Avoiding Boring Training with Training from the Back of the Room
Recently a colleague and I ran a 2 day workshop teaching Test Driven Development (TDD) for Frontend React Engineers for one of our customers. The training went really well, all the attendees were really engaged throughout and gave some great feedback (although we should have provided some sweets). However on the second day there was a section that felt a bit flat and the energy in the room dipped. We took time to reflect on that point and realised it was the section that was the least “Back of the Room”, with long periods of lecturing and very little opportunity for involvement of the learners.
Over the last year I have been trying to improve the learning content I create using the techniques from Training from the Back of the Room and this moment really solidified for me that using this technique improved the way I create and run training.
What is Training from the Back of the Room?
Training from the Back of the Room (TBR) is an approach to designing learning experiences for adults developed by Sharon L. Bowman that uses the latest Neuroscience to design training materials/sessions that are brain friendly. The model helps to quickly design the most engaging learning materials/sessions that really help learning to stick.
The essence of TBR is for the trainer to step back and move themselves out of the way of the learners learning by creating experiences that invite the audience to fully engage with learning rather than just being lectured at.
Two of the core models that TBR recommends using are The 4 C’s and the 6 Trumps
The 4 C’s
Connections
This is a short activity that enables the learners to make connections to
- What they already know or think they know about the topic — This brings any existing knowledge into working memory ready to attach new learning to
- What they want to learn during the session
- Other people on the training — This enables you to create a place of psychological safety to ensure learners feel comfortable joining in with a highly interactive learning experience
Concepts
This is where the learners are introduced to new learning about the subject being taught. This should be interactive and collaborative, it should not be a long lecture by the trainer as that does not help anyone learn.
Concrete Practise
Putting the new learning into practise
Conclusion
A moment to reflect on what has been learned.
The 6 Trumps
Movement trumps sitting
Moving around gets you heart beating and pumping more blood to your brain aiding learning.
Talking trumps listening
Learners take more in when they say things out loud than listening to someone lecture.
Images trump words
We are more likely to remember a diagram or image than a large chunk of text.
Writing trumps reading
The act of writing down facts, the movement of your hand writing the words is more effective at helping you remember them than just reading them.
Shorter trumps longer
We only concentrate on something for about 10 minutes, any longer and we stop retaining the learning.
Different trumps same
Things that are different excite our brains making them more likely to be remembered than a lot of things that are the same.
My Approach
Planning
When I’m designing a new learning experience I’ll start in Miro breaking down the subject to be covered into subtopics, thinking about what concepts should be covered. For a 1 hour session I would only cover a single topic but for longer sessions I’ll cover a number of different subtopics.
The mind map we created when designing the React TDD training looked like this:
We started by putting in all the concepts we could cover. We then marked the topics that we thought we would not cover during this training session. Mapping out the concepts like this gave us clear idea of the sections we wanted to cover and a little detail about what we should be including in them.
Once we had the core subtopics we created a grid of Post-Its. Across the top we had a Post-It for each of the 4 C’s. Then down the column on the left side we have each of the subtopics. Each of the C’s and Subtopics should have at least one corresponding Post-It that is an idea for the activity that will be completed.
For the React TDD training we broke down the training into 5 subtopics
- What is TDD?
- Arrange -> Act -> Assert
- Refactoring
- Testing React Components
- Test Doubles
This is how we cover each of the 4C’s for the first subtopic What is TDD?
Connections
This is first connection activity of the workshop, designed to get the attendees to introduce themself to each other.
The discussions then moved on to be about either their testing experience or what they though TDD was. They were also encouraged to start thinking about the topics that would be covered during the training and what they might get out of it.
The groups were split by those with testing experience and those without. This allowed us to plan the groups for the later activities to ensure each group had a good mix of experience. Doing this means that those inexperienced in testing would learn from those experienced in testing during group work. This also benefit the experienced learners because teaching something is the best way to learn it.
Concepts
For the first section of new learning (concepts) we split the group into three teams. We then gave the groups the task to research and discuss the question “what is TDD?”, we also gave each of the groups one of the three sections of the TDD Cycle (Red, Green & Refactor) to research what happened during that section of the cycle.
Once the groups had finished we came together and had a 5 minute discussion about what each group had understood about “what is TDD?”, at this point we were able to correct any misunderstandings. It was also a time for the us to elaborate on any important points or add any key facts the learners may have missed.
We then went around each of the groups and got them to explain the section of the TDD cycle they were given to research. The members of the other groups were encouraged to take notes on what the other groups were teaching them.
Concrete Practise
We used a number of different Code Katas to give the attendees concrete practise in the various concepts we covered. For the first kata (FizzBuzz) we ran a Mob Programming (Mobbing) session, this allowed us to demonstrate the concepts while getting everyone involved in creating the solution.
The attendees then formed pairs to work on another similar Code Kata (Leap Year Calculator). We used pair programming so the learners continued to discuss the theory we had covered during the concepts section, learning from each other. Pairing also helps keep the pairs honest with strict TDD practises.
Other Code Katas completed during the training included:
- Bank Account Statement Kata
- Spoiler Component Kata (Mobbing)
- React Accordion Kata
- Tyre Pressure Kata
- Pokemon/Star Wars API Client Kata
Conclusion
Once the attendees had finished the concrete practise we got them to form small groups, we encouraged the learners to join different groups from their pairing partner to get new perspectives.
The groups discussed how they found the practise and what they enjoyed about the process. They also asked each other any questions they had, this continued to encourage them to teach and learn from each other.
We then finished with a short discussion and each group repeated any questions they had and how it was answered. We would ask the whole group if they had anything to add to the answers before we would add any points we thought were missing.
I have now been using the Training from the Back of the Room concept on a number of different workshops and the energy and engagement in the learning is so much better.
These techniques work for in person and remote training. I have now used it a few times for both. Applying these techniques to remote training is a bit tricky but with white-boarding tools like Miro it is much easier to create training that encourages learners to engage and interact.
As a teacher I find running training so much more exciting, hearing the discussion and enthusiasm of the attendees make the experience so much more enjoyable.
I still have a lot to learn and practise with Training from the Back of the Room that should make learning even better. I’m currently planning to add Concept Maps (or Graphic Organisers) to training as a way to encourage learners to take notes.
If you are running any form of training for adults I would highly recommend you give TBR a try.
