Earlier this month, I stepped into another world. I have been following Roy Williams' work at the Wizard Academy for years. Roy calls his school a “nontraditional business school”.
I spent the day with Roy jumping from topic to topic. One leap landed us on the topic of portals. In timeless movies and powerful images, you will find what Roy calls “portals”. Think Alice and the Looking Glass, Dorothy and the tornado and Captain Kirk’s beam.
A portal is a “transitionary device”, according to Wizard Roy. I think of a transitionary device as a state shifter — a tool to move the viewer or learner into a receptive state.
Whatever you call it, Roy certainly gets the concept. The campus of the Wizard Academy is layered with portal after portal. The gate into the campus, the architecture of the buildings, the suspended foot path you cross entering the classroom, the drapes you pass through and the grand music playing in the “Hall” all create a sense of moving into a different space.
Most corporate training facilities I experience are well, corporate. They are homogeneous and sterile. They look like the office the learner just left — same furniture, same carpet, same lighting. Without benefit of a construction budget, how do you create a portal? Think about:
Food and food messages
Provocative pre-session emails
Candles, flowers, manipulatives
Signage at the door with a quote or question
Music with images — check out animoto.com which allows you to create quick videos
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Are you a training designer or a design thinker?
The process of the design thinker involves articulating the unknown needs the customer may not even know they have, moving the client from what they want to what they need, working within constraints, observing and identifying the underlying issues and delivering a product that makes a quantum versus incremental leap in performance. It is wholistic thinking paired with sequential execution. Good design thinking is good design thinking – whether you are working on the next iPod or your next training design.
There are four distinct learning styles. There are four parts of the Learning Cycle. Each style enjoys one part of the Cycle over the others. To move the learner through the learning process, delivery skills must shift in each part of the Learning Cycle. Which part of the Cycle is your strength? Join our web workshop and assess your strengths and learn tactical skills for stretching into weaker areas.
Source: Hold On, You Lost Me! Use Learning Styles to Create Training that Sticks, Dr. Bernice McCarthy and
Jeanine O'Neill-Blackwell, page 32 (ASTD Press, 2007).
