Designing Course Materials for the Assistance of the Participants
Some handouts are given to the participants before, during and after the training programme. These handouts are:
Justify or not?
Justified texts look very neat. Unjustified text could be very distracting because of its irregular line endings.
Italic or not?
Font:
Use a strong, simple typeface. Use an easy to read font. Avoid the temptation to use one of the fancy font choices available – as many people find them difficult to read. Once, you have chosen your font – stick to it. At the most use only one other font style.
Font Size:
As a general rule, use 12 point. Don’t drop to 10 point in order to squeeze text onto one page and, if you suspect your target audience may have difficulty reading, increase the standard fort to 14 point.
Paragraphs:
Separate paragraphs by double line spacing, or indent new paragraphs.
Signposting:
Use heading to ‘signpost’ the way though documents to make it easier for people to select the sections they want to read. Use a hierarchy of heading styles to show which sections individual pieces of text belong to.
Numbering Systems:
Numbering chapters, sections and paragraphs can be helpful to make it easier to refer to specific pieces of text – but keep numbering simple and easy to follow.
Emphasis:
To emphasize a word, it’s best to use bold type. In general, use underlining sparingly. Using underlining on more than headings is very weary on the eyes and your delegates will be tempted to skim over the text.
Contrasts:
In general, use black text on white paper. A coloured type of background will make it harder to read and some colour combinations will be very difficult for colour blind people.
Page set-up:
Aim for 25 mm margins either side of the page, and give lots of ‘white space’ on the page. Aim to have 8 to 12 average-length words per line, or about 70 to 80 characters (including spaces).
The post workshop material should reinforce the key learning points.
The workshop material should have spaces for the participant to jot down anything that he would like to take away from the session.
DESIGNING ACTIVITY HANDOUTS
A good training course will actively involve the learners throughout. They may be asked to complete tasks, or to sequence list of options, or do other interactive activities. For the same, one needs to write suitable briefing notes. All the above design considerations apply as mentioned above. In addition to them, the following are also required to be addressed.
It should contain spaces for the learner to record action points. Learning or understanding is one thing – knowing how to use the newly acquired skills or knowledge is something totally different. Participants should be encouraged to write their action points as they emerge during the course. Without this, the moment the programme ends, it’s quite possible that the other messages competing for the learner’s attention may drown all the learning gained from attending the course or workshop.
DESIGNING FEEDBACK FORMS
The main benefit of feedback forms is that it directs the observers to the issues they need to be focusing on, so the trainer can be more certain about the quality and relevance of the feedback that will be given.
A feedback generally has a standard format and it includes some questions specific to the topic too. The questions could be based on a Likert Scale, or could be descriptive questions. Feedback is gained on the presentation as a whole, the powerpoint slides, the various topics covered, the activities completed, the trainer’s characteristics and even the scheduling of the sessions.
Feedback forms generally don’t require the participants to mention their names on it.
This feedback is useful for the trainer and his team, so that they are able to make improvements in their next session.
DESIGNING VISUAL AIDS
Most people remember what they have seen more easily than what they have heard. Visual aids are made to enhance the ideas of the trainer. Each visual is expected to have a specific purpose, and should emphasize or dramatize an important point. Visual aids help in:
- Pre-Workshop Material.
- Workshop Material.
- Post-Workshop Material.
Justify or not?
Justified texts look very neat. Unjustified text could be very distracting because of its irregular line endings.
Italic or not?
- Excessive use of italic script is very hard on the eyes and most people simply do not read it at all.
- Use italic very sparingly.
- Most people find lots of text in capital letters challenging.
- Capital letters all look the same, whereas lower case letters are different. As adults we don’t read each word but scan the text and recognize the shape of the letters.
- Example: on the roads, apart from HALT and STOP, all text is lower case.
- Use capitals sparingly.
- Bullet points draw attention to the key facts.
- It is easier to abbreviate the text and edit out unnecessary words in bullet points, making it quicker to read.
Font:
Use a strong, simple typeface. Use an easy to read font. Avoid the temptation to use one of the fancy font choices available – as many people find them difficult to read. Once, you have chosen your font – stick to it. At the most use only one other font style.
Font Size:
As a general rule, use 12 point. Don’t drop to 10 point in order to squeeze text onto one page and, if you suspect your target audience may have difficulty reading, increase the standard fort to 14 point.
Paragraphs:
Separate paragraphs by double line spacing, or indent new paragraphs.
Signposting:
Use heading to ‘signpost’ the way though documents to make it easier for people to select the sections they want to read. Use a hierarchy of heading styles to show which sections individual pieces of text belong to.
Numbering Systems:
Numbering chapters, sections and paragraphs can be helpful to make it easier to refer to specific pieces of text – but keep numbering simple and easy to follow.
Emphasis:
To emphasize a word, it’s best to use bold type. In general, use underlining sparingly. Using underlining on more than headings is very weary on the eyes and your delegates will be tempted to skim over the text.
Contrasts:
In general, use black text on white paper. A coloured type of background will make it harder to read and some colour combinations will be very difficult for colour blind people.
Page set-up:
Aim for 25 mm margins either side of the page, and give lots of ‘white space’ on the page. Aim to have 8 to 12 average-length words per line, or about 70 to 80 characters (including spaces).
The post workshop material should reinforce the key learning points.
The workshop material should have spaces for the participant to jot down anything that he would like to take away from the session.
DESIGNING ACTIVITY HANDOUTS
A good training course will actively involve the learners throughout. They may be asked to complete tasks, or to sequence list of options, or do other interactive activities. For the same, one needs to write suitable briefing notes. All the above design considerations apply as mentioned above. In addition to them, the following are also required to be addressed.
- Explain the task clearly and succinctly.
- What outcomes or outputs are delegates expected to produce?
- Explain any ‘rules’ or constraints.
- Mention any supporting materials or documents.
- Outline team size and membership.
- Give timings.
- Include briefing notes in the facilitator’s copy only.
It should contain spaces for the learner to record action points. Learning or understanding is one thing – knowing how to use the newly acquired skills or knowledge is something totally different. Participants should be encouraged to write their action points as they emerge during the course. Without this, the moment the programme ends, it’s quite possible that the other messages competing for the learner’s attention may drown all the learning gained from attending the course or workshop.
DESIGNING FEEDBACK FORMS
The main benefit of feedback forms is that it directs the observers to the issues they need to be focusing on, so the trainer can be more certain about the quality and relevance of the feedback that will be given.
A feedback generally has a standard format and it includes some questions specific to the topic too. The questions could be based on a Likert Scale, or could be descriptive questions. Feedback is gained on the presentation as a whole, the powerpoint slides, the various topics covered, the activities completed, the trainer’s characteristics and even the scheduling of the sessions.
Feedback forms generally don’t require the participants to mention their names on it.
This feedback is useful for the trainer and his team, so that they are able to make improvements in their next session.
DESIGNING VISUAL AIDS
Most people remember what they have seen more easily than what they have heard. Visual aids are made to enhance the ideas of the trainer. Each visual is expected to have a specific purpose, and should emphasize or dramatize an important point. Visual aids help in:
- Helping to explain complex topics or diagrams.
- Stimulating more of the senses.
- Making the messages more memorable.
- Brightening up a less interesting topic.
- Prompting the trainer - so that he or she doesn’t have to look at the notes.
- Ideally, the visual aid should resemble a t-shirt. Big, clear images with a few words. The image should be self-explanatory.
- Bold and imaginative use of colour is advisable.
- Some colour contrasts could be difficult to read; especially red and green for colour blind people. Be conscious of such combinations.
- Ensure that non-pictorial visuals are simple and easy to read.
- Avoid showing numbers as raw data – whenever possible display them as graphs, pie charts or histograms.
- Use the same font style throughout and develop a hierarchy of font sizes for heading and use it consistently.
- Check spelling carefully as people notice errors.
- Always check calculations carefully – people will automatically add colums or charts to check that totals are correct.
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