Before you can get a group of workers to fully engage in a training session, you need to grab their attention. Educators call this creating learning readiness. It's easy to workers' minds to wander away from a training lesson, but you can get them to focus by starting with something that motivates them to learn.

Here are some ideas for creating learning readiness:

1. Tell a brief story that pertains to the topic. For example, when teaching about protecting clients' belongings, tell your workers about the time you forgot to check the linens for dentures and had to drive to the cleaning service office to retrieve your clients' teeth. 
2. Play a game. A brief word game or a competitive activity with prizes can get attention quickly.
3. Give workers a pre-test. A pre-test will find out what your workers already know and help you focus on the gaps, as well as encouraging them to focus. You can use the same test at the beginning as you use at the end of the lesson.
4. Promise an award to every worker who scores 100% on the test at the end of the lesson, or to the worker with the highest score.
5. Assign a worker in advance to lead part of the lesson, or even to conduct the whole session. All of us learn best when we teach others, and peers tend to support their fellow workers when they know it will be their turn to teach someday.

All of these ideas are super easy when you use NerdNurse training modules, because we've done the hard work of planning and preparing the lesson for you. You have the fun of implementing!