Joining the hour-long discussion about pursuing careers in training-teaching-learning today on the latest episode of Maurice Coleman’sT is for Training once again helped make something obvious to me: it’s all about love.
T is for Training Logo
You could hear, as each one of us on the audio recording described how we began working as trainer-teacher-learners in library settings, the same theme that runs through most conversations I have with colleagues engaged in designing and facilitating learning opportunities onsite and/or online throughout the world: we really love what we do. We love the opportunities the work provides for us to make a difference among the learners we serve and the patrons-customers-clients those learners ultimately serve. We love the shared sense of achievement we have with learners when our efforts help them become better at or more knowledgeable about something they wanted to pursue. We love the never-ending challenge of having to learn new things so we can stay at least a couple of steps ahead of those we serve. And we love the fact that many of us involved in workplace learning and performance (staff training) found our way into the profession in ways other than through overt decisions.
It’s not as if any of us can remember a conversation in a kindergarten playground that included the words, “When I grow up, I’m going to be a trainer,” much less the even more specific, “When I grow up, I’m going to work in staff training for libraries.” One T is for Training colleague, in fact, noted that she did pursue an academic degree in teaching elementary-school students before realized she didn’t even like other people’s children—a somewhat discouraging obstacle to her initial plans; my own feeling is that we’re tremendously fortunate that she found a more compatible audience in the adult learners she so effectively serves today.
For those of us in the T is for Training conversation and for numerous other colleagues with whom I’ve had this conversation, training-teaching-learning was something that came our way when a colleague or an insistent manager or supervisor told us that we seemed to have an ability to help others learn what they have to learn, assured us that we “talk real pretty,” and decided that we would be great at designing and delivering learning opportunities for others. After the initial elation of being acknowledged for being good at anything at all began to subside, we generally were overcome by sheer terror when we realized we had very little formal training in how to help others learn, so we spent the next few years scrambling to absorb everything we possibly could about a subject and a skill we were supposed to have already mastered.
It is, during that catching-up-to-be-where-we-were-supposed-to-be-yesterday process, that love sets in. We love the fact that we discover many colleagues who not only have suffered through this “Great! I’m a trainer. Now what do I do?” experience but who are also quite willing to share tips and experiences and resources. If we’re in libraries, we discover that the American Library Association has plenty of groups that include our best training-teaching-learning colleagues, e.g., the Learning Round Table, the Library and Information Technology Association (LITA), and the Library Instruction Round Table (LIRT). If we’re engaged in exploring ways to effectively use educational technology to support learning, we find plenty of wonderfully innovative (and very patient) colleagues in the New Media Consortium. If we are looking for a global learning organization comprised of colleagues in training-teaching-learning, we find a first-rate professional family in the Association for Talent Development (formerly ASTD, the American Society for Training & Development).
We also love the fact that nearly everything we do contributes to our increasing skills in training-teaching-learning. If we have an engaging learning experience, we incorporate the best of that experience into the learning we design and facilitate. If we have a terrible learning experience, we add it to the list of indignities we will never (intentionally) inflict on other learners. If we hear a colleague describe a successful learning exercise or instructional-design technique or engaging way to prepare slide decks for onsite or online learning sessions, we absorb them and share them. We write articles about them.We do presentations about them. We discuss them within T is for Training and our numerous other communities of learning. And we sustain that insatiable hunger for constant improvement by immediately following that successful acquisition of a new training-teaching-learning tip or technique with the words, “That was great. What’s next?”
That love of training-teaching-learning extends to a love of sharing our enthusiasm with those who may be following in our footsteps sooner than later, as was clear when we discussed tips for those currently earning the academic degrees necessary for successful careers within libraries. Not surprisingly, we all encouraged current MLS/MLIS students to pursue any opportunity available to take courses about training-teaching-learning. The less-obvious advice that we consistently offered was to “take initiative and be creative” in seeking and developing those opportunities. If an information-school program isn’t specifically offering courses in the fundamentals of teaching and learning or isn’t offering courses in instructional design (and this appears to be a huge gap in most programs I’ve explored), students can shape those learning experiences by seeking a willing faculty member who will oversee independent, semester-long individual-study projects that allow the student to learn by creating his or her own curriculum that results in a concrete final project which, in turn, may be publishable—a winning situation in that the learner gains recognition for the effort expended, and the entire community of learning has grown through the addition of what that project documents and suggests.
Although our T is for Training conversation didn’t explicitly move in this direction, it could easily have included suggestions that those seeking careers in training-teaching-learning (and those needing new, engaging, inspiring trainer-teacher-learners) work to establish formal mentorships and apprenticeships. It’s obvious to my colleagues and to me that lifelong learning is an essential element to success in contemporary workplaces, and it’s obvious to me that our commitment to lifelong learning is what makes us competitive—and useful to those we serve. The more we can do to draw people into the ever-evolving world of training-teaching-learning, support them in their growth as part of our own professional growth process, and draw them into our professional associations (e.g., ALA and ATD) as well as our formal and informal onsite and online communities of learning, the more successful we all will be. And the more love we’ll have to share.
There are at least two lessons here for all the trainer-teacher-learners arriving in Philadelphia for the American Library Association (ALA) 2014 Midwinter meeting from Friday, January 24 – Tuesday, January 28: like well-composed songs, the work we do can be approached in myriad ways, and like the advice in that song on High Hopes suggests, we need to dream—and dream big.
Dreaming (and then acting upon those dreams) is, of course, at the heart of any conference of the caliber of the ALA Midwinter Meeting. This, unlike its larger, more presentation-oriented counterpart held each summer by ALA, is where Association staff and members gather to do the actual business of ALA within the context of the numerous division, round table, and other committee meetings that draw participants from across the country together for several few days, and I couldn’t be happier than to be among them.
This, for me, is a chance to participate (as a volunteer serving on the ALA Publishing Committee) in that committee’s work through a daylong planning and review session; we will, among other things, be dreaming and acting upon ideas to assure that ALA publications continue meeting Association members’ needs. I also hope to catch up with colleagues in the ALA Learning Round Table, where volunteers dream about and actively promote continuing education and staff development among their colleagues in libraries across the United States. With any luck, I’ll also be able to attend at least part of the American Libraries Advisory Committeemeeting so I can learn more about what colleagues have been doing to make American Libraries online and in print a dynamic source of information and a means for promoting discussions and actions on issues affecting those fabulous learning organizations that we serve on a daily basis.
Each of those groups is composed of ALA staff along with ALA members who are interested enough in Association business to travel, at their own expense, to help shape and further the business of an organization they/we support through our collaborative efforts. And the fact that these business/committee meetings draw us together each January is just the beginning: the formally scheduled meetings are just part of the learning opportunities we create for each other. Some of us arrive early so we can attend informal dinners to keep each other up to date on the trends and challenges we are seeing in the industry we serve. At least a couple of us will be serving as guest bloggers on the American Libraries blog. Some of us fill otherwise unscheduled time by attending panel discussions on topics including tech developments in libraries, digital learning initiatives, how massive open online courses (MOOCs) might benefit libraries and library users, and how partnerships and collaborations benefit libraries and members of the communities they serve. And some of us look forward to those unplanned encounters that bring us together with some of the best, most dynamic colleagues we have so we can exchange ideas; become inspired, once again, by what those colleagues are accomplishing; and return home to even more effectively tackle the challenges we willingly face. Because we care. And because we dream, baby, dream.
Celebrating Connected Educator Month, for those of us involved in training-teaching-learning, is a bit like celebrating the existence of air: connections pump life into much of what we do, yet we often take them for granted rather than indulging in joyfully inclusive acknowledgement of what they produce.
What makes Connected Educator Month personal, furthermore, is the opportunity it provides to reflect on the connections that support and inspire us and those we serve, so here’s a challenge to colleagues near and far: post your own thoughts, in response to this article and Connected Educators Month in general, here on this blog as well as on your own blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and anywhere else that allows us to strengthen the connections that so effectively support us and make us so much better than we would be without them.
Looking at connections within my own learning environment makes me realize how fortunate and wealthy I am in terms of what connections and connectivity provide at every possible level. There is the joy of being part of a vibrant and vital community of learning that I experience each time I participate on one of the online weekly tweet chats organized by colleagues via #lrnchat, as I noted in an article I wrote and posted just days before learning about Connected Educator Month. There is the breadth and scope of resources I find every time I engage with colleagues in the American Society of Training & Development (ASTD) at the local, regional, and national levels, as I’ve so frequently noted on this blog. There are the numerous and invaluable conversations and exchanges with ALA Learning Round Table colleagues over dinners while we have attended conferences together. And there is the ongoing unparalleled learning experience that comes my way each year through participation in the New Media ConsortiumHorizon Project, which brings together a relatively small group of colleagues from a number of different countries to collaborate within a stimulating online environment and through face to face annual summits to explore developments and trends in technology, education, and creativity.
The multi-directional connectedness doesn’t even stop there; the more I look at each of these groups and opportunities, the more I realize how interconnected the various groups are. Participating in the #lrnchat session last night reminded me that #lrnchat includes members of the ASTD, #etmooc, and #xplrpln communities—and the frequent mention of the Personal Learning Networks course during the chat is leading more members of #lrnchat to join us in exploring what #xplrpln offers and is developing. Looking at the growing list of #xplrpln participants has introduced me to #etmooc participants I hadn’t met while #etmooc coursework was in progress. Looking at the list of colleagues in the Horizon Project in previous years brought the unexpectedly wonderful realization that it included a great colleague from the American Library Association. And diving into the current Horizon Project explorations of developments in personal learning networks obviously connects what I’m doing there and in the MOOC so that the learning opportunities flow both ways between those two communities.
There’s a distinct possibility that connectivism could become another of those buzz words that linger on the edge of our consciousness without ever developing into something tangible—at a human level—if we give it the proverbial fifteen minutes of fame/attention and then move on. Or it could become another element of an ever-increasing set of tools and resources that allow us to transcend geographic, occupational, and time-zone boundaries. In a world where we often bemoan the loss of community, we can just as easily celebrate its expansion. And that’s why Connected Educator Month seems, to me, to be a great opportunity to celebrate. Reflect. And grow.
There were quite literally moments when we found ourselves exclaiming “I wish I had done that.” There were also those painful moments when we watched someone else falling into a presentation trap we wish we had avoided.
One of the most exquisite learning moments for me came as I was sitting with ALA Learning Round Table colleagues at one of their conference board meetings. The conversation centered around the question of whether the group should incur the cost of having a microphone for a presenter at a small event at an upcoming conference. I halfway—but only halfway—jokingly suggested that anyone who needed a microphone for that event in that small venue probably wasn’t the right presenter for the session.
And that’s when a lovely colleague, with absolutely no rancor in her voice, said that although she knows many presenters believe they don’t need microphones to be heard, those presenters are inadvertently excluding members of their audience who are hearing-impaired—as she is. It was a humbling yet wonderfully instructive moment for any of us who let our egos get in the way of our goal of making it easy for every learner to participate in the learning opportunities we have agreed to provide—particularly those of us doltish enough to have never been aware of how effectively some of our longtime colleagues deal with challenges we never noticed they faced. Her comment was instructive—and inspirational. I immediately moved into full trainer-teacher-learner mode, documented that presentation tip, and tweeted it out to the conference backchannel as well as to colleagues across the country in the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD) in the hope that a few more learners will benefit from our colleague’s suggestion.
Not so easy to share in the moment were the examples of poor preparation or presentation techniques that plagued colleagues at some of the sessions I attended—just as these same problems, somewhat surprisingly, plague some ASTD conference presenters even though we work in a profession where first-rate communication skills are essential. To have pointed those problems out via Twitter at the time they were happening would have tantamount to publicly humiliating the presenters—and I’m sorry to say that there actually were people on the conference backchannel who engaged in exactly that sort of cruel and unnecessary behavior. But I think it’s fair game, long after the presentations have ended and there is no obvious need to identify individuals under discussion, to offer yet another brief presenter’s tip sheet for anyone who wants to avoid the sort of presentation mistakes all of us have made—and wished we hadn’t.
We all learn the hard way that we need to plan, practice, revise, plan, practice, revise, and plan some more in the weeks and days leading up to our presentation. This will keep us from finding that parts of slides or entire slides have somehow disappeared from our PowerPoint slide decks when we’re in front of our audience.
It’s also very important to be in the space where we are presenting at least 30 minutes before we begin our presentation so we can be sure, by viewing the slides on the screen in that space, that any tech gremlins that have crept into our slides can be adjusted. That prevents us from finding that columns of text have shifted (which raises the question of why we’re even bombarding our learners with columns of text) and become an indecipherable jumble of words.
Being in the room before others arrive also allows for a final sound check of the microphone—and remember, we do want a microphone even if we think we won’t need one. Checking links to onsite resources we plan to use will prevent us from wasting five or ten minutes struggling to bring up a video or other online resource when we actually should be engaging with our audience during our formal presentation time. And being present as others arrive also offers the invaluable opportunity to begin connecting with the learners before the formal presentation begins and to be sure that their expectations for the session are what we are planning to deliver.
Avoiding references to how we have had to condense hour-long/day-long presentations into the much shorter period of time we have during the session we are currently delivering accomplishes nothing other than making us sound ungrateful and adding a bit of stress to learners who feel as if they are going to have to be extra attentive if they want to absorb this condensed version of what we wanted to offer. We knew, when we accepted the gift of being able to share information and resources with colleagues, how much time we had. It’s just plain polite to publicly thank those who brought us into that learning space and to effectively use the time we have rather than wasting any of it apologizing or grousing about the lack of time to do our subject—and our audience—justice.
Using slides that interact with and support our oral presentation rather than including the history of the world on a single slide keeps our presentations engaging rather than turning them into frustrating, overwhelming experiences during which audience members are forced to unsuccessfully try reading all that text while also trying to take in what we are saying. And we certainly don’t want to read content on the slides to our learners; we can safely assume they already know how to read, so if we want them to absorb content, we can join them in looking at the slide and giving ourselves enough time to read a line or two (e.g., an appropriate quote from someone who said it better than we ever will be able to say it), and we can use those slides to provide engaging images designed to help learners absorb key points.
Answering questions immediately rather than trying to postpone responses demonstrates that we care about our audience’s learning needs. There’s no reason why we can’t provide a one-line response—if we have one—and then return to our planned presentation after assuring learners that a longer explanation is on its way later in the presentation if that’s the case. We can also provide that one-line response and encourage interested audience members to join us after the session or contact us later via email to further explore the topic. Asking audience members to hold all questions until we are finished speaking implies that our content is more important than their questions are—not particularly the message we want to send to people who were nice enough to choose to spend their extremely limited and valuable time with us.
If we see our presentation/learning-facilitation opportunities as a collaboration with those who have agreed to spend time with us, we’re well on the way to providing the sort of transformative experiences that are at the heart of successful training-teaching-learning. And, not so surprisingly, we may even have the rewarding experiences of being asked to present again or to hear, years later, from those who learned from us, applied what we offered, and sought us out to thank us for offering them something of value.
Impressionism—both the art movement and our ability to take in hundreds of disparate shard-like visual impressions from which our minds work to create meaningful patterns—continually entices, seduces, and helps make sense of the wonderfully chaotic experience of having all of our senses continually bombarded in ways that change how we see, think about, and interact with our world after attending a conference as dynamic as ALA13.
And when we carry this Impressionism-influenced thinking into the McCormick Place buildings drawing more than 25,000 conference attendees together through an abundance of planned activities and countless serendipitous encounters that are so much at the heart of what makes this particular community of learning so vibrant, we find ourselves unexpectedly making literary as well as artistic connections. Which should not be surprising; it’s a natural reaction to swimming through an environment where publishers are providing hundreds of advance copies of books to be published in the weeks and months to come, authors are discussing and signing copies of those works, and our best colleagues are offering inspiring sessions and panel discussions on myriad topics that nurture our minds and hearts and souls.
The first (admittedly obscure) literary reference for me today came as I was sitting in a coffee house on Michigan Avenue this evening for a period of reflective solitude. The temperature outside had dropped quite a bit from the hot humid weather we were all experiencing a day or two ago. A strong wind was playing the trees as if they were finely tuned instruments or dancers responsive to a choreographer’s dreams of poetry in motion. A light rain was about to once again dampen the traffic-laden streets. But that didn’t stop the staff and me from running outside to look up as a beautiful stream of Chinese lanterns floated over the trees and nearby skyscrapers. And just as the flickering candlelight within the lanterns began to fade and the spent ghostly paper remnants drifted down like spirits in search of a resting place, thunderous explosions drew our attention to the colorful fireworks that were quickly rising from Navy Pier.
Fiammiferi, I thought, involuntarily recalling an Italian word I hadn’t seen or heard in years. Matchsticks! But it wasn’t just the physical object that was overwhelming me with a torrent of pleasantly nostalgic memories. It was the pleasant emotions recreated by the recollection that I had first encountered the word fiammiferi as the title of a collection of impressionistic short stories—each one creating the literary equivalent of the dynamically explosive moment that occurs when a match is first struck, bursts into flame, and produces a pleasantly sulphurous smell that itself induces a sensory—and sensual—flood of memories.
So, in the space of a single heartbeat, my mind was connecting the sight of those Chinese lanterns with the sights and sounds of the fireworks with the memories of those wonderfully phosphorescent stories in a language I very much adore with the memories of other fireworks seen while attending other ALA Annual meetings with all the explosively phosphorescent moments I had shared with library conference colleagues today. Like the incredibly long line I faced for morning coffee at the conference center. Or the wonderfully playful moment in a restaurant when a group of us volunteered our services to a family at a nearby table (one of their children was crying inconsolably, so we offered to put our professional skills to work by offering a synchronized shush—which actually surprised the child so much that the crying immediately stopped, and the other family members burst into laughter at the thought that a group of librarians had created temporary silence out of chaos for them). Or the wonderful learning moments provided by ALA Learning Round Table colleagues participating in a panel discussion on “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” of providing training-teaching-learning for library staff and library users. Or the wonderfully unrestrained conversation with a colleague who plays in the same training-teaching-learning field of consulting that is so much a part of my own day-to-day existence.
Fiammiferi. Impressions. Fireworks. Learning. Inspiration. And memories. All very much in the moment. Unplanned. Ephemeral. Phosphorescent. And cherished as gems to be preserved because we help shape and nurture them through our participation in conferences, and give them extended lives by sharing them with others through the writing and presentations that weave impressionistic moments into something with a larger longer life than any individual participant expects to have.
Facilitators Maurice Coleman and Sandra Smith, who serve on the Learning Round Table board of directors, facilitated a 90-minute session that informally took participants through a start-to-finish tour of problems and solutions in workplace learning and performance (staff training) programs. And most of the solutions came from participants themselves as experienced colleagues shared ideas and resources with those new to the profession—and those relatively new to the profession quickly learned that they had plenty to contribute through the questions that they raised and the suggestions they themselves contributed.
The session also served as a good example of facilitated and experiential learning. Participants initially identified key challenges they face in their workplace learning and performance programs. That exercise helped establish the start-to-finish overview: how to successfully manage programs with a one- or two-member training department; identify and respond to the needs of different learners (including those with diverse cultural backgrounds); choose the tech tools that allow us to manage course offerings, registration, course content, and feedback through evaluations; make learning accessible to learners; deliver effective learning opportunities; and decide how to effectively manage the evaluation process.
Attempting to tweet the responses provided a learning opportunity in and of itself: how to create a learning object from learners’ class discussions as documented through a Twitter feed in TweetChat. By capturing comments in 140-character summaries, we were able to produce the Twitter feed (available at @trainersleaders for June 25, 2012) that participants can review, and I’ve also written this article in the hope that it can alone as a useable lesson/summary of best practices cited by active trainer-teacher learners.
Several samples from the twitter feed, edited and expanded since we are not constrained by the 140-character limit in this posting, are offered here:
Reach learners who are new to tech tools by using peers as instructor/facilitators rather than always relying on those seen as “techies,” e.g., members of the organization’s IT staff.
Connect learners with learning opportunities by making information about training sessions clear and accessible.
Be sure that training sessions support organizational goals and objects so learners are effectively served by the learning opportunities they accept.
Provide clear, concise, and measurable learning objectives so managers and learners know what to expect and so that we have the framework to conduct successful and meaningful evaluations after learners return to their worksites and begin using what they learn.
Recognize that learners best absorb new information in relatively brief chunks—generally no more than 10 minutes in duration, although there is quite a bit of disagreement among trainer-teacher-learners on this topic—and offer learners frequent opportunities to apply what they are learning.
Incorporate playfulness into learning to decrease stress (which limits a learner’s ability to absorb new information) and to make the learning experience memorable, e.g., offer “sit and play” sessions where new learners become comfortable by actually using the tech devices they are going to use in their workplace.
Create online sandboxes for learners—spaces where they can find tools and resources they want to try and master.
To be sure learners use what they learn, create clear tools and avenues for accountability.
There was, of course, much more to the session than can be captured in a relatively brief summary—including the idea that some of the best learning occurring yesterday came from the realization that people from small training units are far from alone when they turn to their own communities of learning, including the ALA Learning Round Table.
“I didn’t remember ordering a couch,” she said when she joined the session in progress.
And I have to admit that we didn’t, either—at least not directly. For when we started the session, it had the typical session room set-up. Round tables surrounded by chairs. Lectern with microphone. A couple of tables with chairs for presenters and panelists. A projector throwing PowerPoint slides onto a large screen in one corner of the room. And the usual drab/neutral walls.
But we quickly changed all that by projecting a Twitter feed onto the screen via TweetChat during parts of the session and beginning the workshop with a wonderful presentation/learning technique I acquired from writer-trainer-consultant Peter Block’spresentation at the 2008 ASTDInternational Conference & Exposition in San Diego: we encouraged “Engage” participants to take two minutes at the beginning of the session to reset the room in any way that would create a space conducive to their own leaning experience. The we added to Block’s exercise by inviting them to use simple supplies we had provided—clay, construction paper, colored clay, and a few other items—to decorate the room in a way that served the same purpose. And even I, after running variations of this particular learning exercise, was astonished when a few participants carried “resetting the room” to a wonderful extreme I’d never before encountered: they stepped outside, snagged a small couch from a corridor, and brought it into the room for themselves.
As we moved through the session, we left plenty of time for learners to practice what Sharon and I were sharing with them about various styles of presentation: lecturing/telling, storytelling/sharing knowledge, inquiring/reflecting, experiencing—lots of that with this group—and creating/developing something as we did by developing a comfortably appropriate learning space for the duration of the session. We also brought blended (onsite-online) learning into the picture by explaining how many trainer-teacher-learners are using Twitter and other social media tools to connect on learners within a learning space—a fourth place, or social learning center—with learners not physically present, yet capable of engaging in what is being accomplished.
Attendees clearly absorbed and responded to ideas about incorporating an opening exercise and improvisation into learning. When someone mentioned how we often avoid the most difficult and obvious of challenges—in essence, ignoring the elephant in the middle of the room—we even suggested that we had a perfect moment to change our own clichés by agreeing to “address the couch in the middle of the room.” And then we used Twitter to share, with other conference attendees, the idea that we need to begin addressing the couch in the middle of the room.
Late in the afternoon, I finally had time to go back to the Twitter feed (#ala12soclearn, for ALA 2012 Annual Conference Social Learning; parts of it remain available as posts on June 24, 2012 at @trainersleaders). It was very encouraging to see how effectively the session participants had engaged with the material and with each other. And I had a confirmation that we still have a long way to go in Library Land in terms of how we incorporate Twitter and other social media tools into our daily work this morning: a conference attendee used the Twitter conference backchannel (#ala12) to note that someone had shouted at him for using Twitter at the conference. I hope that he and others will join us in whatever post-session conversation continues at #ala12soclearn. And that we’ll all remain ignited and engaged as we return to our workplace learning and performance (staff training) spaces.
N.B.: The PowerPoint slides and speaker notes for the presentation are available on SlideShare.
We were certainly ecstatic when Chris Rhodes, Jill Davis, and everyone else at ALA Editions supported us with a book-signing at the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference in New Orleans last year, and I remain grateful for the opportunity I had to meet more readers and potential readers through a follow-up signing here in Anaheim yesterday at the 2012 ALA Annual Conference—for it reminded me of another truism about writing and publishing: the date of publication is really just the beginning of a very long process in the current marketplace; connecting with readers through promotion is the long-term commitment we make to a book when we decide to write it.
The initial effort in New Orleans last year received a much-appreciated and unanticipated boost when we rerouted a wandering group of people dressed in Star Wars costumes into the onsite ALA bookstore and immediately turned a somewhat sedate event into a complete grand slam in terms of drawing attention to what we were doing. Darth Vader and others patiently stood with us, holding and pretending to read—at least I think they were pretending to read—copies of the book. Writing about the evening, I jokingly suggested that we would only be able to top that feat by attracting Harry Potter to our next event.
And while neither Harry nor the owl showed up yesterday, I did have a playfully fun moment the night before the signing yesterday by meeting another onsite representation of one of my childhood heroes: Spiderman. Turns out he’s actually a very nice guy. Pleasant. Patient. And willing to give half a writing team a nice boost by allowing himself to be photographed by reading a copy of the book. Which, of course, I immediately tweeted out to make my fellow ALA Conference attendees aware of the book-signing.
I can’t really fault Spiderman for not being able to attend the event himself; he was probably across the street, in Disneyland, rescuing Mickey or Minnie from renegade pirates or librarians out on the town. But I’m grateful that he did help connect me with some very supportive readers. And I continue to hope that at some point Harry Potter and the owl will be available to join me for some promotion of the book. And the overall value of workplace learning (staff training) and leadership in our lives.
N.B.: ALA Conference attendees interested in staff and public training programs are invited to join library training colleagues today (Sunday, June 24, 2012, 1:30 – 3:30 pm) in Anaheim Marriot Grand Salon G-K for the ALA Learning Round Table’s annual Training Showcase. It’s a great opportunity to learn what other workplace learning and performance professionals are doing and how you might apply their best practices in your own workplaces.
Gather small groups of training-teaching-learning colleagues over meals, as I have so many times overthepastfewyears while attending conferences, and you’ll find yourself exploding with ideas. Inspiration. And the rewards of intellectual and collegial engagement.
Which is exactly what happened once again when that sort of group here in Anaheim for the 2012 American Library Association (ALA)Annual Conference broke bread this evening—actually, we broke Chinese food, but there’s no need to be overly precise about this—and eventually moved toward a very spirited discussion about some of the trends and challenges we face in libraries as well as in other industries.
We were a smaller than usual group this time—eight instead of the usual 10 to 15—and it worked out very well. Partially because most of us found common ground through our affiliations with libraries and/or library organizations. And partially because, as usual, the gathering included some healthy cross-pollination of ideas—this time through the inclusion of two non-library colleagues from the Orange County Chapter of the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD).
There was the usual time spent just becoming reacquainted and welcoming those new friends into the group. And then we not-too-surprisingly found ourselves acknowledging that the challenges we encounter in workplace learning and performance (staff training) programs transcend industry barriers.
But what was most engaging and inspiring was not the simple recitation of what’s wrong with what we and our learners are doing; it was the willingness to dream of potential solutions to the challenges we and our learners face. In discussing the challenge of not losing institutional/ organizational knowledge as colleagues move on to other positions or retire entirely—regardless of whether we’re talking about libraries, ASTD chapters, or any other organization or group—we proposed and considered a variety of potential solutions. Wikis (which received an almost universal thumbs-down because too few people are willing to dedicate the time and effort to make a wiki thrive). Short work sabbaticals during which colleagues would take time to document the knowledge and experience they have acquired. Top-down implementation of formal knowledge-retention efforts. Informal cross-training so departing colleagues leave those still in the workplace with the knowledge needed to continue and to thrive. And even making it a requirement of a job or a service position that employees/volunteers create documentation of what they do and how they do it.
When all was said and done, we found ourselves returning to what’s at the heart of all successful training-teaching-learning: concentrating on the people, not the tech tools. Our mantra, in fact, could easily be “peer to peer; no technology”—as one colleague suggested—if we want to create a sustainable pattern of retaining and learning from the wisdom of our workplace crowds.
As the conversation moved into another perennial topic—learners who are far from engaged in the learning process—we found a variety of suggestions covering a variety of extremes. One on side, there was the dream of making learning so engaging that learners actively pursue those learning opportunities. On the opposite end of the discussion, there was the practice of firing those who will not learn and support an organization’s efforts to survive in what is clearly a very competitive environment.
And no, please don’t assume that this was just a bunch of trainers kicking around ideas with no hope of implementing them. We know of trainer-teacher-learners who successfully and consistently draw learners to their workshops, seminars, and asynchronous offerings because they are so engaging. We also know of organizations where those unwilling to keep up with changing worksite needs are offered one of two choices: rise to the challenge or rise to the need to find new work before being removed from their current positions—the choice was the employees’ choice to make.
It’s clearly sobering as well as invaluable to create and take advantage of the opportunities a conference provides for this level of conversation and exchange. It’s what draws many of us to conferences and other learning opportunities. We have the opportunity to draw upon the thoughts and experiences of some of the brightest people we know or are about to meet. It provides us with a chance to float ideas that otherwise might not have been considered. And it reminds us that rethinking our beliefs and our assumptions can be a very healthy endeavor, both for the chance it gives us to reaffirm what we hold dear, and to recognize the need to change what we might unnecessarily—and to our collective detriment—be retaining.
N.B.: Sharon Morris and I, on Sunday, June 24, 2012, will be facilitating a 90-minute workshop on how to engage workplace learners. The session, under the auspices of the ALA Learning Round Table, begins at 10:30 am at the ALA Annual Conference here in Anaheim, in Convention Center Room 203B. Hope you’ll join us for what promises to be an engaging discussion.
What has drawn me back to blogging is a desire to document the magnificent results coming from trainers’ collaborations. A key to our continuing successes in providing first-rate training opportunities through workshops, conferences, and other endeavors is that workplace learning and performance professionals seem to thrive on a fine combination of defining roles and remaining willing to step in as needed whenever time allows.
To see this process in action, you can read the entire piece at the ALA Learning blog, then continue on the same site to see what other trainers are producing.
Celebrating Life. Making positive connections and collaborating with people from around the world. Living everyday with positive energy, possibility, passion and peace of mind. Learning from a School Counsellor lens. I'm not a Counsellor because I want to make a living. I am a Counsellor because I want to make a difference. Gratitude for ETMOOC roots.
![signorelli200x300[1]](https://buildingcreativebridges.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/signorelli200x3001.jpg?w=450)
It’s not as if any of us can remember a conversation in a kindergarten playground that included the words, “When I grow up, I’m going to be a trainer,” much less the even more specific, “When I grow up, I’m going to work in staff training for libraries.” One T is for Training colleague, in fact, noted that she did pursue an academic degree in teaching elementary-school students before realized she didn’t even like other people’s children—a somewhat discouraging obstacle to her initial plans; my own feeling is that we’re tremendously fortunate that she found a more compatible audience in the adult learners she so effectively serves today.
It is, during that catching-up-to-be-where-we-were-supposed-to-be-yesterday process, that love sets in. We love the fact that we discover many colleagues who not only have suffered through this “Great! I’m a trainer. Now what do I do?” experience but who are also quite willing to share tips and experiences and resources. If we’re in libraries, we discover that the American Library Association has plenty of groups that include our best training-teaching-learning colleagues, e.g., the Learning Round Table, the Library and Information Technology Association (LITA), and the Library Instruction Round Table (LIRT). If we’re engaged in exploring ways to effectively use educational technology to support learning, we find plenty of wonderfully innovative (and very patient) colleagues in the New Media Consortium. If we are looking for a global learning organization comprised of colleagues in training-teaching-learning, we find a first-rate professional family in the Association for Talent Development (formerly ASTD, the American Society for Training & Development).
Although our T is for Training conversation didn’t explicitly move in this direction, it could easily have included suggestions that those seeking careers in training-teaching-learning (and those needing new, engaging, inspiring trainer-teacher-learners) work to establish formal mentorships and apprenticeships. It’s obvious to my colleagues and to me that lifelong learning is an essential element to success in contemporary workplaces, and it’s obvious to me that our commitment to lifelong learning is what makes us competitive—and useful to those we serve. The more we can do to draw people into the ever-evolving world of training-teaching-learning, support them in their growth as part of our own professional growth process, and draw them into our professional associations (e.g., ALA and ATD) as well as our formal and informal onsite and online communities of learning, the more successful we all will be. And the more love we’ll have to share.
Posted by paulsignorelli 
Building Creative Bridges 