Tonight Pat Wagner (seen in the photo with a book in hand) joined this library trainer podcast to talk about her career in training-teaching-learning, tell stories about what has worked for her, gives us somelasting truths. Also on the call were Andrea Snyder, Jill Hurst-Wahl, Paul Signorelli, Tom Haymes, and Maurice Coleman.
Pat started her career as a poet and will return to her writing career at the end of 2022. For her, this is a year of transition. She has loved working with all of her library clients, but feels that going back to writing is “going back home.”
As a trainer, Maurice notes that Pat doesn’t need any PowerPoint or anything fancy. She can capture a room with a flip chart and marker. For her, training is a dialogue with the audience. This led us to tell technology fail stories and the need to select the right technology for the job.
Evergreen principles of training:
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- 95% of the learning happens outside of the classroom. That is when they use what they learn, so the learning really sinks in.
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- Retention and application. Think about how you want people to apply what you’re teaching them.
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- {Okay…Jill didn’t capture her second point. And so what else did I miss?}
- Content is king.
- 95% of the learning happens outside of the classroom. That is when they use what they learn, so the learning really sinks in.
What would she toss out?
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- Teaching to a model or author, rather than looking at it as a starting place.
- Being too clever.
- Trying to cram too much into a webinar.
Near the end of the hour, Pat talked about people being addicted to “struggling.” While that seems odd, it was a really interesting – and important – part of the conversation.
You can listen to this episode on TalkShoe and wherever you get your podcast episodes.
Resources:
T is for Training 
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