Train the Trainer
Certified METALOG© Trainer in Experience-oriented Learning (EOL) Methods
Venue: SeminarZentrum Gut Keuchhof
Braugasse 12
50859 Köln-Lövenich, Germany
Dates: December 2nd - 6th 2019
March 9th - 13th 2020
Investment: 4900€ * + 19% German VAT if applicable (exclusive Hotel and venue package)
* early bird until July 25th 2019 4400€ + 19% German VAT if applicable
Experience-oriented learning (EOL) methods leverage the power of multi-sensory experiences and the insights that learners gain from such experiences. The true art of EOL lies in enabling learners to create target-oriented, authentic ‘experience rooms’ that contain memorable elements and directly relate to their real and perceived worlds. This allows learning processes to be intensified, focused and even accelerated. We like to call these added sequences ‘learning projects’, which can fulfil quite different functions in the learning process.
Throughout the Certified EOL Trainer course you discover how to create, perform and seamlessly integrate such learning projects into existing or new learning scenarios. Learning projects can be used to foster general learning readiness, encourage openness and motivation, act as a lead-in to the topic or also raise awareness of relevant factors. They can be used to generate alternative approaches, or simulate the efficacy and significance of such alternative approaches. They can provide a protected space for experimentation and testing or, through powerful sensory experiences, also increase the rate of retention and hence the sustainability of learning. Depending on the desired outcome and application, learning projects are both a tool for reflecting and assigning meaning as well as for exploring, creating and providing practice.
An EOL trainer’s core competence is his or her ability to initiate targeted learning experiences, control the optimum degree of emotional stimulation, and support the reflection process and subsequent training transfer.
The Certified EOL Trainer course itself is structured in 2 presence modules, each focused on a specific theme and ultimately dependent on how much time is spent applying the newly acquired knowledge between modules. The modules provide you with guided impulses, which you then independently transfer to your own field of work, and which we subsequently pick up and develop further in the next module. At the same time, you have the opportunity to share your experiences and ideas in peer groups or reflect upon your experiences with the teacher-trainers. As such, the entire training course is also structured like one large learning project – you experience first hand what you are talking about. Because each trainee’s field of work can be just as diverse, this is not about finding the one way to learn, but rather about discovering the various options and core components required for developing the best possible approaches for yourself, your group and the topic/desired outcome.
Module 1 (5 days): Fundamentals of EOL – the METALOG Method
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Module 1 examines the fundamental principles of experience-oriented learning and, in particular, provides an introduction to the METALOG method. In addition to useful structures and patterns that allow you to navigate and enable precise customisation, we examine how to develop mutually understood ‘wording’. The EOL fundamentals give you a set of practical methods for your preparation, help you control the process during the performance stage and foster continuous learning during the review stage. During learning projects, you should be prepared for a whole range of aspects: the dynamics that you set in motion sometimes have their own rules, as systems often do. And between chance and intent lies an entire world of methods – just as between games/events and serious learning projects. The EOL fundamental principles will themselves change the way you look at interaction activities and will allow you to customise all manner of learning projects in a goal-oriented manner.
From ‘game’ to ‘learning project’: strictly speaking, interaction activities are complex systemic interventions disguised as ‘games’. The key here is to tap into and harness the power, energy and various layers of these interventions.
Learning projects as interaction metaphors: as interaction metaphors, learning projects mirror the learner’s everyday situation. The notion that there is a parallel to everyday life – isomorphy – is derived from the Ericksonian metaphor concept; it allows learning projects to be deployed in substantially diverse ways.
The 3 steps of the learning project: staging, performing, assigning meaning are the basic steps for working with learning projects/tools and offer considerable potential for focussing the group during the learning process. Each one of these steps holds immense hypnosystemic power.
The art of tailoring (‘isomorphism’): the better we manage to stage the tools for particular outcomes – that is, tailoring or customising – the more flexible their use becomes. Because there is no specific tool for a specific practical context, but rather each tool must be ‘packaged’ (that is, tailored) for the situation at hand, the only limit to how the tools can be used is your own creativity.
Flexible deployment of the tools (‘polycontextual’): the flexibility of the staging only achieves its full effect when, in the ‘assigning meaning’ phase following the performance phase of the learning project, what was experienced during the learning project is assigned a meaning in terms of the overall process.
Staging criteria and language as a cooperation tool: of central importance for the learners experiencing the learning project/tool as participants is how the trainer conducting the learning project manages to link it to their everyday reality. This is achieved primarily through the trainer’s use of communication.
Interventions during learning projects: the group gets stuck during the learning project! Here, we show you the possibilities offered by systemic and solution-focused interventions.
Creating sustainability – the 3-phase transition: in order to build real bridges to the learners’ day-to-day lives after the learning project and to provide them with the best possible support for training transfer, we work with the 3-phase model of training transfer.
Dealing with high/low-threshold learning projects: not every learning project challenges each group to the same extent. In particular when adapting a longer learning process, it is important to develop dedicated categories for how high or low threshold learning projects are allowed to be for each of your groups.
Tools: testing and reflecting: the training course offers you numerous opportunities to try out and reflect on the tools from a range of perspectives.
Case studies – developing bespoke staging, performing learning projects: you learn how to tailor and conduct your own perfectly adapted staging for your groups and events.
Supervision and feedback: the trainers provide you with support in the form of detailed feedback.
Module 2 (5 days): EOL Concepts – shaping the process
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Since the previous module you have had plenty of opportunity to experiment. Presumably, some processes worked as desired and others less so. Module 2 delivers the most important methods to effectively and flexibly develop consistent, logical overall concepts from the individual elements, whether you are designing and offering an event on a particular topic or initiating and supporting a perfectly adapted development process for a specific purpose. Drawing on your concrete questions we address various possibilities for controlling the quality. Furthermore, over the five days, we carefully examine individual competencies and offer alternative perspectives and approaches. Throughout the module there will be enough opportunity for you to talk about your experiences, for supervision, for sharing ideas or also for working on your own concepts. The final step is now to integrate and interweave the EOL building blocks into other sequences in the learning process.
Neurodidactics in practice: since the turn of the century, neuroscience has made groundbreaking discoveries in what makes learning truly sustainable. There are a vast number of correlations between EL and these findings. We will show you what these are.
Hypnosystemic principles – we make the following principles tangible: developing rapport, circularity of behaviour, perspectives as subjective views of reality, context as the creator of meaning, constructing subjective reality through focussing attention, patterns and pattern interrupts.
Goal orientation and controlling during learning projects: working with learning projects is a little like steering a ship at sea in a strong wind. We need to steer and counter-steer and in so doing always keep our destination in sight. We show you what attitudes and approaches make this possible.
Flexibility, improvisation and the Ericksonian concept of utilization: “Use everything that happens during the learning process for learning” was always one of Milton Erickson& rsquo;s main working principles. We show you what the utilization approach looks like in the training context and how it affords the trainer considerably more freedom and flexibility. In this way we develop a new construct of what it means to use improvisation to deal with unexpected situations in your seminars.
Optimising the use of observers: frequently, learners are entrusted with observation tasks that overwhelm them. We show you how external perspectives and participant feedback can be used to provide valuable input into the entire process.
Effective evaluation variants: in addition to the typical questioning techniques for evaluating a learning project we show you a range of other evaluation variants, such as scaling techniques, using ropes for feedback, working with feedback objects, etc.
Dealing with difficult situations – solution-focused questioning techniques: “Questions are like magnifying glasses: they focus in the direction in question”. For this reason, questioning techniques are a central building block for working with experiential learning.
Tools: just like in the first part of the training course, there will again be numerous possibilities for trying out and reflecting on the tools.
Case studies: sharing experiences and supervision.
Personal casework: through drawing on the resources of the entire group, this part of the training course once again offers you opportunities for reflecting on typical trainer issues.
EOL as a resource-oriented training and coaching concept: everything fits together! We show you how EOL is a practical concept for working with groups, teams, or organisations, and what approaches are helpful.
From clarifying outcomes to designing learning projects: we are all familiar with the situation where the customer ‘threatens’ to award a contract. But what can you do to manage the outcomes in such a way that they can be implemented? More precisely, in what way can you deal with the customer’s expectations of perfection, (e.g., “You can work through the topic of change in a day, can’t you?”), or what possibilities are there for dealing with Catch-22 situations (Manager: “Do team development with my team”; Team: “The manager needs coaching”) and what other similar situations are there in which we must pay attention to our needs as trainers and coaches and should actively shape the contracting process?
Strategies for team/change projects: using the Appreciative Inquiry (AI) method and other solution-focused procedures, you discover and test best practice approaches for team and change projects.
Developing process-oriented concepts – for specialist topics and soft skills training: anyone who wants to leverage the full power of EOL learning projects must be prepared to depart from strictly linear paths. But how does this tally with what is frequently specified in trainer manuals or the reproducible effects demanded by specialised/method training courses? What does planning look like? How do you plan flexibility?
Closing presentation and certificate award ceremony.
During the entire training course you will have plenty of space to experiment with and assimilate the individual methods. You can address your real-life cases at any time and use the opportunities for supervision provided. Indeed, discussing cases with colleagues and trainers provides true added value.
The various didactic and methodical approaches are explained and made tangible through numerous learning projects (interaction activities) and exercises. Here are a small selection of the learning projects we will work with: silent rope, rug flipping/folding, leading the blind, chair tipping, team juggling, 8-in-the-rope, speed ball, find the tree, bicycle method, blind numbers, etc. Naturally, METALOG training tools will also be used, including TeamNavigator, Floating Stick, Communicards, SysTeam, StringBall, Communic8, Pipeline, Leonardo's Bridge, Loony Loop, Team2, The Band, StackMan, The Maze, Tower of Power, CultuRallye, Domino Effect.
You have less time but still want to take the course? We are also able to come to you for groups of 8 or more, whether you be part of a large company or just a group of trainers in your area. We tailor it for you and your trainer team! From the three-day short version to the 12-day version in three modules, everything is possible! Just ask us: sales@metalogtools.com
