What Is Train-the-Trainer Model: Essentials for Designing, Developing, and Delivering Effective Training

What Is The Train-the-Trainer Model?

The Training the Trainer model is a comprehensive approach to developing effective corporate trainers, focusing on three critical components: design, development, and delivery. This model recognizes that being a subject matter expert alone is insufficient for success in training. It emphasizes the importance of understanding adult learning principles, creating engaging content, and mastering delivery techniques. The model typically involves intensive workshops where participants learn to design training sessions tailored to their audience, develop necessary materials, and improve their presentation skills through practice and feedback. By addressing all three “legs” of the training stool, this approach aims to produce well-rounded trainers who can create and deliver impactful learning experiences in corporate settings.

Mastering the Three-Legged Stool of Training: Design, Development, and Delivery

Take a survey of any training department, and chances are 90% of the staff members never intended to work in corporate training. They were recruited to facilitate training because they were subject matter experts and great presenters, demonstrated initiative, enthusiastically approached work, and committed to quality.

These are all excellent criteria for professional trainers, but those qualities alone will not help the most talented person succeed as a training professional. Without a complete appreciation of adult learning principles and how to design content so that the material will “stick” and “engage,” even the brightest, most enthusiastic, most dedicated professional will miss the mark.

Training isn’t rocket science, but it’s also not a slam dunk. Since most trainers have never attended a training course for instructors, they try to model what they think a trainer should do.

Many take the college professor approach—expressing that they are the subject matter expert by lecturing for 90% of the time and leaving a few minutes at the end for questions.

Most of us were bored to death in those college lectures, and the amount of information learned is highly questionable. The same result occurs in corporate training sessions, which are more presentation-style than interactive training.

Others know just enough about training to be dangerous. For instance, they know that they are supposed to “engage” the audience, so they prepare some questions to ask the group. However, when they ask the first question, they are met with blank eyes and zipped lips.

Not to be deterred, they try a second question. The result isn’t any different. Stares and silence. The trainer begins to sweat. They don’t know what to do when the participants don’t respond to their plan.

Still, others are unaware they use “verbal fillers”: the ums, the “so’s,” the “you knows,” and the “likes.”  While all of us use the fillers to a degree, it’s a problem when the participants start tracking the number of fillers the trainer says. Too often, the trainer has no idea that these fillers are detracting from their credibility and effectiveness.

Training isn’t just about being a subject matter expert. It’s not just about having a design that on paper should result in an engaging experience. It’s not just about the delivery. It is a three-legged stool. You need to excel at all three of the training legs: design, development, and delivery.  If one leg falls short, the entire training topples.

TRAIN-THE-TRAINER BEST PRACTICES

BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND

Our content is mapped to the professional competencies defined by the Internal Board of Certified Trainers (IBCT), the Association of Talent Development (ATD), and the International Board of Standards for Training, Performance, and Instruction, ensuring workshop participants focus on training best practices.

With an instructor-to-learner ratio never greater than 10:1, participants who attend TrainSMART’s Train-the-Trainer receive instruction, feedback, and coaching on the key elements of successful training: design, development, and delivery.

Before the training, we ask participants to select a topic they want to work on throughout the training process. The participants apply that topic throughout the course to reinforce the key learning objectives and translate concepts into concrete solutions.

Designing A Training Session

Designing a training session is like completing a complicated puzzle. The answer depends on many factors:

The audience. A training session for millennials might look very different from one exclusively for baby boomers. The audience’s experience, communication styles, and learning preferences can all influence the training design.

Adult learning principles. Regardless of the audience, TrainSMART’s Train-the-Trainer Course participants all experience the power of incorporating adult learning principles into their design. These principles are the foundation of every single training.

The platform. Is it face-to-face training, a virtual training session, computer-based training, or on-the-job training?

The need.  What must the learner achieve by the end of the training versus what would be nice to know?

The available time.  A training session that can occur over five days will look very different than a training session that is limited to four hours in the morning.

Instructional strategies. The approach the trainer selects to teach a concept or process includes, but is not limited to, group activities, teach-backs, discussions, games, and assessments.

As participants work through the Train-the-Trainer process, we ensure they always keep the end in mind. What does the final training look like? What must it achieve? Who is it for?

Training Development:

If you think of the design as the blueprint for the training, then the development phase is all the tools required to make the training come alive.  As part of the Train-the-Trainer course, participants are introduced to the best practices regarding the material needed for a successful training program. These can include but are not limited to facilitator and participant guides, job aids, PowerPoint decks, training checklists, forms, and third-party tools to increase participation, engagement, and learning.

Training Delivery:

When you tell students that part of the Train-the-Trainer process includes being videotaped three times, their first reaction is typically groaning. No one likes the camera, but it is one of the most effective ways to help trainers strengthen their skills and learn how to deliver a training session that exhibits the qualities they want their audience to see in them.

Because the delivery of the material is as important as the design and development, it is critical for participants to appreciate that their delivery is directly linked to how well participants will learn the material. In this course, participants explore how the use of their voice, body language, eye contact, and even their smile play a role in the overall success of a training program.

Throughout the three rounds of videotaping, participants receive instructor and peer-to-peer feedback.  They receive coaching on areas they need to focus on during the Train-the-Trainer. They receive strategies on how to continue improving the areas of delivery that would benefit from continued work.

WHICH TRAIN-THE-TRAINER APPROACH WORKS FOR YOU?

Public vs. Private Workshops

TrainSmart offers two distinct approaches to this instructor training course. Both can be held either on-site or in a virtual environment.

Private Workshops:

For organizations with five to ten employees (subject matter experts, trainers, managers, and supervisors), TrainSmart works with your team to customize the content. We can take a deep dive into the areas most relevant to your team and a lighter touch on areas that may not be relevant. In these private workshops:

• The client’s materials can be applied throughout the session
• Client templates and processes can be integrated throughout the training

Public Workshops:

These are ideal for organizations with one or two people who would benefit from attending a skills development course for corporate trainers. These public workshops are held coast to coast, with more than fifty sessions throughout the year. Like private workshops, public seminars are limited to ten participants.

As long as a participant’s material is not confidential, they are welcome to use a work-related topic to practice their skills and apply what they have learned in the various steps in designing, developing, and delivering a training session.

THE POWER OF TRAINING CERTIFICATION

TrainSmart’s three-day Train-the-Trainer Course is the only face-to-face workshop in the United States that the prestigious International Board of Certified Trainers (IBCT) recognizes as part of their certification process. People who complete this Train-the-Trainer process may apply for IBCT Certification. The IBCT is an international leader in setting the criteria and pace of excellence in training.

Once the certification is approved, the participant will be able to add their certification designation in their signature line – a designation that everyone who receives an email from them will see.

Certification increases the credibility and trust in the trainer.  It opens up opportunities— some global industries require certification for their trainers, and potentially, certification can increase earnings.

Over the past 30 years, over 75,000 people have taken this instructor training course. It is highly interactive, engaging, and fun.

2024
Face-to-Face
Train-the-Trainer Course
Dates