Deeply engaging a learner requires that you attract and hold their attention and also that you involve them personally in the process of their learning.
When was the last time that a training workshop you facilitated swept your learners off their feet? That mentally, physically, and emotionally they were so engaged in the learning as to be “taken away” from the reality of life for a while? Really engaging a learner feels akin to watching a great movie: we are swept away until the movie ends and we settle back into real life.
Jane Vella, author of Learning to Listen, Learning to Teach writes about engagement as a principle of adult learning. Engagement enables learners to take an active part in the learning process and also to practice their learning as subjects of their own lives. Begin by designing learning based on a competent needs assessment. This is helping in building engagement into the learning. Here are some tips to make your learning more engaging:
- Put yourself in the learner’s shoes when designing learning. Then ask yourself: What activity would be so engaging that I’d be swept away in the learning process?
- Partner with learners to create a safe learning environment where learners feel free and open to practice, make mistakes, and to give and receive feedback.
- Design learning exercises that mirror real life, but that are way more fun!
- Create opportunities for learners to practice the skills or knowledge on their own real life scenarios.
- Make learning active (never sedentary and simply listening). Allow learners to do what you are teaching.
- Give a small group of learners the materials and resources they need to respond to an open question. Then turn your content into questions the learners can discover interactively.
- Do the unexpected while maintaining the safety of the learning environment.
Coaching Inquiries: How engaging is the learning that I design / facilitate? What engages me? What learning exercises will I toss out and replace with ones that are deeply engaging? What learning exercises will sweep my learners off their feet?
