It's not just fun and games!
Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me and I’ll remember. Involve me and I’ll understand. ~ Confucius ~
I am sure all of you remember how it was like in school, where you sat quietly as your teacher droned on and on while your mind works to absorb all those bits of information that could determine the future course of your life. Work is the operative word, it really took a lot of effort.
Then you get home, and take out a board game. You had the good sense of applying what you learned from class into winning the game. I have to say that I learned more about handling money from playing a round of Monopoly than I ever did in Mathematics class! Because it involved all my senses, I found it to be engaging, empowering and that much more entertaining.
Activities, or in our case, Learning Activities are multi-sensory and offers something for everyone irrespective of our individual learning styles. You are ever so involved as you participate using your sense of sight, hearing, kinetic touch and movement. Moreover, learning activities are fun!
In activities, you are interacting with more than just yourself. You will also be receiving unique views and knowledge as shared by your fellow ‘playmates’.
Where traditional training methods attempt to instill skills at an intellectual level, skills learned through learning activities tend to stick at an almost cellular level, allowing for greater knowledge transfer. This is how training effectiveness is being measured, by how well the participants are able to apply the skills learned over time. The greater the knowledge transfer, the better return on the training investment!
Which is why in MWS, we constantly bring the point home that training should be made fun and experiential. That trainers need to deploy learning activities to better achieve their training outcome.
Simply consider how much of your content includes elements of:
Interaction between participants and the facilitator.
Varying types of activity to deliver messages and learn skills.
Fun value keeping participants engaged and energized
Relevance of the activity and the message – is there are a clear connection?
Lastly, dynamic delivery! Even the best learning activity will fall flat if the facilitator is not able to bring their own energy and passion.
Learning Activities have surely taken their place in corporate training, a learning methodology that is both effective in achieving objectives and injecting that much needed fun, making it absolutely vital in training workshops this day and age.
