An Age Old Problem

Get learners involved in teaching themselves.

Purpose of exercise: To encourage participants to improvise and learn to communicate in different ways and to show how frustrated we get when we aren’t understood, despite our best efforts.

Exercise: Tell everyone that until the exercise is over they are now no longer allowed to talk (This is important and you must enforce this as the trainer).

The exercise itself is really simple. Tell participants from the moment you say 'Go' they will have 5 minutes to organize themselves into a straight line, with the oldest on the right and the youngest on the left! They can not use pen or paper or speak.Remember you MUST enforce the "no talking" strictly or it completely spoils the exercise.

Alter the time depending on how many people you have, but for up to 30, we find that 5 mins is normally long enough to prove the point.When the line is formed, start at the right of the line and get participants to say their birthdays, and see how many mistakes there are.

This task normally sounds really easy at first, but when they have to start getting down to communicating differences in months and days between birthdays, tempers normally start to fray slightly. You will often see “angry” leaders emerge who start pushing other people around.

Debrief: have participants sit back down and talk about why they failed (or succeeded – either works to make the learning points). Bring up things like:

· Did a leader emerge or were there several leaders?
· Did leadership help or hinder?
· Did everyone use the same “system” once their regular tools were thwarted?
· What worked and what didn’t?
· Did people start getting frustrated? Why?
· If they were to do it again what would they do differently?

Then, (and this is key) – bridge the learning points clearly to the lesson you are about to teach and then reference the activity and examples from it as you make the lesson points.

I have used this exercise frequently, its one of the “pocket activities” I keep in mind for all kinds of sessions and I am always amazed at some of the ways people come up with to communicate – I have seen all different types of hand signals, foot stomping, some use eye blinking and once time I had a participant stare really hard at another hoping they could read her mind.

Have fun using this exercise to enhance learning retention.

It's simple: sleep more to learn more

Less sleep. It seems to be the first solution nowadays as people try to juggle the demands at the office and in the home.

This happens despite how sleep deprivation harms the ability to think and learn. Recently, as outlined by the American Physiological Society, scientists have made great strides in understanding why, and how, this happens. The act of learning new tasks causes the area of the brain responsible for memory, called the hippocampus, to produce new cells. These cells need sleep to survive.

In a joint study by Stanford University and the University of California, researchers found that sleep-limited rats had a much more difficult time remembering a path through a maze in relation to rats that were rested. The conclusion: learning rejuvenates the brain.

Sleep-limited people have shorter attention spans, impaired memory and longer reaction times. It is now apparent that sleep is not just needed for general health, but that it is needed more by the brain than any other part of the body.The brain is rejuvenated through learning.

Relating this to real-life. Two factors ultimately determine how one learns: exposure to new material and getting adequate amounts of sleep.

Learning new things keeps the brain healthy because it ensures that new cells in the hippocampus survive. Conversely, inadequate sleep impairs neurogenesis. Repeated sleep restriction can have lasting effects on how the brain functions.

Take a nap!

Ice Breaker/Energizer - Have You Ever?

This an active, fun way to explore and celebrate the diversity of experiences that different people bring to any group. Participants stand in a group or sit in a circle.The instructor starts by explaining that they will call out different things that may or may not apply to each person. If the item does apply, then that person runs into the middle, jumps in the air, and does a high 5 with anyone else who runs in.

A list of about 20 items should be tailored to the particular group, setting, and program goals. Usually the items are of a "Have You Ever....?" form, but also free to ad lib, e.g., "Does Anyone Have....?" Items should be carefully considered in order to prevent embarrassment, ridicule, etc.

List of Possible "Have Your Ever?" Items:

• Have you ever climbed to the highest point in your country of birth?


• Have you ever lived overseas for more than 1 year?


• Have you ever sung karaoke?


• Have you ever been without a shower for more than 2 weeks?


• Do you have both a brother and a sister?


• Have you ever ridden a horse?


• Have you ever eaten frogs' legs?


• Can you speak 3 or more languages?


• Have you ever been in love with someone who was vegetarian?


• Have you swum in 3 or more different oceans?


• Have you ever flown an aeroplane?


• Have you broken 3 or more bones in your body?


• Have you done volunteer work sometime in the last month?


• Have you ever free-climbed a tree or rockface more than 10 meters vertically?


• Have you ever had a close relative who lived to over 100?


• Have you ever cooked a meal by yourself for more than 20 people?


• Have you ever kept a budgerigar as a pet?


• Have you ever been parachuting or done a bungee jump?


• Can you not click your fingers on your non-dominant hand?


• Have you ever seen a polar bear?
  

From James Neil

Variations
(adapted from Dave Hall (n.d.), www.nirsa.org/naturalhigh/pdf/icebreak.pdf)

Participants can generate their own questions. Here's one way.

People are sitting in a circle. Everyone has a chair (or rope ring or hula hoop) except the person who is IT, standing in the center. The person in the middle asks a "Have You Ever" question that is true for him/her self e.g., "have you ever climbed a mountain over 10,000 feet?"

Anyone whose answer is "yes" gets up and moves to an empty seat. So, if four people get up they try to exchange seats as quickly as possible. The person who asked the question tries to quickly gain a seat, leaving one other person without a seat and they become the new IT.

In choosing a question, participants can try for questions which reveal something e.g., “have you ever trekked the Great Wall of China?” or ask simple questions like “have you ever fallen off of a bicycle?” for which everyone would get up.

Pileup variation: Anyone can ask a question and if you can answer yes to the question you move one space to your right and sit in that chair. If you cannot answer yes to the question, you stay seated in the chair where you are. This means somebody may be coming to sit on your lap from the seat to your left. Sometimes you get three and four people sitting in sort of a lap-style game on top of you. Then, when they ask the next question to go one space to the right by answering yes, they peel off one at a time sit down and you end up on top. It creates some very interesting combinations. Be cautious using physical touching activities with adults.

From Janet: I find this activity is great as an introduction activity for a session where participants work togther and/or know each other very well. It helps them learn new things and that often helps break down old "stereotypes" of bad group behaviour and role entrenchment.

Any Questions?

Here is a tip from one of my favourite websites - http://www.thiagi.com/ .

"Most participants' brains seem to stop functioning when you invite them to ask questions. They all become suddenly bashful and avoid eye contact.

Possible causes: fear of asking a foolish question or appearing to be the only confused person in the room.

Suggested solution: Give everyone an index card. Ask participants to write a question which a confused person may ask. Then ask participants to turn the card with the written side down and pass it to someone else. Participants continue passing the cards in random fashion until you yell "Stop!" after about 15 seconds. Make sure everyone has a card. Now select a participant at random and ask her to read the question on the card. Suggest that the participant may pretend to read the card -- but actually ask his or her own question. Give a brief answer and continue by selecting another participant."

You can use this part way through a program to bring out unasked questions or to find your muddiest point and use it as an opportunity for you as the facilitator to answer. You could also use this as a review and ask participants to answer the question on the card they receive.

Two more ways I have used a version of this....

1- at the beginning of training ask individuals to write down questions they have about the topic on the index cards. Then collect the cards. At the end of the first day, hand out the cards again and ask anyone to share a question that had been answered that day. If they don't volunteer what that answer was, ask another participant to. At the end of the multiple day event (usually 3 days for me) you as the facilitator read remaining questions, asking participants if the question was answered and if not, answering it then and there - showing that you care about meeting their needs.

2- at the end of the session, hand out postcards instead of index cards (lots of free ones can be found in public places or ordered from companies like vistaprint.ca ) and ask each participant to write down one question that remains unanswered for them. Tell them to write that question in their notes too. Collect the postcards and advise participants you are going to mail them back to them in 2 weeks to see if they found the answer to their question. Offer that if the question isn't answered by then, they can call you for free and get help with the answer. By leaving class with a question - most participants find their answer from applying the material - a good boost for the value of your program. In many years of facilitation, I have only had 3 questions remain unanswered by participants.