Cheryle began her teaching career working with young adults but realised it wasn't a great fit for her. Life and corporate experience have made her deeply resilient and adaptable leader both personally and in organisational contexts. She's endlessly optimistic and her signature strength is in bringing unique perspectives and innovative thought leadership to areas of human behaviour and culture development in organisations.
Cheryle's deep niche is in designing and delivering LIVE online learning experiences (webinars, live virtual classrooms, virtual workshops and virtual conferences). Connecting with people in a real human way using web-conferencing technologies is now more vital than ever. She loves this way of teaching and learning, and she helps others to love it too!
Cheryle has programs and workshops to teach others to use the software, as well as employ facilitation skills to create immersive learning experiences for virtual workshop participants. She helps adapt programs that were delivered face-to-face, into formats and activities that continue to engage participants in web-conferencing. She's now also involved in helping people connect when working from home and remotely.
Courses, resources and offerings can be found at cheryleewalker.com
Cheryle began her teaching career working with young adults but realised it wasn't a great fit for her. Life and corporate experience have made her deeply resilient and adaptable leader both personally and in organisational contexts. She's endlessly optimistic and her signature strength is in bringing unique perspectives and innovative thought leadership to areas of human behaviour and culture development in organisations.
Cheryle's deep niche is in designing and delivering LIVE online learning experiences (webinars, live virtual classrooms, virtual workshops and virtual conferences). Connecting with people in a real human way using web-conferencing technologies is now more vital than ever. She loves this way of teaching and learning, and she helps others to love it too!
Cheryle has programs and workshops to teach others to use the software, as well as employ facilitation skills to create immersive learning experiences for virtual workshop participants. She helps adapt programs that were delivered face-to-face, into formats and activities that continue to engage participants in web-conferencing. She's now also involved in helping people connect when working from home and remotely.
Courses, resources and offerings can be found at cheryleewalker.com
Elizabeth Diacos: 0:01
Welcome to the Get out of Teaching podcast presented by Larksong Enterprises. I'm your host, Elizabeth Diacos. On the show, we'll look at the who, what, why, where, when and how of moving out of your Education career and into a life you love...We'll meet exteachers, delve into what we love about teaching and how to translate that into something new. We will talk to people who can support and inspire us as we make the transition and work on identifying the legacy we want to leave in the world. So come along for the ride as we Get out of Teaching! Episode 8. Hi everyone. Welcome to today's show, where I'm interviewing Cheryle Walker. So Hi, Cheryle, thanks for joining me on the show today.
Cheryle Walker: 0:47
Hi, Elizabeth. Pleasure to be with you.
Elizabeth Diacos: 1:33
So, Cheryle, tell us about yourself, and particularly what got you into teaching in the first place, and where were you teaching, and how long were you teaching for?
Cheryle Walker: 1:39
Yes. So I'm a live online facilitator and I design for virtual classrooms. And most of my audiences is these days are adults and perhaps in the corporate setting, but also individuals. I do have a teaching degree. And that was a long time ago. But I was very interested in education, perhaps not so much education of Children and are discovered that when I went to my first teaching rounds, So I was working full time in corporate, went to my first teaching rounds at Galvin Park Technical School, which is out the west of Melbourne.
Cheryle Walker: 1:39
Is that still in existence? Maybe we don't want to bad mouth any institutions
Cheryle Walker: 1:40
No, No, Just an interesting experience, socially. So... So, yeah, teaching in a technical college and not understanding the setting and the students. And the social demographic area was really enlightening for me So, for example, teaching...
Elizabeth Diacos: 1:59
just want to interrupt enough get you to explain what a technical college is, because I think most Australians would know what that was. But if we've got an overseas audience and might not be aware of what that actually is
Cheryle Walker: 2:09
Mmmm, so the Technical college was very much focused on vocational skills as opposed to, bringing students through a VCE academic sort of pathway to university. So the technical college I did my teaching rounds that was very much focused on job readiness and vocational education, which was interesting for me as well, I was focused on year 11, 12 but took an occasion to teach Year 10 boys about accounting. And accounting is not the most interesting subject. But I thought these kids might get some life skills out of that. You know, budgeting, managing money, money mind sets, things like that. I thought it could be interesting... Some of the year 10 boys, not so much. And one of the challenging conversations I had was an individual boy in the classroom just mucking around and not really getting started on the activity which was to took at a budget for Ah, you know, a home budget sort of thing. And I walked over to him and I just said gently to him. So perhaps, you know, I need to help you start the activity. Do you know where to start or what we're needing to do? And he said nup, nup! And I said, "Oh, well, you never know. One day you might need to put together a budget for yourself when you've got a job, perhaps, and maybe you're saving for something you want a car on holiday?" and he just looked at me and said, "No I'm just going to go on the dole just like my dad is." I just was floored, and I just thought I'm so unprepared to deal with this. I thought I was here to teach and teach concepts, and I had this mindset that they would be somewhat interested. Or I could relate to...what they're up to and you realised Wow!, there's a lot more to teaching.
Elizabeth Diacos: 3:54
Yeah, And you were just on a completely different page like, yeah, your expectation. And the students expectations were streets apart. Worlds apart!
Cheryle Walker: 4:05
Very different, very different. You're right. So I meandered into adult education, which I think I understood better from my background and my role why people want to learn more work skills, why they need to improve their performance at work and learn what they need to. But being able to deliver learning more flexibly, certainly via virtual. So I ended up in a role with National Australia Bank, that's one of the biggest four companies in this country. And looking at how we could reach more of our real employees, our tellers people in branches helping to reach them with the kinds of learning that they need to do to be good at their job and to feel confident. And, so I went to a conference in America which quite inspired me. I saw a case study from Bank of America who have 200,000 employees across Northern America and they had the challenge of how we're going to reach everybody equitably. You know, so many employees, so many employees need to understand how to improve in their roles... Or if there's something that changes, they need to find out about that. And so how are we going to do that? And so at that time back in 2006 they were doing virtual classrooms similar to this sort of technology we're in today.
Elizabeth Diacos: 5:25
Wow! so that was really But that's innovative, isn't it? It was a long time ago.
Cheryle Walker: 5:29
Back then it was, and it wasn't happening in Australia, and it made me scratch my head and wonder why we weren't doing this in Australia. Why we weren't doing this in our big banks because at the time, National Australia Bank had over 900 branches Australia-wide, and same thing... A lot of people who might be part time roles or have caring responsibilities or we just didn't have budget to bring these people into capital cities to teach them how to do their job properly. So they kind of meandered along doing their job learning from their colleagues and didn't feel well supported, perhaps. So, that's why I started investigating this sort of technology but bringing the human element of helping and facilitating and bringing people on the journey.
Elizabeth Diacos: 6:15
OK, since it's been a quite a transition... on the way sort of out of what you're ...you were expecting, which was to be a teacher,
Cheryle Walker: 6:26
MMM
Elizabeth Diacos: 6:45
I mean, I think you've explained to us what the tipping point was. That conversation was pretty crucial in making that decision, but was there any fear around you disinvested in this course of study, you've learned these skills, you're about to apply them, and then you realise it's the wrong choice.
Cheryle Walker: 6:46
Yes, yeah, and that's where I really started to turn back to... I think it's adult education that I'm after and to understand the system of adult education in Australia, particularly vocational, and to work within an organisation like I was working for at the time. So how do people learn on the job?What sort of environment stimulates them to want to learn on and, then what accessibility do they have? So it was about accessibility at that stage, you know... Corporates have typically done the face to face learning model, which I know we do in schools here in Australia as well, but typically done it in capital cities and people fly in. It's quite expensive. It's also a bit of a perk! So you come in, you have lunch, get a, get served a nice lunch. You might stay overnight in a nice hotel, so there's all of that sort of happening around it as well. But one of the things I did which was really valuable with National Australia Bank was I travelled out to Cloncurry, which is far western Queensland, to understand they have a branch out at Cloncurry for National Australia Bank, and there's a Commonwealth Bank branch there as well. There's two people who work in the NAB branch, and another two in the Commonwealth branch and they're side by side in the street. And these people know each other. In fact, they're cousins. Yeah, So...here we are, from the big grand corporate saying, you need to learn how to do this. You need to follow these procedures, fill out these forms and send it all into head office and we really don't understand the community that they live in. And so I travelled out there and I said to our two employees at the branch out there: How do you learn? If you're really stumped on something in your job, how do you figure out what to do?" And they said, Oh, easy. We go next door to the guys at the Com Bank because they do similar things. They have different forms and staff, but they you know, they might have a bit more experience, and that's like a show us how they do it. I just thought, What an epiphany that we thought we were so grand at NAB that we had our ways and our processes, and we were teaching people how to do things in our ways. But in fact, people do the phone a friend or someone I know or someone next door, and that's how they organically learn. And so it made me realise we need to connect more intimately and make learning more accessible even in a big giant corporate organisation. And that's where I find the virtual can do that.
Elizabeth Diacos: 9:05
Yes!
Cheryle Walker: 9:06
Connection.
Elizabeth Diacos: 9:07
So you must have needed to really pick up some new skills if you started out. You know, I know you come from corporate, but in Education, how long ago was it that you started? Or that when you had your first teaching round? What year, well approximately?
Cheryle Walker: 9:25
Ooh... that was about that would have been late nineties?
Elizabeth Diacos: 9:29
Okay, so it was...certainly there was no online learning back then in Australia.
Elizabeth Diacos: 9:35
No, but the interesting thing I discovered as I went on this journey... So my second lot of teaching rounds I chose to teach at the Victorian Correspondance School, which in those days, located in South Melbourne at the old South Melbourne tech building. And so I did my second lot of teaching rounds there and really understood the demographic makeup of students at a correspondence school. So this is correspondence secondary school. A lot of them, because of their religious beliefs and restrictions around consumption of media and so forth... some of it might be social issues or on the spectrum, unable to attend normal schools. The Victorian education department...and I think they still do provide correspondent school,
Elizabeth Diacos: 10:20
yeah, they do, it's in Thorbury now
Cheryle Walker: 10:22
distance education. And so that's where I got a real flavour for teaching and helping people around these issues of accessibility and inclusivity, which I think are really, really important these days. So that was my experience in the education field, which then was once again extremely valuable in corporate
Elizabeth Diacos: 12:25
Yeah, so so did you need to go and do some more study or do other courses that were... How did you learn? How did you learn what you what you needed to do what you do now?
Cheryle Walker: 12:25
In those days, there wasn't anything specific in how to teach virtual..or how to connect with students in a live online environment like this, or how to even understand the challenges of distance education. But I did complete a Masters of Learning at Southern Cross University, and that helped me advance, particularly around corporate leadership, and more sophisticated models of learning, but I essentially went on a self paced journey of experimenting with this kind of virtual classroom technology and understanding what it takes to bring your great...ah... teaching abilities. Your mojo, if you like, when you're in full flight, understanding your learners and creating a classroom environment and stimulating learning to occur, understanding what we need to do in the virtual realm to do that on, and most of its self taught. And I've been in this field now 15 years, and what I love to do is role model this and teach it to other people. And I call it "how to bring your mojo". You know, you know how to teach! You know how to engage a classroom. You know, how to understand motivations of an individual learner. How do we bring that into the virtual room without losing any of that... without fearing the technology? You know, we have to feel two things. We have to be competent with the software. There's no doubt, but we also have to feel confident and feel like our regular teacher-facilitator self in this environment, and that's something that I enjoy role modelling, and I enjoy helping other people come into this realm..
Elizabeth Diacos: 12:26
even you with your green screen background. I'm like, Wow, that looks amazing.
Cheryle Walker: 12:32
Yeah, there's a few, you know, tips and hints and tricks that make you feel more in the environment and help portray you as being more professional. Even the other day, I was talking about somebody who was very hand-communicative. Some of us do wave our hands around when we speak, and I'd say to that person, make sure your hands are in the webcam when you're doing that because that's part of your body language that you're portraying when you're speaking...were sparing.
Elizabeth Diacos: 12:56
Yeah...I always have to pull mine back because they're enormous. And so I don't want to look like (laughter) So, so as you got yourself out, it sounds like that journey actually was... the way you're describing it was kind of fairly seamless that you didn't have to have this kind of crisis. It just happened...
Cheryle Walker: 13:18
Oh, don't get me wrong. It was a struggle, a struggle, to, to understand how to use the software creatively, because if you go to a software vendor for training, they'll teach you about the buttons and the things. But that doesn't give you the context of how could that really make a rich learning environment? So it was a struggle of trial and error. To figure those things out. One of the things that inspired me is right here in our very country... The other struggle ahead before I tell that story is struggling to help other people feel... confident about this to feel enthusiastic about it. So you can imagine I go running, raving back to my job saying, "Oh, we've gotta do virtual classrooms! And this is just going to be sensational." Everybody goes oh, yeah, really
Elizabeth Diacos: 14:04
Here she comes again!
Cheryle Walker: 14:05
Yeah. And how disengaging, You know, oh yeah virtual online, whatever... That's very e-learning... sort of were fatigued of that, not engaging at all...and even facilitators themselves say "No... what I what I do best is face to face with people, you know, really, in the room with people". But where I started to investigate and drew my continuing enthusiasm from was the School of the Air in Alice Springs. So went and visited there and, you know, Australia is actually a pioneer in this. So it was 1929 a guy called Alfred Trager invented the pedal radio for the Royal Flying Doctor service. And and essential way of communicating and think about that, that's criticality around medical treatment. Royal Flying Doctor... have to communicate clearly about symptoms of patients and often in an emergency or crisis situation. So they did that.. that then led to Royal Flying Doctor Service, starting the School of the air in 1951 out of Alice Springs. And if you go and visit their facility and look at their history.... amazingly, you know, innovative ...ahead of their time and very stimulating in terms of what could be possible. They're now the largest classroom in the world, still, in terms of their geographic reach and the number of students, and they are the first of their kind in the world and I feel very proud that Australia did that and it was out of necessity, necessity that we had kids on farming stations around remote areas in Australia that we don't want to miss a good education, a quality education. And so that's what drives me as well. That idea that we do have people in our community, even if they're not remote... they may be homebound ...we have people in the community and all sorts of realms that we need to reach and make learning accessible for them and to include them and be inclusive. And these are the kinds of things that I talk two people about these days. It's not about the technology. It's nothing about that. It's nothing about being shiny and cute in technology, it's about accessibility and inclusivity for all sorts of people, for all sorts of learning.
Elizabeth Diacos: 16:13
It is... I've been up to the Distance Ed... the venue at Katherine in the Northern Territory is wells. That there's another are up there and that was amazing. And they do a tour so you can actually look around and go into the.. into the classroom and see all the technology that the teachers are using. And, you know, then talking about what happens when it fails and all those dramas and
Cheryle Walker: 16:36
they're very proud and so they should be
Elizabeth Diacos: 16:39
That's right. It's an amazing service that they provide
Cheryle Walker: 16:41
provide not everything's mainstream and the way you think it should run.
Elizabeth Diacos: 16:45
No... that's right. And it's certainly I guess those kids, even though they're on these remote farming communities, are actually growing up really tech-savvy because you have to use the technology in order just to access
Cheryle Walker: 16:58
..to stay in touch...
Elizabeth Diacos: 16:59
a basic education. So, if you were talking to a teacher who want to get out of teaching or someone who maybe was thinking of doing what...The kind of thing that you do, where you're offering training in an online forum. What, what advice would you give to someone who was in that situation where they just felt maybe it was going to be difficult to move out of what they were currently doing? Maybe they're tied to it because of the financial... you know, restrictions, they need to earn an income. Maybe there's just this block of fear, or not being able to visualise what's on the other side of that fear.
Elizabeth Diacos: 17:42
Yeah,
Elizabeth Diacos: 17:43
What advice would you give to someone in that position.
Cheryle Walker: 17:45
I think two things and they both begin with 'e', I think explore and experiment. So become an explorer yourself on your own pathway and become an experimenter. So, for me, that means looking at what others are doing. So perhaps exploring things like the School of the Air, the history, how they do it... attend other people's virtual classrooms or webinars. There's a lot of them that are for free, and you'll see a lot of poor examples of engagement not really engaging or interacting with the audience. You hopefully you'll find some good ones as well. But, we even learned by seeing poor examples because we think to ourselves I wouldn't do it that way. You know what, What they're missing, they're missing ..the point is, you kind of teach yourself from looking at other things. So explore lots of things that are being delivered in this kind of manner and then experiment. So something like Zoom the tool, we're using at the moment. And I just might have to say I'm not promoting any particular vendor or I'm not affiliated with any. But some of these tools...
Elizabeth Diacos: 18:41
Zoom is pretty easy to use.
Cheryle Walker: 18:43
It is. And Skype is another one that's free... Explore some of these tools and try connecting and having conversations or even teaching something to somebody in these ways and just, you know, as you, Elizabeth, I know you're a great experimenter, and and, you know, you've come so far with with the the wonderment of playing with technology and seeing what it can do. And even somebody was saying to me the other day that they have grand parents of their children. so their own parents are overseas. And so they got them sent an iPad and simply taught them how to read a story onto an iPad so that they could then read a story to their own children in Australia from all the way across in Europe, if you know what I'm saying...
Elizabeth Diacos: 19:30
Lovely, such a nice idea.
Cheryle Walker: 19:32
Yes, So we can even get people who are not in love with technology to experiment a little and have a go and just start to, explore an experiment and dream and find perhaps the area that you do enjoy on then even find some specialists or experts to help you along the way if you become stumped with how to do it or how to make it natural.
Elizabeth Diacos: 19:55
I've seen some teachers in the US who read a bedtime story to their students. So they go online. I guess they're doing a Facebook live. I'm not not sure how they do it, but yeah, go online at a particular time of night on a particular day of the week and reading a story to the kids at the school. And they kind of tune in at that at that time to listen to a bedtime story from the Principal. And it's such a cool idea.
Cheryle Walker: 20:20
Yeah,
Elizabeth Diacos: 20:21
Big commitment on the part of the principal to be available to do that every week, but still...it's a really nice idea
Cheryle Walker: 20:25
Yeah, recently connected with some virtual classroom teachers. And when I say teachers, they're in the P- 12 sort of area, or K to 12 as we call it area in America, and I've connected with them on Instagram, and they post some fascinating things on their instagram stories about how they facilitate virtual classrooms for kids across America. This is big in America on, so they use things like green screen. They use things like filters and so forth, which can put funny faces on them so they appear is a teacher, but they've got a funny face or a moustache, and that's one way to engage the audience in a bit of fun or the kids in a bit of fun. But, yeah, they come up with some really interesting activities that draw the kids in and keep their attention while they're live online with them. And and these teachers are doing amazing things in virtual schools across America. They're quite inspiring. So I'd say yeah, find some of them, the virtual teachers on instagram or wherever you want to find them and follow along and look at what they're doing.
Elizabeth Diacos: 21:26
Well, maybe you could give us some suggestions in the show notes for this episode so that we
Cheryle Walker: 21:31
Love to!
Elizabeth Diacos: 21:32
Maybe people can access. That s Oh, Cheryl, If someone wanted to, well maybe I'm gonna ask this question first. What's life like for you now? What does a day in your life look like? And then, if people wanted to, people wanted to get in touch with you to use your service. How would they do that? So tell us about what a day is like for you, and then tell us about how you can... people can get in touch with you
Cheryle Walker: 21:55
Yeah, Good question. Because one of the reasons I love my job is about educating people and helping people. But another reason is my lifestyle. So I can can dress from the waist upwards and appear on webcam and be doing something very professional. But in fact, I'm in my home office and using green screen technology, you don't get to see my kitchen sink and I can still be a professional. So I also teach globally. So some days I'm teaching regular business hours in Australia. Other days, I'm adapting to business hours overseas, which once again, enables me to be flexible with my time. I don't work a regular Monday to Friday... that suits me. I can pick and choose. I can deliver for the audience when they're ready. I also have a beach house on the southern coast of Victoria, and because we have great NBN connected down there, I can go down there for a few days at a time and still be working, doing what I love and still earning my income in this way. So a typical day could be up to three or four virtual classrooms or sessions on different subjects for different clients and different audiences, and... but still strongly connecting with people and then, on a day like today, I might be meeting with you or talking with you on a podcast, and it's still a strong connection with people. So I would still say in my day, I've come across, you know, 15 or 20 people, even though I haven't probably left my home very much.
Elizabeth Diacos: 23:23
I find the same thing that people say to me. Don't you get lonely? I'm like, "No, I'm talking to people all day
Cheryle Walker: 23:29
Constantly talking. Yeah!
Elizabeth Diacos: 23:30
After we get of this, I have a call with a prospective client who wants to get out of teaching, and it's like amazing!
Cheryle Walker: 23:36
And that's important. If I come back to those... you know, the accessibility and the inclusivity, that is really important for people who are homebound. It's something that we can reach in and provide them with a richness, of not only an education but a connection with the outside world. And I don't mean you're physically, you know, confined to your home. It could be that you have caring responsibilities for others, whether that be youngers or elders or or siblings or, you know, it really just does include all people, no matter where you are. And no matter your ability in a lot of ways,
Elizabeth Diacos: 24:15
Great. So if someone wanted to connect with you, what would they do?
Cheryle Walker: 24:18
Yes, so I've got a website. And you might put that in the shownotes. cherylewalker.com. I run frequent public programmes on facilitating in the virtual classroom, so it's a combination of teaching you how to use the software, role modelling what I do to be a real-life person online and giving you some tips and tricks, and perhaps even templates and resources on how to get started teaching, no matter what your subject is, it doesn't matter. It's about feeling confident in bringing your current skills in. And you know those little tweaks and things that make you feel natural in this environment. So I've got one of those starting on the one of those courses, starting on the 20th of April, and I deliver it live online. So I role model, you know, walk my talk and teacher it to you as we go. So I do that kind of thing. I also have other free webinars, at times . You can connect with me....probably Linkedin is the best way to connect with me and stay in touch with the free webinars that I have and advertise.
Elizabeth Diacos: 25:12
Sounds good. I might have to access that myself.
Cheryle Walker: 25:14
Yeah, wonderful
Elizabeth Diacos: 25:16
And, so Cheryle, as we wrap this up today, I have a question that I've begun asking everyone I speak to, which is: "What's the legacy that you want to leave in the world?"
Cheryle Walker: 25:28
I think it is about inclusivity. I'd like everybody to think about how... ways we can use technology to include everybody everywhere. And if I can role model that for education, for learning in corporate, using this technology yeah, I would like to people to remember. She was focused on, including everybody everywhere in what she was doing.
Elizabeth Diacos: 25:52
Wonderful! Cheryle Walker. Thank you so much for joining us on the Get out of Teaching podcast today. It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you.
Cheryle Walker: 26:00
It was my pleasure, Elizabeth. Thank you.
Elizabeth Diacos: 26:03
You've been listening to the get out of teaching podcast presented by Larksong Enterprises with your host, Elizabeth Diacos. Do you know someone else who could benefit from hearing more stories of hope and transition from teachers all around the world? Please take a moment to share this and other episodes via your podcast app. Each share helps me reach listeners just like you, who can benefit from this content. The Get out of Teaching podcast is proud to be part of the Experts on Air Podcast network. For show notes and other resources, please visit larksong.com.au/podcast