Pat Michaels
A participant guide should do more than provide a place to take notes, complete activities, and follow along during training.A well-designed participant guide has two jobs:
- Support the learning experience during the course
- Support application and performance after the course
That second job is easy to overlook.
During training, participants have a facilitator who can explain an activity, clarify confusing instructions, provide examples, and answer questions.
After training, that support disappears.
When someone opens the participant guide three weeks or three months later, the guide has to stand on its own. The participant needs to quickly find what they need, understand it, and apply it.
That's where the AIM/CLEAR methodology can help.
AIM helps determine what participants need to accomplish and what they need to accomplish it. CLEAR helps turn that information into instructions and resources that are concise, actionable, scannable, and useful both during and after the course.
The Participant Guide Is Part of the Learning Experience
Participant guides are sometimes treated as repositories for course materials: copies of slides, activity instructions, worksheets, reference information, and space for notes.
But a good participant guide plays a much more active role.
During training, it helps participants:
- understand what they are being asked to do
- complete activities correctly
- capture important information
After training, its role changes.
The participant guide can help participants:
- remember key concepts
- repeat processes introduced during training
- apply new skills on the job
- reference important criteria or decisions
- reflect on what they are learning
- practice new skills
- translate concepts into action
- use checklists and job aids
- revisit examples
- continue an action plan
- reinforce what they learned
This dual role makes the participant guide an important part of the ILT Triumvirate, where the facilitator guide, participant guide, and slide deck work together as one instructional system.
AIM/CLEAR provides a practical methodology for making the participant guide more effective in both roles.
Step 1: AIM Before You Write
Before writing an activity, instruction, or reference section, identify its AIM.
What does the participant need to do?
During training, that might be:
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Identify
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Compare
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Discuss
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Practice
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Evaluate
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Write
Avoid vague instructions such as:
Review the scenarios below.
Instead, identify the actual action:
Read the three scenarios and select the response you believe will be most effective.
The participant immediately knows what's expected. But don't stop with the classroom activity. Also consider the action participants may need to take after the course.
For example, instead of labeling a reference section:
Communication Styles
consider:
Choose the Right Communication Approach
The second version organizes the information around something the learner may actually need to accomplish later. That subtle difference can make the participant guide much more useful as a post-course resource.
What information does the participant need to successfully complete the action?
During an activity, that could include:
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scenarios
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instructions
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definitions
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examples
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diagrams
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reference information
But there's another important question:
What information will participants need when the facilitator is no longer there?
During training, a facilitator can fill information gaps.
After training, the participant guide cannot assume someone will be available to explain what a term means or remind participants how a process works.
That doesn't mean putting everything in the guide.
It means including the essential information participants need to act independently.
How will participants know they have successfully completed the action?
The measure doesn't need to be a formal assessment.
Sometimes it's simply the expected result.
For example:
Identify two changes you can make to improve the consistency of your current process.
The participant knows exactly what completion looks like.
For post-course content, Measure can become even more valuable. You might provide criteria participants can use to check their own work:
Before submitting your plan, confirm that you have identified the desired outcome, assigned responsibility, and established a completion date.
Now the guide does more than tell someone what to do. It helps them determine whether they've done it correctly.
Step 2: Make It CLEAR
Once you've established the AIM, use the CLEAR portion of the methodology to refine the information.
Remove words and information that don't help the participant understand or complete the action.
Instead of:
In the following activity, you will have an opportunity to think about and reflect on some of the different ways you currently approach this type of situation in your everyday work environment.
Try:
Think about how you currently handle this situation at work.
The purpose hasn't changed. The effort required to understand it has.
This becomes especially important after the course, when participants are looking for an answer or a reminder rather than rereading it.
Don't make participants search for what they're supposed to do.
Lead with it.
Instead of:
The scenarios below represent several common customer situations. After considering each one, select the response you believe would be most effective.
Try:
Select the best response for each customer scenario.
Start with strong action verbs:
Identify. Select. Compare. Discuss. Write. Rank. Practice. Review. Apply.
This principle also improves post-course usability.
Someone returning to the guide may not be thinking, Where was the section about the feedback process?
They may be thinking:
How do I prepare to give someone feedback?
An action-oriented heading like Prepare to Give Feedback helps them get there faster.
Once the action is clear, provide the information necessary to perform it successfully.
For example:
Select the best response for each customer scenario. Use the four service principles introduced earlier as your criteria.
The first sentence establishes what to do.
The second gives participants what they need to do it.
For post-course material, ask another question:
What would someone need to know to perform this correctly without the facilitator?
That helps separate useful reference information from content that only made sense during the classroom experience.
Good participant instructions shouldn't just be clear when carefully read.
They should be easy to scan.
Use:
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short steps
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numbered sequences
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bullets
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bold keywords
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white space
For example:
Practice: Compare the Instructions
Compare the two examples.
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Read each instruction.
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Circle the clearer version.
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Underline what makes it easier to understand.
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Be ready to explain your choice.
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My choice: ______________________
This arrangement supports participants during the activity.
But the At-a-Glance principle becomes even more important after training.
A participant returning to the guide months later probably won't read the page from top to bottom. They are more likely to scan it looking for a particular process, checklist, example, or answer.
Design accordingly.
Finally, step back and review the instruction from the participant's perspective.
Ask:
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Is the action obvious?
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Does the participant have everything needed?
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Are any terms unclear?
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Is the expected result obvious?
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Is the sequence logical?
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Is there enough space to complete the activity?
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Does the visual cue match the action?
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Could someone complete this without additional explanation?
And then ask one more question:
Could a participant understand and use this page six months after the course without the facilitator?
That's a powerful test of a participant guide.
Design the Participant Guide for Today and Tomorrow
This is where AIM/CLEAR becomes more than an instruction-writing methodology.
It can help you develop participant materials that live beyond the classroom.
Think of the participant guide in two modes.
During Training
The guide helps the participant:
Learn → Practice → Reflect → Capture
After Training
The same guide helps the participant:
Find → Remember → Apply → Check
That's an important distinction.
A worksheet might be excellent for completing an activity during training but have little value afterward.
A worksheet combined with a process, checklist, worked example, decision criteria, or action plan can continue providing value long after the activity ends.
AIM helps establish that purpose.
CLEAR helps make the resulting resource usable.
AIM Creates the Instruction. CLEAR Improves It.
Consider this original participant instruction:
Now that we have discussed several approaches to giving feedback, take a few moments to think about situations you have encountered in your own work and write down some examples that you may want to discuss with the group.
Start with the AIM methodology.
Action: Identify a feedback situation.
Information: Think about a real situation where feedback was needed.
Measure: Capture one example and determine how you would approach it.
Then apply CLEAR:
Apply It: Prepare to Give Feedback
Identify one situation where you need to give someone feedback.
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Briefly describe the situation.
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Identify the behavior you want to address.
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Describe the outcome you want to achieve.
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Write your opening statement.
Situation: __________________________
Behavior: __________________________
Desired outcome: ____________________
Opening statement: __________________
Now look at what happened.
The activity became easier to complete during the course.
But it also became something the participant could potentially return to after the course when preparing for another feedback conversation.
That's the larger opportunity.
Use Visual Cues to Reinforce the Action
Visual cues make AIM/CLEAR even stronger.
An icon or other visual cue can establish the type of action before the participant reads the complete instruction.
For example:
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Pencil = Write
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Speech bubbles = Discuss
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Magnifying glass = Review
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Checkmark = Select
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People = Group Activity
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Lightbulb = Reflect
Then use the headline to make that action specific.
Visual cue: Discuss
Headline: Discuss Your Current Process
Visual cue: Write
Headline: Identify Two Ways to Improve It
This creates a consistent hierarchy:
Visual Cue → Headline → Instruction → Response
And consistency makes the participant guide easier to navigate, both during training and afterward.
Use the Quick Health Check to Find the Gaps
The ILT Triumvirate Quick Health Check provides a useful starting point for identifying where the three training resources aren't working together as effectively as they could.
When you identify a weak participant activity or instruction, run it through AIM:
Action: What should the participant do?
Information: What do they need to do it?
Measure: How will they know they've completed it successfully?
Then apply CLEAR:
Cut Out the Excess
Lead with the Action
Essential Information
Arrange for At-a-Glance
Review the Details
And before you're finished, apply the post-course test:
If a participant returned to this page later, would it still help them?
If not, consider what could transform it from a classroom artifact into a useful performance resource.
Better Participant Guides Support Better Training and Better Application
A participant guide shouldn't become obsolete when the course ends. During training, it should help participants understand, practice, reflect, and apply. After training, it should help them find, remember, apply, and check. AIM/CLEAR provides a repeatable way to design for both.
Use AIM to establish what participants need to do, what information they need, and what successful completion looks like.
Use CLEAR to make that information concise, action-oriented, easy to scan, and understandable without additional explanation.
Then consider how the participant guide fits into the larger ILT Triumvirate.
- The facilitator guide prepares the facilitator to lead the experience.
- The slides focus attention and visually support the experience.
- The participant guide supports the learner during the experience and beyond it.
When all three work together, you're not simply producing course materials. You're building an instructional system that supports learning and puts that learning to work.