Are you a trainer or coach? Then you are probably an expert as well. You are a specialist in your area of expertise. As such, you want to build a good reputation and gain recognition. However, recognition is not gained solely through knowledge and didactic skills. A serious trainer provides their participants with sources that they deem good and relevant. There are several factors you should consider, which I will introduce to you here in the form of a checklist.

In seminars, workshops, and similar settings, you show your participants how to develop a specific skill or acquire meaningful processes. This places you in a unique position: As a trainer or coach in professional development, you are both an expert and, at the same time, help people gain more expertise themselves.

As a trainer-expert, you must be a good curator

According to American educational psychologist Robert Glaser1, there are three stages on the path to becoming an expert:

1. Support from outside

2. Transitional phase

3. Independently organized learning

In your role as a trainer, you focus on this first phase: You offer your participants support from outside to facilitate their entry into the topic. You achieve this by creating a suitable learning environment, employing didactic methods, and ultimately through the selection of suitable content.

Here lies an important point that distinguishes the successful trainer from a novice in the field. You must apply your own expertise in such a way that you become a good curator, providing your participants with valuable sources and content to practice with.

Fun Facts

1. Curator means "trustee" in English. This contains the word “trust.” Trust is an important guarantee of respect and recognition—goals that you want to achieve as a trainer.

2. The term curator itself comes from Latin and is derived from the word curare, which means “to take care of something.” In connection with the aspect of trust, this provides a nice description of your task as a curator: You gain trust by caring for valuable content to collect and share.

How to become a good curator

To become a good curator, you need to pay attention to two things: The type of sources and the method of presentation. Using the following checklist, you can determine whether your selected sources meet the criteria for good curation.

1. The type of sources

You gain recognition and credibility by providing content sources that fulfill the following conditions overall:

• They are mostly not your own.

• They come from reputable sources.

• They are from different authors.

• They are well-prepared.

In summary

You do not appear very reputable if you refer to only your own content throughout the training. Instead, you support your argumentation by referencing various authors who also have a good reputation as part of your curation spectrum. This does not mean that every statement must be linked to a different source! Finally, it is important that the sources are well-prepared—poorly scanned content or sources without clear author names appear unprofessional.

2. The method of presentation

The way you present the sources to your participants also plays a significant role in gaining recognition and credibility. Therefore, make your sources available in such a way that they also fulfill the following conditions:

• The participants know where to find the sources.

• The participants know why they should understand the content of the sources.

• The participants know when they should understand the content.

• The participants know how long it will take them.

• The participants know how to proceed with questions about the content.

In summary

Your participants should know the answers to all typical “W-questions” to effectively work with the sources. Thus, in the role of curator, it is not enough to simply provide a link to a reputable source without comment. Don't forget: You are the expert and you know why and how your participant should work with the source.

In in-person events, you as a curator have your hands tied

You were able to tick off all the points on the checklist? Very good! Now you are faced with one problem: In workshops or seminars, where you and your participants are physically present in the same room, you cannot just pass along a source.

Even if you have selected good sources and considered the conditions under which your participants can work with them—printed content harms the environment and costs a lot of money. Additionally, you are limited to written sources here. As soon as you want to share a good video or an interesting podcast, you are at a loss in the in-person event.

The optimal method for your curation: Blended Learning

When you share your sources d digitally and online, you find it much easier to tick off the above checklist and you are no longer restricted by the length or form of the content. Combine your face-to-face phases with suitable online support, and all possibilities are open to you. This method is called blended learning.

In the education sector, blended learning refers to the combination of in-person events and online-supported self-learning phases. There are various ways to connect blended learning with your already existing in-person solution.

Do you want to learn more about blended learning? We are the experts in this area! Here, I provide you with additional sources to help you get started on your journey to becoming a blended learning expert:

TED Talk by Annie Bosler and Don Greene in the article “Top Performance in Your Training – How to Create Good Exercises”
Classification: Tips for blended learning and other learning forms
What you will learn here: How to effectively use exercises in training
How much time you need for this: 10 minutes

TED Talk by Simon Sinek in the article “4 Steps to Better Training: Through Clear Calls to Action”
Classification: Tips for blended learning and training in general
What you will learn here: How you as a speaker or trainer can trigger actions in people
How much time you need for this: 20 minutes

Just take a look at both sources and learn how to excel in blended learning!

1R. Glaser: Changing the agency for learning: Acquiring expert performance. In: K. A. Ericsson (Ed.): The road to excellence. Mahwah, New Jersey 1996.