A few weeks ago I attended a training course. It wasn’t anything to do with my usual work, but was about learning to help children with Down Syndrome to navigate the transition to teenage years. 

As someone who regularly delivers training, I take part in learning as a delegate though that lens, experiencing it as a learner, but looking too at way the leaning is designed and delivered. The course left me with much to reflect upon, from both perspectives. 

The training itself was of the type that we now so often criticise. It was PowerPoint heavy, led from the front of the room by experts, and there wasn’t a huge amount of delegate activity. It was definitely low-tech.  There were no signs of flipped classrooms or action leaning sets or planning for knowledge transfer.  Just lots of content. 

There was an ice-breaker. A term second only to ‘role play’ for striking fear into your typical training attendee. From the oh so old school ‘introduce the person next to you’ routine to assembling pasta and marshmallows, we’ve all been there. But this was an ice breaker in every sense of the word. It was a question: ‘what word do you use with your child to describe their penis or vagina?’  Result – laughter, heads in hands, ice broken – but with an important point underneath used as a platform for serious discussion. (Children with learning disabilities should be able to have the appropriate descriptive words for their body in case they need to use them, for example to a doctor or the police). 

How often do you see an ice breaker at a learning event that either really breaks the ice, or is relevant to the learning itself? 

The extensive content was brilliantly delivered by two trainers who quickly established both their credibility and knowledge, but also their personal passion for the people that they help and support. They created a space in which it was safe to talk about difficult, deeply personal challenges. A room in which emotion could be expressed. 

It didn’t matter that the training room was bland. That it was a Sunday. That there was lot of PowerPoint and a cramming of content. No gimmicks. No workbooks or handouts. Just people who wanted to learn being taught solid content by people that understood.  

As a trainer, facilitator and occasional lecturer, I love to introduce new stuff to learners. I’m a fan of unconferences and Open Space, using technology in the classroom, MOOCs and flipped classrooms. 

But this course was a reminder, that underneath all the shiny and the new, what really matters is the quality of your content and the desire to learn from the people in the room.