Allyson Bradford, M.Ed.
Senior Instructional Designer and Project Lead
Picture this: you’re wrapping up a 60-minute workshop on a topic that—due to its complexity—included a lengthy presentation of didactic content. Exhausted, your voice hoarse, you open the Q&A session, ready to field a flood of questions. Crickets. An awkward silence fills the space. Not one person in your audience has anything to say.
If this—or something like it—sounds familiar, you’re far from alone. When facilitating a workshop on a complex topic, many of us struggle to find ways to actively engage our learners in the sections that are didactic, while still delivering all the information we need to cover.
The good news is that there are simple steps you can take to help ensure the next time you facilitate a similar workshop, you can flip the lecture into an engaging and impactful experience for your learners—while, simultaneously, making it easier for you to deliver. It may sound counterintuitive, but all you really need to do is talk less, listen more, and ask a lot of questions.
The Passive Learning Rut
If these steps for facilitating a complex topic are as simple as I say, it begs the question: why do so many of us get it wrong? The problem may be rooted in our own experience as students. Having been lectured to countless times, we assume we should now lecture to our learners.
While the lecture model has some advantages—such as providing structure to complex topics—it’s not always effective at engaging learners or ensuring information transfer. This is because, while you are active (maybe even overactive) when lecturing, your learners are passive receivers of the information you provide.
Passive learning not only leaves you shouldering the entire load, it also shortchanges your learners. Clearly, there is a better way.
Rethinking Your Role
Rather than lecturing through the complex topics in a workshop, consider incorporating frequent opportunities for discussion. Doing so will energize your learners, making them active participants who are empowered to process what’s being taught in their own ways.
As noted in an article on Leading Discussions from Harvard University’s Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, “…discussions provide a structured setting for students—and the instructor—to work through the core concepts or problems raised by readings and lectures.” It is this act of “working through” concepts that helps foster true information transfer—and ensures your workshop is engaging and impactful.
Taking the Leap (in 3 Steps)
You might find it a little unnerving to consider changing your approach to engaging learners. There is likely a lot riding on the success of your workshop, including learner progress and organizational success.
Whether alone at the front of the room or leading a virtual training session, your success (or failure) is highly visible. Recognizing this, lecturing can feel like a safer choice. You may even assume you don’t have the bandwidth or resources to develop an active learning experience.
But the truth is, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Using similar organizing principles that guide a lecture, you can create an active learning experience throughout a workshop by balancing it with engaging group discussion. To do so:
1. Develop your facilitation plan: Create intentional moments of active and social learning that will augment the blocks in the workshop dedicated to lecture. For example, 40 minutes of lecture might become:
- ~15 minutes of lecture
- ~15 minutes of group discussion and active listening
- ~10 minutes of review
The key is that all 3—lecture, discussion, and review—should be interspersed throughout, rather than provided in blocks. You will want to demonstrate the relationship between each aspect of the workshop topic and have them support each other.
2. Revamp your slide deck: Locate the sections that contain long blocks of lecture (ie, 10-15 minutes without learner engagement). Then, follow these steps:
- For each section, select 1-2 slides to introduce the topic, keeping in mind you will only have about 15 minutes total to devote to these.
- For the remaining slides in the section, prepare 1-2 open-ended questions related to each topic. Remember that open-ended questions ask “Why? How? What? Where? When?” and cannot be answered with a simple “yes,” “no,” or “I don’t know.”
- Consider incorporating social learning by assigning learners to table groups or virtual breakout rooms for continued exploration of the topic and to share experiences.
- Determine which slides in the section you will use to conduct your review of the section/topic.
3. Follow through on your plan: Ask the open-ended question(s) you prepared and allow a few minutes for active group discussion during which you:
- Actively listen to the responses
- Guide further discussion by asking more questions (typically organic) to confirm understanding
- Assign learners to table groups or virtual breakout rooms to discuss the questions
- Review and refocus, once you sense that your learners grasp the concept
Yes, it really is that easy to transform a passive learning experience into a dynamic, engaging one! As an L&D professional with over 25 years of experience, I’ve learned that embracing active learning when facilitating is inspiring, fun, and simpler than lecturing the entire time. By building opportunities for social learning into your slide deck, you can be confident you are providing your learners with a more effective educational experience. All it requires is that you let go of the reins and allow your learners to take the lead in their own professional development.
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Allyson Bradford is a learning and development professional with a master’s in adult learning and instructional technology. She brings to Encompass over 25 years of experience contributing to—and leading—commercial learning and development projects with global impact. As a senior instructional designer and project lead for Encompass, Allyson advances organizational performance by creating dynamic, activity-based training programs for the modern learner.
