Successful training design and delivery depends on a trainer’s ability to create a learning environment that reaches all participants. To reach this goal, a set of core principles—or laws—was created to serve as the foundation for successful training. Your goal as a trainer is to incorporate elements of these principles into your course and ultimately, reach all of your participants.
Build these seven laws into your training to make it motivational, relevant, and interactive.
• The law of the teacher. Know the subject. The teacher must know what is being taught. As the teacher, you should thoroughly know the training you are teaching.
• The law of the learner. Generate audience interest. The learner must be interested in the material being presented. Therefore, it's your job to gain and keep the attention and interest of your participants. Do not try to teach without attention.
• The law of the language. Use words that your audience knows. The language should be familiar to both you and the learner. Use words that you both understand in the same way.
• The law of the lesson. Content has to be learned through truth already known. Adults retain information more easily if they can relate it to something they've personally experienced. Begin with what's already known about the subject and proceed to new material with a simple, natural progression. Try to relate your points to real-life scenarios.
• The law of the teaching process. Stimulate self-learning. Your training must excite and direct the self-activities of the learner. Your role as the teacher is not to simply transmit knowledge, but to put your learners in place of a discovery and anticipation. Use exercises and activities that activate your learners’ imaginations and get them involved.
• The law of the learning process. Learn by doing. Require your participants to reproduce in their own thoughts the lesson you have taught. They should be able to think it out in its various phases and applications until they can express it in their own language. Stimulate questioning, answering, and participation. Remember, an activity must lead somewhere and go there for a reason.
• The law of review and application. Review, review, review. Confirm what you've just taught. Tell them, tell them again, and then tell them what you told them.
