Erika Smith, from APC’s women’s programme, blogged live from the Gender Evaluation Methodology (GEM) global trainers exchange, held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from 23-27 July 2007.
The GEM Trainers Exchange got off to a jumping start, literally, in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia with local trainer Toni Mohamed Kassim giving thirty plus participants the above advisory. "Warning! This is a participatory workshop, don’t think you are going to be sitting down all day." Music to many of our tired, jet-lagged ears.
The workshop has brought together ICT trainers from all over the world (just a peppering to give you an idea: Chile, Bangladesh, DRC, Croatia, Bangladesh, Uganda). But the folks in the room are not just ICT trainers, they’ve also had experience using GEM, the APC Women’s Programme’s gender evaluation tool for internet and ICT initiatives and are convinced of the need for monitoring and evaluation of ICT projects. Now they’re here to hone their facilitation skills with an eye specifically to more GEM trainings. Toni’s suggestions and exercises, however, have the whole room remembering painful and fun training and learning moments, backing them up with theory and practical tips.
It’s not enough to vary your facilitation style during a training, says Toni. To get your message across, you have to appeal to the variety of learning styles that people have in every session. Are you a visual learner? Do you learn by doing? Do you have to hear it? Toni isn’t the type of trainer who gives really good recommendations, for hours on end, imparting kernels of wisdom from behind a podium. Everything was put into practice.