101 More Ways to Make Training Active

Elaine Biech

• Publisher: Pfeiffer
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781118971963
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Negocios y empresa
• Subtopic: Gestión de recursos humanos

Liven up training with new, dynamic strategies for active participation

101 More Ways to Make Training Active brings together a rich, comprehensive collection of training strategies and activities into one easy source. Designed for quick navigation, this useful guide is packed with classroom-ready ideas and twenty "how-to" lists to enliven any learning situation, helping you better engage their trainees and encourage active participation. These techniques are applicable to almost any topic and learning objective, and provide guidance on every aspect of Active Training design and delivery. Each strategy includes recommendations for length of time, number of participants, and other conditional factors, plus a case study that illustrates the strategy in action. Coverage includes topics like communication, change management, coaching, feedback, conflict, diversity, customer service, and more, providing a complete reference for facilitating active training sessions.

Active Training requires the participants to do most of the work. They use their brains, and apply what they've learned. The environment is fast-paced, fun, supportive, and personally engaging, and encourages participants to figure things out for themselves. This book contains specific, practical strategies for bringing this environment to any training session.

• Learn new strategies for stimulating active discussion
• Inspire creativity, innovation, and collaboration
• Teach better decision making, leadership, and self-management
• Make lectures active to encourage more participation

Active training makes training sessions more enjoyable, and as participants invest themselves more heavily into the material, outcomes begin to improve dramatically. This dynamic atmosphere doesn't happen by accident; the activities and the course itself must be designed and delivered in a way that encourages active participation. In 101 More Ways to Make Training Active, you get a toolkit of creative, challenging, and fun ways to make it happen.

Tools to Facilitate Active Learning

Energizers

Energizers are brief activities, exercises, or brain teasers that “energize” or motivate when the group's energy is ebbing. They may be used as a relaxer after a tense discussion, to get the cobwebs out following an extended period of information absorption, or during the post-lunch blahs. Try some of the activities in this section for creative ways to introduce and revitalize your sessions. All can be used for a variety of topics and customized to meet your needs.

56 Guess to the Beat

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Overview

This energizing activity will help team members or colleagues get to know each other.

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Participants

Newly formed team or work group of 20 maximum participants

Procedure

1. Before the session, ask participants in advance (privately) for two things: the name of their favorite song and what interests them most about their work. Download the songs from iTunes, following copyright guidelines. Create a separate slide for each participant identifying what interests each person the most about work. Also, create a “cheat sheet” for yourself with each participants name, song name, and job interest.
2. Announce that this is a combination of Name That Tune and Name the Person. Play the song and ask, “Can you name this tune?” At the same time display the PowerPoint slide that lists what interests the person most on the job. The person's name should not appear on the slide. Ask participants if they can identify this person.
3. You will probably not want to present all of the songs at the same time. Sprinkle them throughout the session, perhaps saving the most unlikely or the most interesting until near the end.

Debrief

• What was most surprising about your colleagues?
• What new information did you learn about each other?
• How can you use each other's interests in completing your work?
• Who might be a future “go-to” person for you?

Variations

1. This activity does not need to be used only for team building. It is an effective way to build fun into a department off-site meeting.
2. Allow yourself to have fun with this, too. You could ask for other “favorites” as well, such as pet, vacation, book, fictional character, movie, or many others.

Case Example

This was used with a team of world class performers who couldn't play well together. Music became the theme for the entire off-site meeting. Most people only know each other by title and job description. When the only attorney in the group had a favorite song that was a “head song” from the 1960s, people saw another side of him that transpired into much kidding and laughter. Given the other questions they also found out what part of his work held the most interest. It was an enlightening, light-hearted, yet meaningful exchange that brought the team together quickly.

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Contributed by Eileen McDargh, McDargh Communications

57 Take a Stand

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Overview

Use this strategy in a classroom setting to get people on their feet while accomplishing a secondary purpose such as an icebreaker, energizer, getting learners to “take a stand” on an issue, or getting group feedback.

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Participants

Best for 10 to 50 people in a room with enough space to stand and walk around (not theater style).

Procedure

1. Display a question and two to four multiple choice answers.
2. Tell participants that they can indicate their answer by going to the part of the room assigned to each choice. For multiple choice point out what part of the room is A, B, C, or D.
3. Tell participants to go to the letter that matches their answer choice.

Debrief

• How do you explain the percent of people in each group at each answer?

Variations

1. Give the small groups each gathered around one response a task that can be done while standing together. The task may be related to their answer choice. For example you could ask them to determine the top reasons why their answer is best.
2. Ask participants to stand in their spot, add a “what if” element to the question and ask if they would move/change their response.
3. You could post the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and ask a question that has a Likert Scale answer. For example, 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree. Request that participants stand by the number that represents their answer. Comment on the number of people in front of each number. If they formed a line, it would be a human graph.

Case Examples

1. Used as an icebreaker: At a leadership training class for 30+ adult leaders at a national training site, we asked how far people had traveled to get to the session and indicated t...