My Unexpected Gains from Joining Train the Trainer Program
Let’s back up to where my trainer journey started….
I have had a pretty solid public speaking experience. I started giving speeches in English in front of audiences of 100+ already in high school. (Thank you, Model United Nations conferences!)
During my university years, I took courses on presentation skills and continued on my path of international conferences. I was used to giving mini workshops and presentations, first to my fellow students, and then to others, too.
For six years, I have been working with young adults under the Erasmus+ umbrella: I gave workshops, I co-hosted events with other facilitators and I conceptualised entire weeks’ programs. To do this, I built on my prior experience, attended a one-day training by TeachSurfing, and consulted with fellow facilitators and colleagues.
Yet, last year I decided to embark on the Train The Trainer journey by Trainers Toolbox with Mirna.
My reason was simple: I wanted to be more conscious about my workshop design.
The outcome? Much more than that.
But let me walk you through.
A few weeks before signing up, Mirna and I had a call. A former Train The Trainer alumni recommended her course. Nevertheless, I wanted to meet her before I decided to dedicate my time (and money) to the course. Her straightforward and pragmatic approach immediately gave a good impression.
While we explored my experience and strengths, I could finally put my challenge into words: I had been running my workshops intuitively and without full intentionality. For example, I combined input from my side as a trainer, small-group exercise, and other interactive elements – and made sure to include energizers. Just the way I saw it from other trainers.
Frankly, there is nothing wrong with that. I believe in learning by doing and in improving based on the feedback we receive. However, the feedback after a workshop was often difficult to interpret and learn from. Even if I could collect anonymous feedback, most participants would emphasize the nicer things to make me feel good or because they liked me as a human being. (And no, it is not unique to me, as I learned later in the course.)
And too often the feedback is based on how participants feel right at the end of the workshop – but what does that say about their overall learning? (And, by the way, this was one of many topics we explored during the Train The Trainer program. Again, I felt intuitively that the audience feedback was not the right measure to improve my trainer’s skills. But the theory and the discussions cleared up the picture.)
How could I make sure that the desired learning happens during my workshop?
I knew it was not enough to state the agenda on the second slide. I knew it was not enough to tell participants what they could expect to get out of a session. But I did not know how to make sure that the learning actually happened.
At Maastricht University, I was trained to think and talk in terms of learning goals. And by attending years of classes, I thought I had mastered that skill.
But maybe due to the five-year break from studying and focusing more on work, I no longer connected well to learning goals.
In my workshops, I noticed that my learning goals were not always fulfilled. Of course, every workshop was a unique case, and I could always find reasons (or excuses?) why the goals were not met.
As I knew workshops would be a more substantial part of my career, I wanted to become better.
So I did my share of reflection after the sessions… How did I prepare? What could I have told participants differently in advance? How could I have understood the audience’s background better in advance? How could I come up with more engaging activities? Was their learning impacted by my mood?
You know where I’m going with this.
I joined the recent batch of Train The Trainer by Trainer Toolbox. And I got answers to all of the above questions and more.
- I understood the importance of starting with “why” – as well as how to really leverage that “why” in practice. Sure, why I do a workshop in general, is clear. But there is a “why” behind every step of the design, and it brings the workshop to a whole new level of impact.
- I grasped different levels and depth of learning, and I also learnt to intentionally hit different depth of learning. And I love that since Train the Trainer, I have a visual model I can recall any time!
- I discovered how to make my workshop goals realistic according to the available time and further limitations. I realised that the “curse of knowledge” is a risk even in a room of motivated learners. As I got passionate about a certain topic we had to present in the program, I wanted to share. And I mean share every cool fact and insight I discovered. By that, I overwhelmed my listeners.
- As an Erasmus+ trainer, I already knew that deeper learning happens when there is experience involved and not just a presentation. In Train the Trainer program, I complemented it with how to integrate and balance it with observation and conceptualisation.
- I recognised many of my limiting beliefs about what a workshop should look like and got more confident in my creative approach. Meeting the Train the Trainer participants from very different backgrounds gave me a direct answer to my question ‘Does experience-based learning work in a corporate setting too?’
- I gained insights and inspiration on how to use my prior experience and diverse toolkit for more impactful training. My background in the coaching field can support certain topics and facilitate deeper learning.
- Through practice and the possibility to iterate my workshop delivery, I built more self-awareness of my styles as a trainer. (Yes, multiple styles! That was another eye-opening realisation.) I learned to work on my weaknesses and gained confidence from my strengths.
And, most importantly, I kept receiving feedback.
Constant, constructive and credible feedback.
On the one hand, from Mirna. On the other hand, from my fellow participants. It was great to be sitting in a (virtual) room with professionals from diverse backgrounds who all came to learn. I could utilise this wonderful opportunity to experiment with different exercises and designs, focusing on different learning styles.
And I could always rely on useful and tangible suggestions that I could immediately implement for the next session.
- We went beyond ‘How we feel after a workshop’: feedback included what was impactful and memorable and why, not just for fellow participants but understanding what works well for different learning styles.
- We turned our ‘mistakes’ into learning opportunities and could reflect on how we improved a certain skill.
- The diversity in the trainer group helped to find blind-spots: I had taken my facilitator skills for granted as most trainers I had met before were also excellent facilitators. The Train the Trainer program helped me realise that facilitation is indeed one of my strengths.
Throughout the process – thanks to the theory we learned, the models we tested and the feedback we implemented – I grew more confident.
By practicing regularly both in online and offline set-ups, I could experiment in new territories and improve in existing fields.
By being able to consciously design and creatively deliver workshops, I returned from the course as a better trainer.
In four months, with a broader toolkit and clarity in my workshop design, I became a more confident and more impactful trainer.
If you are looking for a similar experience and want to improve your trainer skills, join the next training!
If your goal is to become a better, more confident, and more impactful trainer, I surely recommend joining Mirna’s course!
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