SuperVision

Editor's Note: This article first appeared in the April 2007 issue of RTNDA's Communicator magazine. It is adapted for publication here with permission from RTNDA.

As a newsroom leader, you are likely to be asked to do some teaching or training. It might be for a convention, a workshop or your own news organization. You want to do well -- but you're worried. You're well versed in your topic, but you're not an expert educator. On top of that, you're teaching journalists. They're smart, skeptical folks who don't hesitate to challenge ideas or tune out a presenter who fails to engage.

So, how do you engage? Start by understanding some important things: Talking isn't necessarily teaching. Listening isn't necessarily learning. There's an art to teaching adult learners.

With a little help, you can learn to teach like a pro. Here's how I know: Through a special project supported by The McCormick Tribune Foundation, I've helped train a corps of broadcast news managers who serve as "Leadership Coaches" for the Radio-Television News Directors Foundation leadership and management sessions at workshops around the country. During the past two years, these coaches have delivered well-planned, well-executed sessions that earned highly positive evaluations from workshop participants.

Tips from Coaches

These news managers have trained to become teachers and coaches in RTNDF management workshops. Here's their advice.

Why the good grades? Because these news managers now bring core principles of adult learning to their presentations. They use teaching methods honed at places Poynter, where learning is grounded in interactivity, discovery and fun. Want to have more fun -- and more success -- next time you are tapped to teach or train? Consider these ideas and approaches as you build your skills:

1. Adults Are Choosy Learners
We tell children what they should learn. We promise it will come in handy in the future. That approach doesn't work with adults. They are selective about the time they invest in learning. Adults want knowledge that's relevant to their lives, useful in the near term, solves a problem or fills a gap they've identified. They have little interest in passively absorbing information or spending time memorizing. They learn through interactivity and discovering answers on their own. You can't force them to have an "aha!" moment, but you can set up the conditions for it to happen. And that takes skill.

2. Put the Panels on "Pause"
Teaching at a convention?  I'm challenging the time-honored but tired panel-discussion format, where speakers are lined up like four wise owls on a tree branch. From a lofty perch, they impart their insights to the folks below. I don't blame the owls. They're busy professionals with something to share, recruited by equally busy convention planners with sessions to schedule. Panels may be efficient, but they're not always effective for adult learners, not unless the topic is extraordinarily compelling or the owls are genuine celebrities.

3. Avoid "Old School" Seating
In traditional classroom or conference settings, people see the speaker, the folks on either side of them, and the backs of a lot of heads. Whenever you can, free these "captives" and turn them into a community. Maximize their comfort. Arrange the seating so people can see and talk to one another. U-shaped tables. Rounds. Arcs of seats rather than rows. These enable you to more easily form conversation groups and lead interactive exercises.

4. The Wisdom Is in the Room
This is my teaching mantra: The wisdom is in the room. I encourage you to let it guide you, too. You may have expertise or experience in a subject, but the audience you address is smarter, collectively, than any one person. Assume these adults are your teaching partners, not your "students." They have plenty to offer you and each other. Build in opportunities for their input, and not just in the form of questions to you. Teach interactively.

5. "Interactive" Means Involved
It's easy to deliver a speech and open the floor to questions; it is harder to weave audience involvement into your presentation, confident you'll hit all the teaching points for which you are aiming. Here are some options from the interactivity inventory:

• case studies
  
• role plays
• games
• live demonstrations
• free-writing
  
• readers’ theater
  
• quizzes
  
• self-diagnostics
  
• team challenges
• debriefs.
  

To enhance these, you may use teaching tools such as flip charts, video, audio, handouts, props and even costumes. Did you notice that I didn't include PowerPoint in the list? That's because it gets its own paragraph -- of warning.

6. Don't Punish With PowerPoint
Internet guru Vint Cerf says it best: "Power corrupts. And PowerPoint corrupts absolutely." It is a teaching tool with great potential, but is too often misused. It shouldn’t be a giant TelePrompTer, dominating a room with page after page of "readalong" bullets, charts and sentences. It shouldn't make viewers queasy from flying text and special effects. It shouldn't lock a presenter into a pre-programmed slide sequence, quashing spontaneity. Good PowerPoint supports teaching, but doesn't lead it. Use it to share powerful images and critical information. Use it to illustrate ideas with simplicity.  When it comes to PowerPoint, less is more.

7. Connect Credibly
Quick ways to turn off your audience include:

• failing to do your homework 
  
• knowing little about the people you're teaching
  
• talking down to them
  
• telling too many self-congratulatory war stories
  
• using interactive exercises that don't have a clear message or payoff
  
• embarrassing participants by forcing them to talk when they're not ready
• allowing a too-talkative participant to dominate
  
• offering "facts" without substantiation -- journalists will catch you!
  
• lacking a backup plan when technology fails you (and it will).

The best recipe for credibility includes preparation, expertise, energy, humility, humor and a genuine belief that you, the teacher, are interested in learning, too.

Want to learn more about teaching?
The coaches in the RTNDF project got their start by reading "News Leadership at the Head of the Class: The Journalist's Guide to Teaching Leadership and Management Skills and Values." In writing the handbook for them, I included specific tips, techniques, exercises and resources. There's even a section filled with handouts for use in teaching.

The second, updated edition of News Leadership is now available at www.rtnda.org, for everyone interested in training and coaching. Enjoy. And when you're at the head of the class, when it's your show, teach like a pro.