate "fluency."

Check out News and Events for more immersion workshops and LS User Group meetings. Subscribe to LS News & get access to archives here.

Liberating Structures are immeasurably practical. Our world is increasingly complex, interdependent, and culturally diverse. Many of our most pressing challenges cut across geographic, cultural, and technical boundaries. Simple methods that help us work together productively are central to making progress.

Helpful Analogies
Like Wikipedia, LS create simple rules to guide and liberate everyone's contributions. Wikipedia's must-dos and must-not dos specify how anyone can write articles, edit content, reach consensus about the facts, and share with attribution. This structure makes it possible for a diverse community to generate and sustain accurate content that compares favorably with professionally edited encyclopedias. Like Wikipedia, LS is a disruptive innovation in regard to how we engage people in organizations.

Like improv jazz, LS sparks freedom that arises from shared understanding of simple rules. Great jazz comes from playing creatively within the context of melodic and harmonic structure. Like water in a river, LS takes the shape of the banks that it touches: adapting a similar pattern at every scale and in each local setting.

Below: watch this inspired video by Professor Arvind Singhal talking about liberating education and the role of changemakers. UnScripTED: Liberating Structures

Read this practical article "Tiny Tweaks That Help You Use LS" by Barry Overeem.

Simple Ways to Engage Everyone on Zoom: Learn Several Liberating Structures in 30 minutes from Media Changemakers on Vimeo.
Unscripted #2 Liberating Structures with Dr. Arvind Singhal from Media Changemakers on Vimeo.
Lisa Gill is a fabulous writer and top drawer interviewer. Her Leadersmorphosis series dives deeply into self organizing @ work. Put your ear to this interivew she conducts with Henri and Keith.

Below, enjoy scenes from the LCJP Restorative Justice Summit. Liberating Structures were used to organize a three day event full of learning, designed to advance the Restorative Justice movement. Restorative Justice (RJ) aims to create communities in which people feel safe by carefully structuring opportunities for offenders to make amends and victims to regain their personal power. Restorative Justice practitioners found Liberating Structures to be highly structured, liberating better than expected results.

2012 CO RJ Summit Video from LCJP on Vimeo.

LS were used to design the Transformation of Nursing summit. Coalitions from all 50 states and DC came together to advance the cause.

For the United Nations ITC-ILO, Henri and Keith offered a Liberating Structures immersion workshop and follow-up consulting sessions. (The Centre is in Turin Italy.) The focus was how to organize for promoting decent work and sustainable development by not over-helping but rather facilitating networked self-organization.

Ten Principles

While the individual LS microstructures are powerful separately, they function as an interrelated set which can transform an entire organization. The LS repertoire is inspired by ten liberating principles.

When we decide we belong together, LS principles help to guide behavior and leadership actions. Detailed descriptions here.

The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures book! Preview and buy on Amazon. The color paperback ($49.95 USD), black&white ($19.95 USD) and e-book are now available on the Amazon website. Amazon offers deep discounts and free shipping to some customers.

The development team at Holisticon is happy to announce that the Liberating Structures App is now available in the Google Play and Apple App Stores. A deep bow to their creative genius. Happy downloading!

Audio: A very playful Brave New Work podcast with Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans. On Liberating Structures with Lorenz Sell of Sutra and Keith. Lorenz asks the deepest questions about collective intelligence, generativity, and complexity science. (50 minutes) Coaching Zone Podcast with Keith and Dr. Krister Lowe. The focus is on how leaders and teams can develop more productive habits with LS. [45 minutes] Radio Interview with Meisha Rouser, organizational psychologist. The focus is on groups working at the top of their intelligence and imagination. And a third podcast interview with Amiel Handelsman that dips into specific LS microstructures and their use by groups to generate innovative cultures. [60 minutes].

Check out Falling Off the Horse while faciliating & leading with Liberating Structures. This article by Keith McCandless describes a personal path forward. It includes what is possible to stop doing when LS is integrated into your practice.

LS are inspired by complexity science. Listen to this entertaining RadioLab program on Emergence to learn about some of the underlying concept of complexity science.

LS User Groups (inventing and enlivening a new way to organize) Open Letter from a Grateful Student to All Educators
Rhapsody for Strings!

Below: early LS users and co-developers in Latin America, Europe, Canada and the USA.

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liberating structures, social invention.net, microstructures, disruptive innovation, behavior change, collaboration, social invention, diffusion of innovation, strategy, transformation, heuristics, complexity science, emergence

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