Step 1, Experiencing: Do something

This is the step that is associated with the “game,” or fun, or the experience. Participants are involved in completing a defined task. If the process ends here, all learning is left to chance and the trainer has not completed the task.

Step 2, Publishing: Share observations

The second step of the cycle gives the learners a chance to share what they saw, how they felt, and what they experienced. The trainer can facilitate this step in several ways: Record data in the large group; have participants share or interview in subgroups; or lead a variation of a round robin. Questions the facilitator may ask are

• What happened? What did you observe?
• What occurred during the activity?
• How did you feel about this?

The facilitator typically begins with a broad question and then focuses on more specific questions. The facilitator may probe for turning points or decisions that affected the outcome. This stage is important because it allows the participants to vent or express strong emotions, and it allows the facilitator to gather data.

Step 3, Processing: Interpret dynamics or concepts

This step gives the participants a chance to discuss the patterns and dynamics they observed during the activity. Observers may be used to discuss this step. Questions the facilitator may ask are

• Why do you think that may have occurred?
• What did you learn?
• What did you learn about yourself?
• What theories or principles may be true based on your experience?

The facilitator will again begin with broad questions and then home in on more specific questions. This stage allows participants to test hypotheses, preparing them to apply what they learned. This stage allows the facilitator a way to observe how much participants learned from the experience.

Step 4, Generalizing: Connect to real life

The key question in this step is “So what?” Participants are led to focus their awareness on situations that are similar to what they have experienced. This step makes the activity practical. Facilitators may ask:

• How does this relate to … ?
• What did you learn about yourself?
• What does this suggest to you about … ?
• How does this experience help you understand … ?
• What if … ?

This stage ensures that the participants grasp the learning that was intended. The “what if” question becomes a bridge to the last step, which is application.

Step 5, Applying: Plan effective change

The last step presents the reason the activity was conducted: “Now what?” The facilitator helps participants apply generalizations to actual situations in which they are involved. The group may establish goals, contract for change, make promises, identify potential workplace changes, or initiate any other actions that result from the experience. The questions to ask are

• What will you do differently as a result of this experience?
• How will you transfer this learning to the workplace?
• How and when will you apply your learning?
• How may this help you in the future?
• What’s next?

Participants frequently follow this step with an action plan or at least spend some time noting their thoughts about how life may be different as a result of the ELA.

The ELA is a powerful tool available to facilitators. It is time-consuming and, therefore, is used sparingly. If you decide to facilitate an ELA, don’t take any shortcuts. The value is truly in the process.

Introducing activities

Ensuring that each activity gets started efficiently is critical. Here are some actions to take before the group starts an activity or an ELA:

• Provide brief, general instructions, including whether participants will need materials, pens, and so on.
• Establish a clear objective that positions the activity within the context of the training module or session.
• Don’t provide too much information if the intent is for the participants to discover an a-ha!
• Use a process to help participants form small groups. Do this before you provide more specific instructions. Otherwise, participants will forget what you told them in the first place!
• After participants are settled in their working groups, ascertain that you have everyone’s attention. Then provide more specific direction.
• Tell participants how much involvement is expected of them. Depending on the activity, you may also want to tell them what will happen after. Will they be expected to share scores with the larger group? Will they be expected to report what happened? Will there be a large-group discussion?
• Distribute any additional required materials required and demonstrate any necessary processes.
• Announce how much time the activity will require. It’s a good idea to post the time on a flip chart or on the computer screen for your virtual learners. A countdown clock is even better. The breakout function in most virtual online platforms provides a timer. If the activity has steps within the process, you may want to post a schedule of how much time people should spend on each step. Suggest any roles that may make the activity move smoothly: timekeeper, recorder, or a spokesperson.
• Ensure that everyone knows what to do; ask if anyone has any questions.
• Circulate among the groups to ensure that everyone understands the activity.

Supporting activities

Facilitators can be quiet guides to ensure that participants are successful with their activities. Facilitators will walk among the groups to ensure that everyone understands the task, stays on track, and reaches the end. You’ll be taking these actions during the activity or Step 1 of an ELA:

• Remind participants of the rules, if necessary.
• Give a “time is half up” signal and a “5 minutes left” or a “1 minute left” signal. Abrupt commands of “stop” or “time is up” may prevent participants from achieving the goal or bringing closure.
• You may need to make suggestions about the process. Take care, however, not to give away the answer. Suggesting, rather than commanding, allows participants to maintain control of the situation.
• Walk among participants to identify confusion, problems, questions, and time needed to complete the task.
• Adjust time, if necessary, and announce it to the group, but only if all the groups need more or less time. Allowing some groups to have more time when others finished within the time limit may be perceived as unfair.
• Be sure to debrief the activity at its conclusion.

Processing activities

Processing, sometimes called debriefing, is probably the most important part of the activity. If you were conducting an ELA, you would be addressing the questions and working through the process included in Steps 2, 3, 4, and 5. Otherwise, you will want to assist the learners to understand the implications of what they just experienced or completed. Help them address the importance and the relevance of the activity to themselves personally. Use these suggestions:

• Relate the activity to previous as well as future training content.
• Maintain a facilitative role without one-upping participants’ experiences. Add information if it’s a tip or a technique that will be useful for participants to understand the content or to improve a skill. However, if you can add that information at another time, save it until then.
• Share pertinent observations you made during the exercise.
• Avoid teaching, preaching, or lecturing.
• Stress practical application.
• Correct participants only when they have obviously come to incorrect assumptions, and then use either a questioning technique or participation from other groups to make the correction.
• Debriefing is required so that learning outcomes can be discussed. You may want to record comments on a flip chart.
• You may use representatives from each group to conduct the debrief.
• Even if participants disagree on the outcome, ensure a common understanding among the group of what occurred before moving on.

Designing your own experiential learning activity

Excited about ELAs? You can design activities that are customized for your participants. Use Table 10-1 to plan your activity.

Communication

Whether the training is through a virtual or face-to-face ILT or a hybrid, good communication skills help to encourage participation naturally. These skills should be on everyone’s list of critical skills:

• Listen well. This skill is at the top of almost any good-skills-to-possess list. If you expect participation, this is one you’d better master. You know all the right things to do: Listen to understand, avoid hasty judgment, don’t interrupt, ask clarifying questions, and focus on content and intent. Listening is key to creating psychological safety and encouraging inclusion.
• Accept input. When you receive suggestions, comments, or responses that are not quite right, you need to accept them — at least initially. You don’t want anyone to leave the session with incorrect information, of course, but you can thank the person and then ask the group, “What do the rest of you think?”
• Project assertiveness. A trainer needs to be assertive with individuals at times — for example, ones who are disruptive or argumentative — to ensure that participants have accurate information.

• Ask questions. This is probably the most used way to encourage participation. You may ask closed or open-ended questions or rhetorical questions. You may ask for volunteers or call on someone specifically. Allow participants to develop their own answers and accept them.

  If you ask participants a question, give them enough time to volunteer a response. If you answer your own question because you’re uncomfortable with the silence or because you think participants don’t know the answer, they will eventually let you answer all the questions.

• Encourage questions. If you ask for questions, allow enough time for participants to formulate and ask them. If you find yourself asking people to hold their questions too often, it means the participants are ahead of you. Perhaps something is wrong with the session design. Asking participants to hold questions is one of the biggest deterrents to participation. Use the parking-lot tip found earlier in the “Using facilitative skills when you present” section in this chapter, but don’t overuse it.
• Practice silence. Silence is a way to communicate also. Pause regularly to allow participants to think and process information. They can’t talk if you’re talking.
• Check the pulse. If you just aren’t certain about how learners are accepting the content, ask them. It’s best to catch a problem early. In a virtual setting, you can take the pulse of the group with a thumbs up or down.
• Use chat. In a virtual classroom, be sure to attend to the questions coming in through the chat feature. It’s always a good idea to have a producer or someone else to monitor participant comments and questions, but with a large group, it’s imperative.

Interpretive skills

The ability to read participants’ nonverbal messages and to understand the intent as well as the content of verbal messages takes communication skills to another level. To increase their participation level, learners need to know that you “get it.” Here are some tips for assuring your participants that you understand them:

• Relate to situations. The ability for a trainer to empathize and visualize from the participant’s view increases participation. Participants gain trust and believe that you really do understand.
• Appreciate hot buttons. Know your participants’ hot buttons. If you can ignore them, do so. If you can’t ignore them, prepare your response so that you both save face.
• Be sensitive to nonverbal meanings. Watch participants and try to interpret the messages that their nonverbals are really saying. If you don’t understand, don’t be afraid to ask. Sometimes, asking during a break and away from the rest of the group is better. In a virtual classroom, follow up after the session to check in with anyone you sense was less than satisfied.
• Translate correctly. Interpreting what participants say and transferring their thoughts and ideas correctly to the rest of the group verbally or writing them on a flip-chart page encourages others to speak up.

Personal traits

Several basic characteristics will encourage participation if they are evident. The absence of these characteristics may discourage participation faster than any others:

• Sense of humor: Use humor to lighten the experience. Laugh at incidents. Laugh at yourself. Don’t laugh at participants.
• Patience: Give participants the time they need to learn or practice skills that will make them successful.
• Trustworthiness: Do what you say you’re going to do.
• Openness to ideas: Be open; at least acknowledge even wild ideas.
• Sincerity: Sincerity may be one of the most important characteristics to encourage participation. People know whether you truly want them to participate.

Interpersonal style

The style you exhibit allows participants to trust you and adds to their willingness to contribute to the training session. You display a set of characteristics that are natural to your unique style, yet the most successful trainers are also flexible enough to adapt all of the four style characteristics required to ensure participation:

• People-oriented and approachable: Encourage participants to ask you questions. It’s a good sign if they’re asking you questions at break that have nothing to do with the session; it means they’re comfortable asking for your thoughts and find you easy to talk to. Smile.
• Willing to share yourself: Let people in on who you are. Share something about you. Share your experiences, your successes, and your failures. Be real. They will feel more comfortable to share something about themselves.
• Organized: Participants trust that you can help them if you’re prepared and organized. Being organized also ensures that you have the maximum amount of time to give to your participants.
• Respectful of all opinions: Trainers can’t play favorites if they want to encourage participation. You don’t need to agree with all opinions — just respect them and try to understand what they mean.

Learning techniques

Effective teaching skills do come into play. Think back to teaching your children or younger siblings. You probably used techniques that continue to work with adults who are learning new skills. An effective trainer adapts some of these learning techniques to adult learners:

• Provide clear directions. Anything that needs to be done correctly needs to begin with clear directions. Don’t set your participants up for failure by giving poor directions.
• Catch ’em being good. Reinforce participants as they achieve success. In addition, provide feedback for the behaviors that contribute to a participative environment, such as volunteering and contributing. Say, for example, “Thanks for doing … .”
• Trust the process. Allow the learning process to occur even if participants experience some struggles. Learning is dependent upon the process.
• Provide feedback. Give participants honest feedback about their progress.
• Coach. Coach participants about both the skills they’re learning as well as appropriate participation behaviors.

Think through all the techniques you use to encourage learning. Ensure that you remember to use adult-learning principles as the basis for your techniques. Don’t destroy the learning environment for the sake of “the right answer.” For example, if you ask participants to identify a list of anything in small groups, don’t follow up with a handout of your list of the same thing. Adults may resent it, thinking that you could have just given it to them in the first place — or even worse, that somehow their list was defective in some way and your list is “the right answer.”

Attending skills

Sometimes tossed in with good communication skills, attending skills in a training session do much more than open communication. Attending skills help to show that you care about your participants and that you want them to succeed. That’s a powerful message when trying to increase participation, and you can send it with these attending skills:

• Provide consistent eye contact. Face the participants; ensure that you make real eye contact so that you can read them. (Don’t look at the tops of their heads.) Learn to talk and walk backward. (This is truly a skill of a gifted trainer!) When online, look directly into the camera, and everyone will believe you are talking specifically to them.

• Make eye contact with everyone. Scan the group regularly — especially during your virtual ILT. Scanning the group helps you know whether anyone is confused, distracted, or focused. Ensuring eye contact with everyone is a critical skill for encouraging good participation.

  I’ve noticed that trainers (and most speakers) tend to extend the majority of their eye contact to 75 percent of the room to their nondominant side. To encourage participation of everyone, remember to look at those participants sitting near the front of the room to your dominant side.

• Demonstrate attentive moves. Move around the room as you encourage discussion. Move toward individuals to encourage them to get involved in the discussion or to signal that you’re about to call on them. Resist the temptation to stand behind a podium or even the table; this creates a barrier between you and your learners. Lean in closer to the camera when online to demonstrate more attention.
• Provide affirmative nonverbals. Use body language like nods and smiles.
• Stay engaged. Even while participants are working on activities or small groups, stay engaged. This is not a time to call your office or take a break. Move among the groups, offering assistance, listening for understanding, and answering questions.

Process factors

The process you use to encourage and balance participation is the final area to consider. Participants may interpret a lack of somewhat equal participation by learners as playing favorites or ignoring quieter participants. Keep these process tips in mind:

• Balance participation. Encourage the quiet participants without shutting down the vocal ones. Reinforce the correct response without negating the incorrect ones. Allow participants to bring up issues, but stay on track. Keeping the balance is the job of an effective facilitator.
• Maintain flow of interaction. Observe who speaks to whom and how often. Encourage participants to speak with each other rather than to direct all comments your way.
• Build participation. Consider how you methodically increase expectations. For some individuals, you may start by asking for a simple show of hands, requesting volunteers, using a round robin, calling on specific people, being a member in a small group, and eventually acting as the spokesperson for a group.
• Create an inclusive environment. When participants feel psychologically safe in your session, they will want to be a part of it. Encouraging everyone to participate, including quiet learners, demonstrates to everyone (not just those who are quiet) that you value everyone’s opinions.

KJ Jeter creates purpose-driven organizations and sums up facilitation by getting to the heart of the matter in “Put people at the heart for lasting learning.”