Interactive Experiential Training Strategies

Background

Since 1960, I have been seriously playing with experiential approaches to adult learning. In the process, I have studied and experimented with more than 40 powerful interactive instructional training strategies.

Since March 21, 1999, I have been designing one new interactive instructional activity every day-including weekends and holidays. I have been using this approach as the most effective experiential technique for learning more about interactive training. Fortunately, I have sold some of these activities to my clients, published some others in my books and newsletter, posted a few in my web site, and stored the reminder in my hard drive for future postmortem. Here's the complete menu of strategies that I have explored.

This list is not a taxonomy, but an informal list of overlapping categories. Items marked with a single asterisk(*) are explored in detail in my book, Interactive Experiential Training. Items marked with a double asterisk(**) are explored in detail in the sequel, Interactive Strategies for Improving Performance. Items marked with a triple asterisk (***) are explored in detail in the recent book, More Interactive Strategies for Improving Performance.

List of Interactive Experiential Strategies

***Action Learning involves a combination of action and reflection by a team solving complex, strategic problems in a real-world organizational setting. Team members apply existing skills and knowledge and create new skills, knowledge, and insights through continuously reflecting on and questioning the problem definition, the collaborative behavior, and the ensuing results.
***Audio Games are training activities that primarily depend on recorded audio messages (such as audiotape, MP3, or computer recording) to provide the training content, structure the training activity, and collect participants' responses. Most audio games use few or no visuals.
*Board Games borrow structures and supplies from popular recreational games to create highly motivating training events. Board games typically use game cards and dice to encourage individuals and teams to demonstrate their mastery of concepts, principles, skills, and problem-solving strategies.
***The Case Method involves a written account of a real or fictional situation surrounding a problem. Participants work individually and in teams to analyze, discuss, and recommend appropriate solutions and to critique each others' work. In some cases, the facilitator may recount the actual decisions implemented in the real-world situation on which the case was based.
*Cash Games are a special type of simulation game that involves actual cash transactions. However, they are not gambling games. Nor do they focus on accounting procedures or financial management. Instead, they explore interpersonal skills (such as negotiation) and concepts (such as cooperation). Why cash? Because it effectively simulates the real world and brings out natural behaviors and emotions in participants.
**Classification Card Games involve pieces of information (such as facts, concepts, technical terms, definitions, principles, examples, quotations, and questions) printed on cards. These games borrow procedures from traditional games with playing cards and require players to classify and sequence pieces of information from the instructional content.
**Closers are activities conducted near the end of a session. They are used for achieving such purposes as reviewing main points, tying up loose ends, planning application activities, providing feedback, celebrating successful conclusion, and exchanging information for future contacts.
Coaching Activities involve an individual (the coach) supporting the learning or performance improvement of another (the coachee) through interactive questioning and support. The process usually includes the coach and the coachee establishing goals, the coach observing the coachee, offering relevant feedback, suggesting suitable activities, and helping the coachee's professional and personal growth.
Computer Game Shells are a special type of framegame that is presented on a computer screen. The shells permit the loading of new content (usually questions) by the facilitator. The computer acts as a time keeper and score keeper. These games can also be presented to large groups by projecting the display on large screens.
Consensus Decisionmaking Activities involve a list of items (usually 10) to be arranged in order of priority. Participants complete the task individually and then reach consensus in groups. They compare their priority rankings with expert rankings. In the process, they learn more about factors that contribute to the priority value of the items and also factors that influence decision-making and reaching consensus.
Corporate Adventure Learning involves physical activities and challenges (such as sailing, rafting, rappelling, rock climbing, exploring wilderness areas, and walking on rope bridges) in specially-designed indoor or outdoor environments. Participants construct knowledge, skill, and value from their direct experiences through debriefing discussions.
*Creativity Techniques provide a structure that enables participants to solve a problem or to utilize an opportunity in a creative fashion. These techniques are useful not only for learning new skills and knowledge but also for directly improving the performance of a team.
**E-mail Games are conducted through the internet. They may involve the play of electronic versions of interactive training games or specially-designed activities that permit asynchronous communication in which people receive and send messages at different times. Typical e-mail games exploit the ability of internet to ignore geographic distances and involve participants pooling their ideas and polling to select best ones.
Facilitated Activities help teams analyze problems, formulate goals, generate alternative solutions, and make decisions. Usually, a trained facilitator conducts these structured activities to help teams maximize their diverse talents and to arrive at collaborative solutions that are superior to individual solutions.
*Framegames provide templates for instant creation of training games. The generic frameworks are deliberately designed to permit easy replacement of old content with new. You can use framegames to rapidly develop training activities that suit your needs.
Guided Learning Activities provide a special type of on-the-job training. New employees (or new members of a team) observe workplace processes using carefully designed checklists. Later, they perform job-related activities under the guidance of an experienced employee or team member and receive immediate feedback.
**Improv Games are activities adapted from improvisational theater. The actors do not use a script but create the dialogue and action as they perform. When used as an interactive training technique, improv games facilitate the mastery of skills related to such areas as creativity, collaboration, communication, and change.
**Instructional Puzzles challenge the participant's ingenuity and incorporate training content that is to be previewed, reviewed, tested, re-taught, or enriched. Puzzles can be solved by individuals or by teams.
*Interactive Lectures involve participants in the learning process while providing complete control to the instructor. These activities enable a quick and easy conversion of a typical lecture into an interactive experience. Different types of interactive lectures incorporate built-in quizzes, interspersed tasks, teamwork interludes, and participant control of the presentation.
***Interactive Stories are fictional narratives that involve participants in a variety of activities. In one type of interactive story, the facilitator presents the story and discusses its significance in a debrief. In another type, the facilitator pauses at critical junctures in the middle of a story and invites listeners to play the role of a character and make appropriate decisions. In still another type, pariticipants themselves create and share stories that illustrate key concepts, principles, or procedures.
***Item Processing is an interactive strategy in which individuals and teams generate, organize, and sequence items such as ideas, facts, questions, complaints, and suggestions. As a result of the activity, participants create organized lists of items. More importantly, this activity enables participants to construct meaningful categories and sequences from isolated items. This results in deeper understanding and easier recall of the content.
**Jolts lull participants into behaving in a comfortable way and deliver a powerful wake-up call. They force participants to re-examine their assumptions and revise their standard procedures. Jolts typically last for a few minutes but provide enough insights for a lengthy debriefing.
*Magic Tricks incorporate a relevant magic trick as a part of a training session. Magic tricks provide metaphors or analogies for some important element of the training content. The tricks are also used as processes to be analyzed, reconstructed, learned, performed, or coached for training participants in appropriate procedures.
**Matrix Games require participants to occupy boxes in a grid by demonstrating a specific skill or knowledge. The matrixes provide a structure for matching or classifying individual items or organizing and comparing a set of items. The first participant to occupy a given number of boxes in a straight line (horizontally, vertically, or diagonally) wins the game.
*Metaphorical Simulation Games (MSGs) reflect real-world processes in an abstract, simplified fashion. MSGs are particularly useful to teach principles related to planning, generating ideas, testing alternatives, making decisions, utilizing resources, and working under time pressure.
***Openers (also known as icebreakers) are activities conducted near the beginning of a session. They are used for achieving such purposes as previewing main points, orienting participants, introducing participants to one another, forming teams, establishing ground rules, setting goals, reducing initial anxieties, and stimulating self-disclosure.
**Paper-and-Pencil Games require players to make their moves by writing or drawing something on paper. A typical game may involve players working on a small piece of paper or a large sheet of. Paper-and-pencil games may incorporate elements of roleplay, simulation, creativity technique, or quiz contest.
*PC Simulations use playing cards to reflect real-world objects and processes. The rules of PC simulations typically encourage participants to discover principles of interpersonal interaction and inductive thinking.
*Read.me Games combine the effective organization of well-written materials with the motivational impact of playful activities. Participants read a handout and play a game that uses team support to encourage recall and transfer of what they read.
**Reflective Teamwork involves participants creating a product related to some aspect of teamwork. Teams then evaluate their characteristics and performance by using the product they created.
***Role Plays involve participants assuming and acting out characters, personalities, and attitudes other than their own. These activities may be tightly or loosely structured and may involve a participant assuming multiple roles or reversed roles.
Scenario Educational Software (SES) is a computer-simulation format developed by Mark Keegan to incorporate key features of discovery learning. A typical SES program transports participants to a specific time and place (such as a health clinic in West Africa or a penitentiary in Rikers Island). The simulated activity presents an optimal challenge, requires participants to make decisions, and provides relevant feedback. Most SES activities last for a significant period of time to maximize the impact of repeated practice.
***Simulation Games help participants experience an event close to the real experience-without experiencing the real event itself. Originally used in war games for training officers and soldiers, this strategy is currently used in business games for teaching complex concepts. Most simulations are based on models of reality. Computers are frequently used to translate complex models in such areas as space travel and urban planning into graphic representations.
Structured Group Discussions use a self-contained instructional format designed for helping team members learn together. The activity is facilitated by a mediated system (such as an audio tape, a videotape, or a computer) that presents information, specifies a discussion topic, imposes time limits, and provides feedback in the form of model responses and checklists.
*Structured Sharing represents a special type of framegame that facilitates mutual learning and teaching among the participants. Typical structured sharing activities create a context for a dialogue among participants based on their experiences, knowledge, and opinions.
***Telephone Games use telephones and answering machines. They may involve the play of interactive training games over long distances. Typical telephone games may involve elements of role-play and virtual teamwork.
Television Games borrow the structure of popular TV game shows to present the instructional content and to encourage participants to practice skills. They involve selected contestants and the "studio audience" who participate and learn vicariously. TV Games can be broadcast for distance learning , made available on videotapes, or presented live by using computer game shells and graphics.
Thought Experiments are internal role plays that involve guided visualization. Individual participants may mentally rehearse new patterns of behavior, ask Eleanor Roosevelt for advice, or hold a dialogue with their alter ego. These activities result in the learning of new knowledge and insights.
**Training Devices involve physical activities performed on electrical and mechanical pieces of equipment. Participants solve a problem or meet a challenge with the device and relate the process to their workplace activities.
***Video Vitamins, based on a format developed by Bill Matthews, enhance the instructional value of training videos. In a typical video vitamin, participants watch a videotape and then play one or more games that help review and apply the new concepts and skills.
Wall Games, based on a format developed by Steve Sugar, typically involve posters mounted on a wall (or on an easel) that require participants to write or draw. A typical wall game may present a vertical version of a board game, a matrix game, or an instructional puzzle. Participants may play these games individually or in teams.
Web Games are interactive activities presented on the world wide web. A variety of games and simulations can be played on the web either by individuals or by teams. Some web-based games permit several people to interact with one another at the same time in chat rooms. Others require "asynchronous" interaction in which the exchange of information among participants are delayed by minutes, hours, or days.
WebQuests are based on a format developed by Bernie Dodge and Tom March at the San Diego State University. They feature a special type of inquiry learning in which participants collect information from the Web. WebQuests focus on using the information rather than merely retrieving it. A typical WebQuest requires participants to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate the information from the Web.