Multiple Intelligence Training Tips & Strategies--Teleseminars, Podcasts, & Teleconferences - By: David Lazear

Following are some training tips and strategies for when you're conducting a training teleseminar, Podcast, or a teleconference training call. Part of the obvious difficulty with teleseminars, Podcasts, and teleconferences is that you can't see your participants or audience; however, you can still present your information in a multimodal way.

During this past year I conducted a six session teleseminar entitled Unlock Your True Genius -- Discover HOW You Are Smart! Each of the tele-classes was ninety minutes long. The content was multiple intelligences. Let me take you through how I used the SmartStrategies to "multimodalize" these presentations by way of illustrating what you can do.

To help you recognize the multimodal teaching strategies I have italicized and underlined them in my description below.

Each teleseminar in the series started with a time of having participants on the call connect with each other and myself. I found out who was on the call and asked them to share some of their experiences of working with the material from the previous week's session.

For each tele-class I provided participants with a handout which they downloaded from my website. The handout was filled with many visuals which backed-up what I was talking about on the call.

The handout, however, didn't contain all of the information. It was designed to give thema place to take notes, so there were blanks to be filled in, and diagrams which needed to be explained, and exercises which were used during the call.

In each call I made use of some kind of "cognitive organizer" to help people logically understand the key points I was making; for example, compare and contrast multiple intelligence with the tradition view of intelligence, or prioritize the information from most important to least important.

During the time I was talking I was especially conscious of and careful about what I was doing with my voice. I watched how I said what I said. I watched my inflection, the tone of my speaking, the pitch, and rhythm.

I wanted to make sure my voice was communicating excitement, seriousness, reflectiveness, challenge, or whatever matched each part of the call. Since participants couldn't see me, my voice had to communicate my emotions to them.

Half way through each call, at about the forty-five minute mark, I'd take a break and encourage participants to stand up, walk around, get a cup of coffee, stretch, go to the bathroom -- anything that would get them up from where they were sitting listening to the teleseminar.

I knew that after sitting and listening for forty-five minutes (with forty-five still to go!) they needed to some physical movement to energize them for the remainder of the call. Now, of course, I don't know if they actually got up and moved, but it was part of my instructions.

On each of the calls I had a guest expert whom I interviewed. The guest also had handout pages they sent me which were part of the handout. These included key points from the information they were sharing and practical exercises which they took people through on the call.

At the end of the call, I provided a time for questions and answers from the participants where they could dialogue with me and the guest experts. And finally, I gave them a suggested action plan for the week and a way to contact me with questions, issues, or concerns they had about the material covers.

The participants were also keeping a reflective journal where they could keep track of their insights, discoveries, learnings, and "Aha's!" as they went through the teleseminar series.

The feedback I got from the series told me that the mulitmodal teaching and learning approach made all the difference in people's active involvement with the information I was presenting. They truly "got it" and knew how to use it.

This article present some multiple intelligence training tips and strategies for when you're conducting a training teleseminar, Podcast, or a teleconference training call. Part of the obvious difficulty with teleseminars, Podcasts, and teleconferences is that you can't see your participants or audience; however, you can still present your information in a multimodal way.

David Lazear, author, trainer and business coach, provides a wide range of training resources and services for home business entrepreneurs, coaches, and trainers. Find out how to turbo-charge any training, mentoring, or coaching you provide @ Small Business Mentor Training.