Trainers often find themselves presenting to audiences consisting of people with different educational and professional backgrounds and varying levels of expertise on the subject matter being presented and related subject matter (e.g. patent families and patent filing practices within and across countries).

Presenting to such audiences can be a challenge since participants more advanced in the subject matter being presented might become bored if they find the level at which it is presented too basic, while participants less advanced in this subject matter might feel lost if they find the level too advanced. Participants may consequently become disengaged, diminishing the effectiveness of the training session.

The most important thing that can be done to address this issue of participant disengagement is to know your audience. Though it may not be possible to get detailed information about each participant in advance, general information such as the institution and department to which participants belong and position they hold can be helpful.  Audience reactions and questions during training sessions can provide further information about participants, though it is important to keep in mind that certain participants may not feel comfortable expressing their views openly. As a result, it is useful to stay flexible and to adapt approach and content according to newly available information.

Based on knowledge about the audience, the following actions may also help make the subject matter engaging for all participants:

• Provide less advanced participants with the opportunity to prepare themselves for training sessions (e.g. offer courses such as the WIPO Academy distance learning course DL-101 General Course on Intellectual Property to less advanced participants before starting courses dealing with patents and patent information);
• Link subject matter of training to subject matter with which the audience is likely familiar from daily experience (e.g. link patent classification to library classification);
• Explain technical ideas using practical examples (e.g. explain expanding a freedom to operate search in the structural and functional dimensions using the example of maize, which belongs to the broader group of flowering plants, “what it is”, and grain plants, “what it does”);
• Avoid technical jargon and acronyms, or explain technical jargon and give the full title in addition to the acronym (e.g. instead of “PCT system”, use “system of international patent filing established under the Patent Cooperation Treaty, or PCT”);
• Focus on practical skills (e.g. step-by-step process of constructing a patent database query);
• Provide references to advanced resources for more advanced participants (e.g. e-Tutorial on Using Patent Information, WIPO Guide to Using Patent Information);
• Answer questions from less advanced participants or more advanced participants separately (e.g. during breaks or via eTISC);
• Ask questions and invite more advanced participants to answer these questions (depending on cultural circumstances) to keep them engaged and to provide a more interactive atmosphere;
• Try to find common ground between different audience types and switch between issues with which one group might be particularly familiar and those with which another group might be particularly familiar.

Please feel free to share your tips on how to provide training to mixed audiences in the comments!