Gary Thomas talks about Smart International Learning (SmILe).
Training with a SmILe
The future is blended. Probably about as many people are saying that as there are people denying and hoping it isn’t. Back in the day, training was just a face-to-face thing. If you came to a course, as a curious blank sheet, ready to discover what the trainer had to tell you. Good trainers would invest time on the first morning asking you what you wanted to learn and would then match their concept to meet your needs. All good. At the end of the training, good trainers would allocate some time to a structured focus on your next steps, your implementation plan so that you can transfer your knew knowledge and competence in the future in your work.
Good, common sense approaches, but not smart. We call it Smile, which stands for smart international learning. Training with a Smile means gathering learning objectives in advance with online needs analysis, to enable the trainer to prepare customized training that meet your needs as a learner. Secondly why wait until the day of the training to present your learners with models and concepts? Why not provide interesting theory and concepts in advance in an interactive webinar, in a virtual classroom, coupled with interactive exercises? In so doing you can free up bags of time practical exercises and developing new skills in the face-to-face sessions.
Rather than just hoping that participants put their learning into practice, why not augment the follow up audio-visual material that summarises the key content from the training so people have the opportunity to support their training content to make it really sustainable in the long term.
That’s Smile. Smart International Learning. The future really is blended.