Powerful Handouts: Why and How

If you're going to go to the effort of creating a handout to accompany your training or presentation, make sure your handout will be effective. Otherwise, why bother?

Janice Horne, in her concurrent session on Powerful Handouts at the annual Creative Training Techniques conference, provided easy methods for presenting information in effective handouts.

A handout provides a place for participants to take notes as they are learning, Horne said. It also allows participants to see the organization and structure of the training. "The brain likes the big picture first so it knows where to hang the details," she said.

While some presenters create photocopied reproductions of their slide deck, it isn't the most effective way to disseminate information in printed form. "If learners are getting the exact same message by hearing, seeing, reading it—research shows people check out. The brain wants more complexity," Horne said.

Horne suggested using things like an either/or or a myth/truth grid as a way to introduce learners to the content. Using something like that at the beginning of your course begins an awareness and "a hook to draw them into the training," she said. Fill-in-the-blanks also helps adults, "who naturally like completion, stay engaged, at least long enough to fill in the blank."

And while some might argue that paper handouts take too much time to create and cost too much to produce, Horne argues that, with the money being spent on the training, you want to ensure what gets trained gets retained, and handouts are a simple and effective way to help improve that. "One of the ways we learn is by writing," she said. Priscilla Shumway, another Bob Pike Group trainer who sat in on the session, reinforced that by referencing an article she had read recently in Parade magazine regarding kids and cursive. Kids who are typing in notes don't retain the information, but when kids write, they remember more and do better on tests, Shumway said.

Other ways to organize information in a handout that Horne mentioned include matching and action planning opportunities.

We'd love to have you join us for our 2015 Creative Training Techniques conference. For more information, or to register, click here.

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