Getting a group of people together, at the same time, with a facilitator and each other is a scarce resource.
So why do we spend so much of that time telling them things?
Think about a typical classroom programme. How much of the day is spent with the trainer presenting information, explaining models or working through slides?
Now take each of those chunks and ask:
Why does this need everyone to be together at the same time?
Sometimes there will be a good answer.
But if people could just as easily acquire that information by reading, watching or exploring something beforehand, perhaps we are using valuable classroom time for the wrong thing.
This is, of course, the thinking behind the flipped classroom. Move as much straightforward knowledge acquisition as makes sense outside the classroom and use the time together differently.
But don’t just dump a pile of content on people and call it pre-work. That rather misses the point.
Use the classroom for things that benefit from people being together:
- practising and getting feedback
- working through difficult cases
- comparing experiences
- challenging assumptions
- trying out decisions
- exploring how ideas will work back in the workplace
- learning from each other
And perhaps we need to flip something else as well.
Stop thinking of the workshop as the main event, with some pre-work before it and some post-work afterwards. Think of the whole thing as the programme, with the classroom as one component that has a particular job to do.
So look at your next classroom programme and ask of everything you do:
Does this really benefit from having everyone together?
If it doesn’t, why are you using your scarcest resource to do it?
