Training adults?

Are you giving a presentation to adults to train new employees or group members? Here are some training tips you can use.

Adults are not little sponges, eager to soak up every last word you say. Although they may sit still and not interrupt, they quickly decide whether to pay attention or not. Presenters who ignore this fact risk losing their audience's attention - and may never know it.

1. Get adults involved in a brief interaction with the person sitting next to them or a small group, or involved in an individual exercise, every 20 minutes. Possibilities: Remember the best/worst ______ (e.g.teacher, pet, friend) you ever had. What made it so special? (Note: Memory and emotion are connected in the brain. You remember things that are emotional.) Interview the person sitting next to you, and tell your small group about his interests. There are many books and probably websites with similar training exercises.

2. Quickly show how people in the audience will benefit from your presentation. "Today, you will learn _______. This will help you by ____________."

3. If appropriate, put some clean and appropriate jokes or a funny story in your presentation. Other stories involving people using the information, or how they were affected by a situation, also help people learn.

4. Make certain your Power-point or other visual is big enough for people in the last row to see. In a recent presentation, the speaker held up a book of materials she was demonstrating.
She was apparently showing some of the exercises on a page. The people in the back row could not see anything other than the fact that she was holding a book of some sort. They were frustrated and patiently waited until she finished. If she had put the page on a Power-point slide (as she represented the publisher, copyright was not an issue), it would have been much better.

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