Grouping Techniques

Many learning activities require you to break a large group into subgroups. The most frequently used method of creating subgroups is to ask participants to count off by however many groups you want to create. However, this method is boring and people often forget their numbers or where they are supposed to relocate. Instead of the old “ho-hum” approach, let's look at some other more creative ways to create small groups.

• Puzzles. Make or buy six-piece jigsaw puzzles and give each person a puzzle piece. To form subgroups, the participants have to find those who have pieces to the same puzzle.
• Candy. Different flavors of wrapped candy can be distributed to participants just before breaking into groups. (Be sure to tell them not to eat the candy just yet.) Ask the peppermints to go to one spot; butterscotch pieces, another; Hershey Kisses^®, still another.
• Participant materials. Give your participants pens or folders of different colors to indicate their groups.
• Grouping cards. Another way to move people quickly and efficiently into different group configurations throughout the day is to create grouping cards. Each person receives a 3-by-5-inch card on which is a colored dot, a number, and a colorful sticker. The numbers, dots, and stickers are placed on the cards so that they will form random groups of varying sizes, depending on the purpose of the activity and required subgroup size. For example, say there are 12 people in a workshop and you will need to create four groups of three (red, blue, green, yellow dots), three groups of four (zoo animal stickers: lions, giraffes, zebras), and two groups of six (numbers 1 and 2). When you are ready to put people into subgroups, tell them how to group and where.
• Finding famous fictional friends and families. Another excellent way to group people is called “Finding Famous Fictional Friends and Families.” First, depending on the number of groups you need, create groups of four or five fictional characters in the same “family” such as Robin Hood, Maid Marian, Friar Tuck, Little John, Sheriff of Nottingham; Tin Man, Cowardly Lion, Dorothy, Scarecrow, Toto; Peter Pan, Captain Hook, Wendy, Tinkerbell, Crocodile; Hawkeye, Hot Lips, Trapper John, Radar, Klinger. Put the names of characters on separate index cards (one card per person in the workshop), shuffle the cards, and give each participant a card. Next ask the participants to find the other members of their “families.” Suggest to participants that if they do not recognize the name of a character they drew, to ask their fellow participants for help.

When the subgroups have been formed, ask them to discuss a particular topic or come up with a list related to the topic. For example, for a customer service program, ask the groups to share the best or the worst experience they ever had as a customer. In a program on managing change, ask subgroups to list the changes they are experiencing in their organizations and the industry.

Assigning Roles

Roles can also be assigned in creative ways, rather than leaving the decision to the groups themselves. Suggest that the spokesperson, scribe, or discussion leader be the person whose birthday is closest to the day's date or who lives the closest to the training location.

Bob Pike of Creative Training Techniques in Minneapolis uses a fun finger-pointing technique. He asks people in their small groups to point their index fingers in the air, and when he gives the signal, they are to point to someone in their group. The person who has the most fingers pointing at him or her is the spokesperson. To add a little more fun, variety, and surprise, the trainer can then tell the person who was just chosen to choose someone else.

Come up with your own creative ideas. Let your imagination run wild!

Regaining Control

Sometimes trainers are afraid to have participants interacting with one another or moving into small groups because they are afraid of losing control and not being able to get the group's attention again. This is no problem with a little planning and communicating up front. First, be very clear and specific when telling participants what you want them to do; give them a timeframe and tell them what signal you are going to use to let them know when time is up. There are many ways of regaining the audience's attention—both auditory and visual.

Props and Points

Coming up with ideas for props is not difficult. The key is to sit down and think about your learning points and brainstorm what objects might relate to or represent that particular message.

Posters

Display posters of quotations related to the topic around the room to create a mood and generate interest in the topic. Quotations work well at the beginning of a session. Ask participants to choose one of the quotations and explain how it relates to them. The following quotes are appropriate for a time-management session:

• Money lost can be replaced, but time lost is gone forever.
• People who have half an hour to spend usually spend it with someone who hasn't.
• Everybody has the problem of time; of all resources, it is the scarcest, the most perishable, and the most elusive.

Giveaways

A prop becomes even more effective and memorable if you use “giveaways” that coordinate with your theme. For example, you might give participants whistles in a coaching session; miniature “magic springs” to remind people to be flexible, or kaleidoscopes to help them look at things differently.

Use cube puzzles to represent problem solving. Give out small compasses in a session on goal setting to emphasize the importance of staying on course.

Give away buttons and stickers with words or slogans as a reminder of your theme or key learning points. Steve Sugar distributes 2-inch by 2-inch “Koala T Idea” cartoon stickers to recognize unique ideas contributed by individuals or groups.

Using Themes

Another way to add creativity to a workshop is to use a theme as a metaphor for the topic. Decorate the room and choose props and giveaways to support the theme. For example, the metaphor of a sailboat cruise to represent team building, with the meeting room decorated in a nautical theme. When participants arrive, place leis around their necks and give out compasses to help them “stay on course.” Give each person an eraser shaped like a sea creature and a roll of LifeSavers^®.

Use an outer space theme and have the room darkened and decorated with glow-in-the-dark stars and other celestial objects. If your session is about group problem solving or decision making, you might choose the NASA task simulation from Teleometrics.

Using Imagination

Do not be afraid to take risks. Do something different. For example, use music. Have it playing as people come in the room and during breaks. Trainers often use recordings of currently popular songs to set the mood for a training session and/or activity. Although the use of recordings for this type of usage requires no special agreements with the copyright owners for its use, you must pay a performance royalty to the publisher for these uses. For permission to play recorded music, contact the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) or Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI). Even better, use royalty-free music produced especially for training venues. An excellent source is “Powerful Presentation Music” from the Bob Pike group.

Use balloons to show how managers can “celebrate” their employees' achievements. One word of caution: do not get carried away. Your creativity must not get in the way of your main purpose: a meaningful learning experience. Whatever you do should be an enhancement, not a distraction.

Instructional Games

To put it simply, an instructional game is an activity that involves rules and a repeating pattern of play. Reflecting a balance between knowledge and chance, an effective instructional game contains the following four Cs:

• Challenge. By its very nature, a game is competitive and, therefore, has challenge, either built in or assumed.
• Chance. Unlike a simulation or other experiential activities, a game includes an element of chance created by the roll of the dice or the luck of the draw.
• Complication. Complication is a factor involving both rules of play and questions that “test” the players' knowledge or skills.
• Closure. A game has a clear ending determined by time or point factors, resulting in winners and losers.

A popular and versatile type of instructional game is known as a “frame game.” A frame game involves selecting a well-known game structure and placing your instructional material within that structure. Think of a frame game as a template, designed generically so that you can “load” or plug in your own content into the game. The two most popular classroom frame games are paper-and-pencil (Bingo, Tic-Tac-Toe, Scavenger Hunt) and board and TV game shows (for example, Monopoly^®, Trivial Pursuit^®, Jeopardy). The TV game show has spawned a series of templates from Learning Ware and other vendors. You do not have to limit your use to popular and well-known games. There are a number of sources available to you for frame games that are easy to use. Game guru Sivasailam “Thiagi” Thiagarajan has a number of frame games as well as simulation games available on the market, as noted in Appendix B.

Advantages of Games

Like other experiential activities, instructional games can serve a number of purposes. Games serve two main purposes simultaneously: instruction and group development.

Factors to Consider

Results of a study conducted by James Kirk (1995) indicate that certain groups like games more than others. Kirk found that people under forty are more likely to enjoy the instructional use of games. Furthermore, supervisors or managers, those in sales and marketing positions, and professionals tend to respond favorably to games. Technicians, support staff, and operation workers are less likely to like games.

The following factors must be taken into consideration when deciding whether or not to use an instructional game.

• Time. Steve Sugar estimates that it takes between 7 and 12 minutes in development for every minute of playing time to create a game.
• Cost. Cost depends on a number of variables, including the complexity of the game, the number of game sets you have to produce, production costs, purchasing costs, and, of course, how much time you have to devote.
• Audience. You must consider the makeup of the group. Some games are more complex than others and will require some higher-order thinking and application.
• Enjoyment. Although a game is a vehicle for learning, it should also be fun.
• Adaptability. The best instructional games are those that can be adapted easily to audience, subject, and time constraints.
• User-friendliness. An instructional game needs to be easy to use and understand for both the participants and the facilitator.
• Safety. The game must be nonthreatening. In other words, participants need to feel that it's okay to make a mistake.
• Learning objectives. The instructional purpose needs to be clearly understood. Like all other activities, the game must lead to a learning outcome.

Adapting Games to Training Programs

After deciding to incorporate a game into the training design, you must then actually build the game. The “master of instructional games,” Steve Sugar, suggests the following approach:

Writing Game Questions and Items

In writing game questions, keep in mind that you want variety. Consider the following types of questions and items:

• Short answer. These questions include many types: direct question (elicits a simple factual response), partial listing (elicits a list of characteristics), multiple choice, identification, definitions, and fill-in-the-blank.
• Case study. These questions present hypothetical situations requiring the participant to explain briefly what he or she would do.
• Role play. A role play requires the participant to actually do something that relates to the topic. For example, in a class on interpersonal skills, a role-play question might direct the participant to give feedback to one of his or her colleagues.
• Discussion. A discussion question requires the group to discuss the question among themselves. In a session on business etiquette, the participants might discuss a female taking a male client to lunch and how to handle the check.
• Activity or process. Tasks are written on cards, such as “Complete [task] in thirty seconds,” or “Without words, demonstrate how to greet a new customer.”

Facilitating a Game

The biggest contributing factor to a game's failure is what the trainer does (or does not do) after the game is played. In a survey conducted by James Kirk (1995), 80 percent of training providers responded that they have received no structured training in game facilitation.

Games require the same care in processing as do other activities. If you follow the What? So What? Now What? formula along with the other processing tips introduced in Chapter 8, your game will be successful. Be prepared, however, for mixed reactions. Because of the differences in learning styles, it's understandable and predictable that people will react differently. Some people may hate the game, while others think it is one of the best learning experiences they ever had.

So don't be concerned unless you receive a lot of negative reactions.

Caveats

Trainers who have had little or no experience using an instructional game in training sessions are often very uncomfortable the first time. They are unnerved by the perceived loss of control, particularly if they have been delivering trainer-centered training. If the participants are really involved in the game, then the trainer is really not even needed, except to answer the few questions that may arise, to observe the process, and to monitor the flow of the activity.

Summarizing Techniques

Throughout the session, participants have been bombarded with information and activities. Before you send them on their way, help them pull it all together so that they leave the session with a clear understanding of your key learning points. Rather than taking on the responsibility of summarizing the session yourself, put the onus on the participants to think about what they have learned, synthesizing the content and experiences into key learning points. Remember that they will learn (and remember) better by doing rather than by being told.

Self-Assessment

Also give participants an opportunity to reflect on how much they have personally grown or learned during the session. A great technique is to create a human continuum. This activity is adapted from a design called “Physical Self-Assessment” in 101 Ways to Make Training Active (Silberman, 2005).

For this activity, create two signs that represent the two extreme ends of a continuum and post them on opposite ends of a wall. For example, use “competent” and “clueless.” Then ask participants to think about where they were at the beginning of the session or program relative to their knowledge, understanding, or skill level as it relates to the topic. Ask them to imagine the wall as a continuum and to get up and place themselves where they think they were.

After the participants are in position, ask two or three to explain why they placed themselves where they did. Next ask them to think about where they see themselves now, at the end of the program, and to place themselves accordingly. Once again, ask a few to explain their positions. In most cases, you will find participants moving in varying degrees from clueless to competent. This activity is a graphic way for both you and the participants to see how they have benefited from the training session.

Making Commitments

Mel Silberman used to tell trainers, “It's not what you give them, but what they take away that counts.” Unless participants take what they learned and apply it to their own situations, the training will not be effective. To help ensure that the training is transferred to the work environment, ask participants to develop their own action plans. Ask them to write down two or three action items as a result of the training. Ask them to write down not only what they are going to do but how and when. Also ask them to consider what barriers they might anticipate and how they can overcome them. Exhibit 11.1 is an example of an action plan used at the end of a management-development program.

Follow-Up Activities

Do not overlook the importance of building into your design follow-up activities to reinforce the training. Send various learning resources such as articles, videos, or audio recordings to the participants at regular intervals for them to use individually or with others. You can also give them specific assignments to complete and submit to you. Remember that training is a process, not an event.

Reflections

At the end of many training sessions, you can use a simple activity that combines self-assessment, action plan, and personal reaction all in one activity. I put the following statements on a slide or flip chart:

• The most important thing I learned in this session is …
• As a result of this training, one thing I am going to do is …
• What I liked best about this training session was …

Then ask a few volunteers to share their responses to the items. It is a great way to obtain feedback and to help participants focus on or clarify in their own minds what was the most meaningful learning for them. Aside from being great feedback for the trainer, this technique helps participants leave with a sense of enjoyment and satisfaction with the learning experience.