In this special “inside” episode, Jenn speaks with Kath Burke, owner of Brio Consulting, about her background in emergency services and training.
While currently leading the Brio Team, Kath has a mixed background that includes initially gaining qualifications as a primary school teacher, before discovering a passion for the emergency management sector, which saw Kath work with a number of different organisations in this space.
Drawing on an understanding of neuroscience and strategies that support collaborative and active learning, Kath is a great example of trainers who make learning “hard fun” and who uses enthusiasm for a topic to motivate and engage participants.
Transcript excerpts:
What is Brio? – 1:55
So when we started Brio down here, we had to come up with a business name. So, brio means verve and zest and enthusiasm and passion – and that was something that was really important to us in terms of how we think training should be. So that is the name of our business, Brio, and our symbol – the light bulb came about because we really live for those “aha” kind of moments where the light bulb goes on in your brain and things all click into place or you see something from a new perspective and you come up with a new idea, and we really enjoy it when that happens for people.
The aha moments and emotional responses in learning – 5:52
When I group it together as to which ones really stand out from me, it’s usually times when I’ve been working with people who are putting themselves out of their comfort zone and they’re really testing themselves and extending themselves… I think what all of those (training sessions) have in common. It was seeing that the people gain confidence in themselves so they could put all the things we’ve been talking about together. They took charge of the situation. They stepped up. They reframed how they saw themselves as a person, what they could do. They had to be brave. It was a very emotional kind of response. And I think that’s the best learning – the deepest learning we have is where you have that emotional response to what you’re doing.
Collaborative and active learning strategies – 7:18
I want my training to be known for being really active and having that collaborative approach to learning. I think that flows across to what you need to have as skills in everyday life now and particularly working in the emergency services. If it can be scenario based, even better. So some of the active strategies I fall back on all the time is what will give people time to think and make sure that everyone is engaging with the activity so you haven’t got the option to opt out and not participate.
So some of the ones I use is:
- On the line or some form of like hot or not – where one end is something you know, show how confident you feel. I feel really confident about it or down the other end I don’t know much about that.
- Hand up. Stand up. Pair up. So you have a question or you have something to talk about. And you have to get up and physically go and talk to different people in the room. And then once you finish talking to them, you put your hand up and you go talk to somebody else. So you’re getting to hear different points of view. And it’s not about standing and talking in front of a whole group, but it’s lots of people sharing lots of ideas.
- And the other one I like is think pair share, which is just getting people to take a pause. So if you ask a question you have think time. So everyone has a chance to think about what they feel and think about that topic. And then you pair up with the person next to you and you share a couple of you know your thinkings with them. So everyone has a chance to speak and listen. And then we share back to the bigger group some of the really interesting things that people in the class or the group have come up with. And so that way it’s not just one person answering or two people answering, but everyone’s thought and shared. And then we still have that whole group sense at the end as well.
Reframing thinking – 11:03
William Glasser, who if you haven’t heard of him before, his approach to the psychology around how people behave and what drives them and how that can link to education, was really fascinating to me. And I’ve got lots of statements and little phrases that always run through my head even now, like 20 years later. “Think you can think you can’t, either way, you’re right”. Or you know, “What would you do or say if you did know the answer to that question?” All of that reframing that we can use to overcome some of the limits that we put onto ourselves, or others put on to themselves, when it comes to being a learner… I love neuroscience and the psychology behind learning, so learning about learning is really valuable because learning should be hard fun. So how do we go about making it so it’s fun for our brain, and it’s challenging enough that we learn from it…. So this is the other phrase I picked up over the last few years – It actually came off the back of a Kikki K post card, but I put it up on my wall because it made such a big difference to me and that is “feel the fear and do it anyway”.
Tweaking training – 13:10
You don’t always have time to rewrite everything, particularly in competency based training, when there’s session plans to be followed. It’s not always about having to rewrite everything from scratch. Sometimes you’ve got 5 minutes and that’s enough to tweak it to make that session more engaging, more interactive, more collaborative. And that can be enough.
Other links
Brio Consulting – www.brioconsulting.com.au
William Glasser and Choice Theory – https://wglasser.com/what-is-choice-theory/
Examples of collaborative learning strategies – https://teaching.cornell.edu/resource/examples-collaborative-learning-or-group-work-activities
Active learning strategies – https://teaching.cornell.edu/teaching-resources/active-collaborative-learning/active-learning
Contact Kath