Many years ago, when I was a primary school teacher, it was normal to work with classes or groups of mixed abilities. This presented a challenge to the teacher, how to pitch the lessons and the work so that everyone could benefit, whatever their level.

Many trainers face the same challenge with adults, running technical training sessions for people with different levels of knowledge or skills sessions for people with varying degrees of experence and skill level.

You can try to avoid this by spelling out the objectives of your training and clearly defining who it is aimed at, but I know that this doesn't stop people turning up (or being sent) to training they may not need or which is aimed at a different level.

Some of the approaches I would suggest in this situation will be similar to those I tried to use when I was a teacher. Here are a few tips:

 

Ideally, find out before the training begins by using pre-course questionnaires or interviews to learn more about your group. Failing that, find out at the start of your session. You can simply ask people or you could use an activity which will give you an idea of the range (you could even have a short test of some sort). One approach is to ask people to line up according to how much they feel they know about the topic, with one end of the line being 'nothing' and the other 'a lot'. Or they could give themselves a mark out of 10. This is, of course, very crude and only gives you an idea of what they think they know, which may be misleading. Still, it's better than nothing.

Don't ignore it and just plough on regardless. Tell people that you realise there is a range of ability in the room and that you're going to try to give them all something of value, but also ask for their help in making the session useful for everyone.

Be clear about what the aims of the training are and what you're going to cover. If it's really not suitable for some people, perhaps you could give them the option of leaving ( I know that's not always going to be appropriate ).

Don't make assumptions about people's attitudes or skills, e.g. thinking older people will be fearful or inept with technology or, alternatively, that they are bound to have come across something before.

...and how much is about letting people discover for themselves or giving them a chance to process and use information. If you're spending a long time presenting information, this will be a bigger problem if some of the group already know the information. You have more flexibility if you spend more time setting up activities where people discover things for themselves or where they can apply what they already know. This will allow people to work at their own level.

...where you can, to allow more experienced people to mentor and help the less experienced. Give people an opportunity to share their knowledge, which will also help them to develop it – there is nothing like trying to teach others to make you really think about a topic.

...rather than making everyone do the same thing. This is the basis of mixed ability teaching in schools and is called 'differentiation'. Prepare tasks at different levels and either allocate groups to tasks or allow them to select their own activity based on which they feel would be of most value to them.

Or, you could have a range of tasks which people work through, increasing in the level of challenge, and people can start where they think is appropriate and work their way through, e.g. a range of IT case studies. This also helps to deal with the situation where one group may finish before another because they will have something else to move on to.

 

I'm told that doctors are sometimes trained or assessed by going round a range of activities in a hall. These may include identifying a body part, making a quick diagnosis, doing a role play where they have to deal with an anxious patient or a written test. Could you use something like this in your own training?

...to allow for different ways of learning and different levels. For example, some information or tasks could be available on the Internet or could involve people carrying out projects online or with audio or video equipment.

...from the training and are happy with the content. Ask for feedback or have some mechanism whereby people can let you know how they're feeling, e.g. putting smiley or sad faces on a chart, giving marks out of 10. This gives you a chance to adapt what you're doing if it's not working and also show concern for your learners.

Those are just a few suggestions. I know it all sounds like a lot of work but it may help to make the difference between a training session which is a big success and one which fails to hit the mark and leaves people (including you) feeling frustrated.