Recently I taught a one week course that took people out of their workplace for 4 consecutive days. While this course was effective in delivering the material, I definitely thought the students would get more out of it if it were stretched over two weeks.
In September, I will be teaching a course using this method of having two consecutive days over two consecutive weeks rather than have one week of 4 days. While this may prohibit some from traveling from out of town, it will give students the opportunity to reflect between sessions and also bring back some of their work to work to apply between sessions.
What can you do to make your training “breathe”?
1. Give your students more time to reflect on what they are learning between sessions.
2. Utilize training time for the “exciting stuff” – class discussions, interactive activities.
3. Save the “boring stuff” (slides, long lectures) for self-paced reflection by the participants where possible.
Look at how you schedule your training, and see how you can provide your students with a better formula for success.
