Develop User-Friendly Facilitator Guides Through Instructional Chunking
The best facilitator guide instructions are like chocolate chip cookies: full of chunks.
To create a facilitator guide that functions as an at-a-glance delivery aid, we need to “chunk” our learning material out into specific actions. Think of things like “say this” or “click to go to next slide.” Each chunk is always made up of three pieces and sometimes a fourth.
Visual Cue or Icon
Headline
Complete & Concise Facilitator Instructions
Facilitator or Producer Specific Instruction or Note (Not always applicable)
This bundle of information is called the…
The Content Block
The Four Components of a Content Block:
1. Visual Cue or Icon
2. Headline
3. Complete & Concise Facilitator Instructions
4. Facilitator / Producer Specific Notes
1. Visual Cue or Icon
By using consistent icons for specific actions, your facilitators will be able to quickly glance at the facilitator guide and know whether they are showing a slide, or making a keying point or running an activity.
Think of it like the red octagonal sign you see when driving. That specific visual cue directs the driver to stop. Apply the same concept into your guidebooks to drive specific actions with specific icons “at-a-glance.”
2. Headline
The headline portion of the content block allows us to fine tune the instructions to the facilitator still with a quick look.
With a quick glance the facilitator sees the following instructions
Content Block without a Headline
Does he have to read this to the class?
Can she summarize it and put it into her own words?
It ends up being ambiguous which leads to inconsistent training. One facilitator may do it one way while another does it differently. As we all know, inconsistent training leads to inconsistent results and we don’t want that.
By adding in a Headline, at-a-glance the facilitator knows not only are they saying a specific thing, but they also know the manner in which they need to do so.
Content Block with a Headline
And all that has been accomplished with a single image and, in this example, two words.
3. Facilitator Instructions
The third part of the content block is the actual facilitator instructions for the specific “chunk.” It could be talking points, an activity that is being run, links to the video that needs to be played.
Regardless of the type of instruction that is being led, the material needs to be complete and concise.
Complete Instructions
If we leave ambiguity in our instructions, we will get inconsistent results in the long run. The training that happens in Boston will be different than the one that occurs in Florida. Or there will be differences between the class that was run last week compared to the one that ran a month ago.
Take this example, if we ask a question but don’t provide acceptable responses, portions of the training may be missed.
Content Block with Incomplete Instruction
But by providing complete information, we can make sure that all the details are covered.
Content Block with Complete Instruction
Concise Instruction
Remember that we want facilitator guides to be “at-a-glance.” To ensure that is possible we want to make sure the information we provide as instructions should be as concise as possible.
If we give the facilitators lots of text, they are going to read the information to class. They will be eyes in the book and not looking at the class or the camera. This is not a great experience for both the participants and the facilitators.
Content Block with Verbose Instruction
⭐One star – Would not recommend.
However, if we make the instructions a concise as possible we can make sure that the facilitator gets all the information that is required for that specific chunk in the easiest manner to discern it.
Content Block with Concise Instruction
4. Facilitator / Producer Specific Instruction
When there are items that a facilitator or producer needs to do or pay attention to and they don’t need to bring it to the class’s attention, make use of the facilitator/producer specific notes.
It can be simple instructions, from asking the class to raise there hands.
Content Block with Facilitator Instructions Regarding Class Participation
To instructions on to ensure the timing of the training stays on track.
Content Block with Facilitator Instructions Regarding Time
Remember, one of the main goals of a facilitator guide is to drive consistency in your instructor-led or virtual ILT program. Give the instructions to make sure that can happen.
Summary
Take advantage of chunking your training material into specific actions or content blocks. We want to create an experience that a facilitator can quickly look to the guide and know what they are doing, how they are doing it and have all the material to do so laid out in a concise manner.