Some notes on presenting ideas. Make it…
- Social
- Connect everyone by showing shared experiences, especially struggles and failures.
- Work in groups and pairs.
- Use pair share / teach back activities, have accountability buddies.
- Physical
- Get them moving. Use activities like show of hands, walk around the room.
- Have breaks that involved leaving the table.
- Link concepts with movements to increase recall and attention.
- Positive
- Have a physical environment that’s not classroom-like.
- Promote empathy, kindness, perspective, compassion.
- Use love and charm, not guilt and blame. Positive emotions greatly improve learning (and negative ones hinder).
- Relevant
- Put the why before the what.
- Have clear, meaningful, relevant, goals.
- Have outcomes-based actions with observable impact.
- Identity-based
- Connect to the past and the familiar, things and truths they already know.
- Highlight the values and beliefs that make it important, since they guide behaviour.
- Find things that are widely relevant, not locally specific.
- Looped
- Frame changes as experiments (that are safe to fail).
- Focus on effort and progress (not ability or setbacks)
- → (Re)trial → Feedback → Reflection ↵
- Use Spaced Retrieval to make it stick
- Emotional
- Use an emotional argument. Entertain and excite to overcome indifference, disinterest, apathy.
- Use human-scale stats or vivid details. Show a big, emotional, display of the problem. Bring reality into the room.
- Show before and after to motivate the change.
- Short
- Keep it simple and prioritise. What’s the key message or concept?
- Make small but meaningful milestones. Find the short-term reward linked to the long-term benefit.
- Do warm-ups, easier or softer, stuff before the difficult stuff.
- High energy
- Have a strong opening.
- Have a strong peak.
- Have a strong closing.
- Flexible
- Vary type and length of activities, senses used.
- Have a responsive curriculum (modular, chosen by learner).
- Recognise and accept diversity.
- Concrete
- Have integrity: be the example.
- Use concrete examples to help focus. Look at good examples and analyse why they’re good.
- Use images to make it more memorable. Use metaphors to make connections.
- Questioning
- Ask questions rather than give answers. Provide a curiosity gap.
- Let people draw their own conclusions, discover the answers themselves.
- Promote a growth mindset, not a fixed mindset.
- Structured
- Have something to complete or fill in.
- Frame it. Have an agenda, outline, overview.
- Pull the whole thing together with a narrative.
- Practical
- Show how to get started with small wins that stack up and lead to big ones.
- Do the work. Tell learners to bring their stuff.
- Provide a toolkit with clear, actionable, steps.
- Practice different techniques and choosing the best fit.
- Empathetic
- Understand why the change is difficult and frustrating. It takes time and needs supports.
- Understand both sides. The pros and cons.
- Make the change sufficiently alluring.
- Nudging
- Use anchoring.
- Use loss aversion.
- Use availability bias.
- Use mere measurement effect (ask, for details).
- Positive Injunctive > Negative Informational.
- Entrenched
- Make it repeatable, regular, ritual.
- Help them establish habits.
- Make concrete plans. Use WOOP (Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan) or 5Ws and 1H.
Related: big picture ideas (for writing, workshops, and talks).
Closing activity
For Now
- What will you do?
- When will you do it?
- Where will you do it?
- Who will be involved?
- How will you do it?
- Why do this?
Write a sentence starting with “I will…”
For Now Now
- How likely are you to do this? Give it a score out of 10. 1/10 = Nope. 10/10 = Very yes.
- No judgement! Be realistic.
- Why isn’t your score lower?
- Is there something small you can do to make your score higher?
For Later
- Small steps
Focus on progress - Accountability Buddy
Check-in with them regularly - Try an Action Trigger
Have an “If This, Then That” plan