Take A Sneak Peek Into A SIG

After a brief break to enjoy our short summer season, we kicked off our fall programs in September with a SIG on Effective Pre-Training activities. Facilitated by Melinda Friedlander and Talia Glesner from the Vermont ATD board, the session drew out great insights and helpful tips from an energetic and engaged group.

​The session’s activities and discussion were based around an article the facilitators sent out as pre-work (see what they did there?) 6 Ways to Make Pre-Work Compelling by Danuta McCall and Julia Young of Facilitate.com. It outlines six essential considerations for when and how to assign pre-training activities, including: ensure pre-work adds value, create a sense of urgency, provide incentives, make it fun, implement accountability, and build a communication plan.

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In small groups, we brainstormed how we would apply one of the six strategies to a proposed session. By drawing from our past experiences, including lessons we’ve learned from successfully and not so successfully assigning pre-work, we compiled several considerations, ideas and examples.

Lessons learned:

• Each of these strategies is interconnected with the rest. You can make the pre-work fun, but if it doesn’t add value or isn’t communicated well, it likely won’t be a successful addition to your training.
• “Incentives” and “fun” mean different things to different people. Motivation and humor varies greatly by learner, so knowing your audience is key.
• Having a specific goal for the pre-work activity (i.e., saving time in class or level setting knowledge) will help you with all six strategies.
• Pre-work doesn’t have to be a push of information. It can be interactive, collaborative, and a way to create a connected, engaged group before the training starts.
• Do we have to call it “pre-work”? Many of us admitted just the name “pre-work” gave us some anxiety, due to the perceived time commitment and level of effort it would require. Try another name or frame it in a different way to help boost participation.

​There were far too many takeaways to list here, but it’s safe to everyone walked away with at least a couple ideas for upping their pre-work game.
If you weren’t able to make this SIG, remember members have access to all SIG resources in the My Membership section of the Vermont ATD website. Our program calendar is also now available, so please check out the exciting SIGs and Programs we have coming up soon.

Hope to see you there!