Major Project This Week

I just ended a major project this week - teaching a series of Forensic Science workshops at a prominent local primary school (yes, primary school students in Singapore are learning pretty advanced stuff).

There being five different classes, each had its unique class culture and interesting individuals. Some were more united as a class, while others were clique-y or slightly fragmented. Some were faster on information uptake while others preferred to simply experience the activities.

As such, different teaching styles needed to be adopted for different classes. Certain concepts could be elaborated upon for certain classes while others needed to be skipped altogether for brevity.

Of course, as a result of a personal teaching style preference, the teacher will appeal more to certain types of students, and not quite as much to others.

All in all, it was a great reminder to be versatile in when teaching different groups, as well as to be mindful of the needs of my learners.

Finding Key Result Areas (From The Introvert Teacher)

As teachers, we not only want our learners to come away with new knowledge and skills but we also want to be a positive influence in their lives. We want to make an impact on them.

What, then, is the skill set we need in order to make the largest impact? Also, how do we perform these skills with excellence?

You may not have the skill set yet, or your skills could be at a low level of competency. Hence, development of the skill set is as important as identifying it.

How do we get this going? Let’s find out:

1) Write a list of the things you do in your work on a day-to-day basis.

You should do this for a fair period of time – two to three weeks at least.

For example, I research my topic and produce presentation slides for my sessions, procure useful videos, prepare for my session mentally and logistically, travel to my destination of teaching, start the lesson, go through my presentation, conduct activities, check for learning and evaluate my lesson.

What about you?

2) Answer this question for each of the listed things: ‘Why am I doing this?’

This boils down to your personal motivation for your tasks. If you cannot find a good reason for doing them, either discard them or delegate them to someone who is better at doing them.

3) Answer this question next: ‘What is a better or more efficient way to do this?’

Once you’ve come up with something, can you do it that way? Sometimes, we are encumbered by red tape and other obligations. It isn’t always possible to do things in the most efficient manner, but if you can, by any means, then do so.

September's APTS Meeting

Last night, I was at the 123rd APTS meeting. 

As was usual, there were two speakers - Richard Style and Avi Liran, both of whom happened to be speaking on a similar theme - connecting with your audience.

Richard is a professional emcee and certainly knows his way around the stage. He gave very useful tips on how to build up and maintain the energy of an audience. He admits that things are slightly different for trainers, but insists that the techniques he suggests can easily carry over.

I agree.

When he describes what he does as he is getting on stage, I notice the similarity to what I do as I am about to begin a teaching session. Both of us are looking for similar things - what Richard calls 'hotspots'.

Hotspots are groups of people who are responsive and energetic. For an emcee, this is a huge asset to lifting the overall atmosphere. For a teacher, it is no different, except that there may be moments when the teacher has to get the group to quieten down.

Richard also talks about looking for a 'Mr. Tan'. He explains that he uses this term because 'Tan' is the most common surname in Singapore. A 'Mr. Tan' is someone the audience recognises and listens to, who can drum up enthusiasm when he is asked to participate and who is willing to do so. His advice is to treat 'Mr. Tan' well, and never to over-use him or abuse him.

As a teacher, this is undoubtedly familiar. It is easier to get enthusiasm from our learners when someone gets the ball rolling. This someone has to be known by most of the participants and willing to be your 'guinea pig'. Otherwise, it's going to be a difficult ride.

Avi, on the other hand, has a slightly different approach to connecting with his audience. He prefers to share his heart and be intentional about adding value to those who learn from him. It's not so much about entertainment as it is about giving them something.

With such a wealth of experience, he freely shares his stories and experiences, encouraging us to never be ashamed of making mistakes, since the audience will have made mistakes in their lives too.

He says to learn from these mistakes instead of focusing on the pain they are causing. This has the added advantage of helping us to connect, and to prevent us from intimidating our audience with a 'perfect' persona.

I've learned a fair bit from these two speakers and am grateful that they were willing to give of their time and expertise.

Picture taken from APTS website

New Things That Happened This Month

In regards to the Trainers' Synergy meeting last Wednesday (yeah, I missed an update here), it went well. I asked for feedback at the end of the session and most of them gave me something useful to work on - primarily to do with giving the audience more participation, something I reduced due to the lack of time.

So what that means is that I have to streamline the session and allocate more time to allow the audience to share their experiences, instead of me just sharing mine.

It also means that I have to separate all the material I prepared into 2 sessions or more. It would be great for a six-hour workshop or more. 1.5 hours isn't quite enough to cover so much.

With these things in mind, I will work on the material and come up with a better version. 

To all of you who gave me honest feedback, thank you very much!

Another thing that happened was that the Canadian Institute of Management published my article in their e-zine. 

I've actually updated my home page and come up with a Media page to accommodate the article's links and future media articles. 

If I want them to start appearing, I'd better get cracking!