It seems like a good time, just post ALA 2025, to talk about my approach to learning from conferences (and webinars and e-courses and everything else, really). I’ve been providing handouts at my recent conference sessions (and using them at others’ sessions myself) that give space for attendees to note 1) 3 take-aways from the session 2) 3 people they know in the session that they can contact after for conversation about the session topic and 3) 1 – 3 actions that they will take when they get back to work.
The first item is really just reflecting on the session and deciding what was most important to you, from the information presented. It’s a chance to do a minute of reflection after each session you attend. The second item is all about accountability and is important, but not to this blog post, so we’ll move right on to the third item, which is the action item(s). You can enter one to three things that you will do when you get back to the office that can go directly in your to-do list and that will support the learning you’ve done in the session.
Between the ability to reflect, even if for a moment, on the stuff you’ve learned and to distill the really important *for you* stuff from it and then the decision to make (at least) one action back at home that will make use of what you’ve learned, you have a recipe for not just remembering, but activating the cool stuff you pick up at conferences or in webinars. The handout is attached and is freely available for you to use either at your sessions that you lead or in sessions that you attend as a learner – either way, it’s something that can be useful and can really help get the information being presented into your organization in a useful way!