Introduction
Brian Washburn: Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Train Like You Listen, a podcast about all things learning and development in bite-sized chunks. I’m Brian Washburn, I’m the co-founder and CEO of Endurance Learning. I’m also the host for this podcast. But Endurance Learning, we’re an instructional design shop that can help you put together any kind of training program from classroom training to virtual to elearning. But enough about me and about Endurance Learning unless you need one of those projects and then gimme a call.
But today I’m joined by Katrina Kennedy, who just released a book entitled Learning that Lasts: Reflection Activities for Trainers and Designers. Welcome Katrina. I’m so excited to have you and have this conversation. How are you today?
Katrina Kennedy: I’m doing well, Brian, and I’m excited to be here for this conversation as well.
Listen to the full episode or watch on YouTube.
Katrina Kennedy’s Reflection Activity 6-Word Biography
Brian Washburn: Well, you know, we talk about this being in bite-sized chunks, and so I talked a little bit about your book, but in the spirit of keeping this bite-sized, how would you describe yourself in your work using a sentence or a biography that’s exactly six words?
Katrina Kennedy: Okay, here are my six words. Helping people create learning that lasts.
Every Training Needs Time to Reflect
Brian Washburn: There you go. And a little plug to your book too. So your book is entitled Learning That Lasts. Can you give us just like a quick summary of what experiences you’ve had in the world of training that gave you the lightbulb moment that the world needs a book about, you know, learning that lasts.
Katrina Kennedy: For the last 28 years, I’ve been helping subject matter experts and new trainers learn how to facilitate and design training, and I have trained just about every topic imaginable. There has never been a time when taking a pause for people to think about what they’ve experienced, that that hasn’t helped them retain and process and be able to transfer what they’ve learned. No matter the topic, whether it’s new managers or new trainers or people way back in the day, learning how to answer the phone.
Brian Washburn: Yeah. So, you know, when we think of the, I love the idea of reflection activities, right? And not just giving people the information, even not just giving people an activity to try it out, but then the opportunity to reflect and, and it comes, you know, for, for me, we, we always talk about the principles of dialogue, education and Jane Vela, and there’s these 12 principles, and one of those principles is Praxis, right?
So, and that’s defined as learning with reflection and so this idea of reflection, it, it’s very near and dear to my heart. You know, this book you’ve described it as having 45 reflective learning activities that instructional designers, facilitators and trainers can use in a face-to-face or online classrooms.
What is a Reflection Activity in Training?
Brian Washburn: Can we pause here ’cause we’re using this word reflection and reflective learning activity as if it means the same thing to everybody. So can you just give us a real quick, kind of definition or description for you and when you use that phrase, what do you mean by reflective learning activity?
Katrina Kennedy: Well, you said a key word which is a big part of it. So it’s that pause to look back in order to look forward. So we have to think about where, what have we done? What was our experience, so that we then can decide how am I gonna put that into action? And those activities are gonna look – can look a variety of ways, but they have in common that looking back and looking forward.
Choosing the Right Reflection Activities for Your Learners
Brian Washburn: Okay, so that makes sense. Now, can somebody just pick this book up and use any of these 45 activities in their next training session?
Katrina Kennedy: Absolutely there’s– You’re gonna wanna find a match, right, with your topic and your audience. But you could turn to the page. There’s step-by-step instructions. Including words that are scripted if you need that, or a short description if that’s all you need, depending on your facilitative level. And, you could go with it. They’re arranged by eight outcomes. So if you think about what your outcome is that you want from the reflection, go to that chapter, pick the activity, and you could be good to go.
Brian Washburn: I love that they’re organized by outcomes ’cause a lot of times, and, and I was just posting on LinkedIn this morning about, you know, kind of cool activities, fun activities, engaging activities that don’t necessarily lead to the outcome or isn’t connected to the outcome. And so I love the fact that these are organized by outcomes.
I’m curious, you know, are there topics or training sessions or situations in which these activities would, would not be appropriate?
Matching Reflection Activities to Your Learners and Goals
Katrina Kennedy: I think anytime you don’t want someone to be able to do what you’ve covered in the workplace, you wouldn’t wanna use them. So I think there’s really not a time when they’re not appropriate. I think there are audiences that aren’t gonna fit as well. And I think that’s what we’re really gonna, that’s what I would really advise people to look for is, does that activity fit with the group and the, the goal or the outcome that you’re looking for.
Brian Washburn: Okay. And do you have warnings about this kind of thing, like how to select the right activity or, you know, who you, you, you talk about organized by outcomes, but do you have any other kind of considerations that people should be thinking about as they’re choosing the right activity here?
Katrina Kennedy: So there is a, I think it’s six-page table people can look at to look at a lot of different factors from time to group size to delivery method that they can then look, then narrow it down to say, like, okay, I have a group of new learners. They only have this much time. Let’s pick this activity. So we’ve tried to make that a little bit easier for people because sometimes, you know, we all know like, you get all these activities and they like, sound great, but if we don’t have that mix or that fit, then it’s really kind of, kind of a waste of time.
So, we have a big obnoxious table to help it. It’s, it was so big, we had to put it in the back of the book. I wanted it in the middle, but it just didn’t fit. So it’s there.
Brian Washburn: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No,I understand, I understand and I understand the editors and the layout, and everybody kind of has their needs when it comes to a physical published book.
The Wonder Wall: A Simple Way to Encourage Questions and Insight
Brian Washburn: Now, I’m always curious when people have books of activities, do you personally have a favorite or a go-to activity that ended up in this book?
Katrina Kennedy: So most. Not even most. All of the activities in the book are things I have used in the last 28 years. The one that I go to most often is the Wonder Wall. And the Wonder Wall is, is the idea that you put up a blank slide or blank Zoom whiteboard and ask people what they are wondering about the topic you’re covering. That idea of wonder gives people permission to ask questions, to be curious, and it’s safer than just saying, what are your questions about this?
It’s, it just provides permission and gives me really great insight into what people are focusing on, what is really resonating with them. You can do it virtually. That’s where I do it most often, but you can also do it in the physical classroom as well.
Brian Washburn: Is this an activity that you do before you start introducing the topic, or is it after you’re, you’re done with the topic?
Katrina Kennedy: So this is one of the activities that you could do before, which I call pre-flection, in the middle or after. And in the book it actually describes that and describes how you could use it in each of those. I probably most often use it in the middle so that you have time to actually see and to give people what they need. Doing it at the end, you kind of then have to do a lot of follow-up with it and make sure people have the resources, but you could definitely use it at the beginning as well.
Pre-Flection: Reflection Activities to Prepare Learners Before Training
Brian Washburn: It’s interesting when I think of reflection activities, I oftentimes think after an activity. But it sounds like you have activities in here that can be used to help prime the pump, get people thinking about the topic before they, before you get going, as well as activities after you’ve introduced the topic, just to get people kind of thinking about what they just experienced or what they just learned.
Katrina Kennedy: Exactly. So that’s, we call the, I call them pre-flection because you’re bending before you get into it, which, you know, flection means bend.
And so, there’s benefit to the, you know, the very first outcome is motivation to learn. And so that is really a lot of the pre-flection where we’re asking people, what do you already know? What do you, you know, what context are you learning this in? So that we’re really creating not just readiness to learn, but we’re creating that context and that connection that people need to make their learning really durable.
Facilitation Tips for Leading Reflection Activities in Training
Brian Washburn: Okay, so that makes sense. And sometimes people listen to things like this and think, you know. I like this idea, but if it were that easy, everyone would already be doing it. So what kind of design or facilitation skills do you think that people need in order to bring, uh, what, what do they need to bring to the table in order to bring some of these activities to life beyond just kind of following the, the step-by-step instructions that they might find in your book?
Katrina Kennedy: I think there are two things that facilitators need to make this happen. One is that you’ve gotta be really good manager of your time. That’s why reflection so often gets forgotten, that we’ve talked too much or we’ve let discussions go too long. We haven’t really managed our time either on the design or the facilitation side. So we skip it because it, you know, it’s at the end, like, we don’t have time, let’s just not do it.
The other thing that you really need as a facilitator is the ability to gauge the group. And when you see the energy lag or when you see confusion, being able to add in a reflective activity at that moment so that people. You’re gauging, you know, you’re, you’re gauging their pulse. You’re seeing what their knowledge is at that moment. You’re seeing, you know, inserting the Wonder Wall to find out, like, where are you stuck? And that’s not necessarily an easy facilitation thing. I think it’s an advanced skill when you’re really reading the group and, and being able to respond accordingly and maybe going off script.
Brian Washburn: Yeah, and, and hopefully the, kind of, the ideas in the book can help take some of that load off of the shoulders of facilitators so they can focus more on the actual skills of facilitating and like you mentioned, some of these are are next level skills, but I’m glad that you’re pointing out some of these things that, that folks really need to be able to do.
Read the room, decide what is the right thing to do in this moment, figure out, you know, how to, how to keep time so that we’re not just skipping over something and getting right onto the next content, because that’s, that doesn’t help anyone, right, when we, we can’t reflect on this and figure out how is this gonna fit in.
Connecting with Katrina Kennedy
Brian Washburn: So Learning That Lasts is the name of the book, Katrina. How can people find you if they’re, if they’re like, Ooh, I really like this conversation and, I wanna connect with her.
Katrina Kennedy: Go to katrinakennedy.com and shoot me an email, connect on my newsletter. There are also lots of book goodies there. And also follow me on LinkedIn where I share insight, activities, ideas, every day since June.
Brian Washburn: You know, I love the LinkedIn connections ’cause it’s not just about following, it’s about, you know, people can engage and it’s, it’s a lot of fun. I always find it fascinating that we can talk with our, our favorite authors and they’ll respond, so yes, definitely if you can find Katrina on LinkedIn, please do connect with her.
Katrina, thank you so much for giving us some time today just to talk about, you know, Learning That Lasts, the book, and kind of the how do we, how do we get people to do things, new or differently or better beyond just kind of hearing the, the content. Everybody else, thank you so much for listening.
If you found this discussion of reflection activities helpful please share it on LinkedIn and if you ever wanna nerd out over anything that’s training related, let’s grab virtual coffee, connect with me and, let’s find a time to grab coffee. Until next time, happy training, everyone.
