During the past six months we have been confronting a challenge—and leveraging an opportunity: All our clients and participants around the world have been demanding training sessions delivered on online platforms. To respond to this situation, we have been successfully designing, delivering, and improving several live online learning activities (LOLAs). We have also been helping other facilitators to use LOLAs to produce effective learning.
We don’t know when the pandemic will end, but we know even when that happens, we will continue using LOLAs as a preferred training strategy because our experience indicates it is a cost-effective approach.
There are different types of LOLAs and we will explore specific activities in this (and future) issues of the GameLetter.
Here’s a versatile lecture LOLA that encourages the participants to pay attention to the content off your presentation.
Synopsis
Ask the participants to listen to your lecture and secretly write five key words. Select a participant to read four of their five words in a random order. Ask the other participant to guess the missing fifth word.
Purpose
To identify the key points in a lecture.
Participants
Minimum: 2
Maximum: Any number
Best: 12 to 30
Time
In addition to the time required for your lecture, you need 15 to 30 minutes for the activity.
Flow
Make your presentation. Open your audio and present the content. Keep the length of your lecture from 10 to 20 minutes.
Ask the participants to write five key words. Ask everyone to work independently and write five words (or short phrases) related to the key ideas in your presentation. Tell the participants that these words should cover the entire presentation and should be of equal importance. Ask the participants to use a separate piece of paper to secretly write these words. Announce a 3-minute time limit.
Announce four key words. After 3 minutes, randomly select a participant and ask them to read any four of the words (or phrases) in a scrambled order. Ask the other participants to listen to these words, think back o the content of your earlier presentation, and try to guess the missing fifth word. Ask the participants to type the fifth word in chat.
Give feedback. After a suitable pause, ask the person who supplied the four words to announce the missing fifth word. Ask the other participants to give themselves 10 points if they had correctly guessed this word and typed it in chat.
Repeat the activity. Invite any other participant with a different set of five words to raise their hand. Repeat the procedure of asking the participant to read any four words in a random order and the other participants to guess the missing word. Repeat this procedure as many times as time permits. Identify the participants with the highest score and congratulate them for their telepathic ability.
Play Sample
Would you like to play this game? I have listed five words or phrases related to this article. Here are four of them in a random order: key words, lecture, LOLA, and missing word.
Can you guess the missing fifth word? (The correct answer is given at the end of this article.)
Adjustments
Do you want to increase the interaction? Divide the participants into teams and send them to separate breakout rooms. Ask each team to collaboratively identify five key words or phrases. Bring all teams to the main room and take turns to guess the missing words in the other teams’ lists.
Do you want to avoid lecturing? Convert this activity into a textra game. Have the participants read a handout and prepare a list of five key words. Alternatively, present the content in the form of a short video.
Do you want to go beyond words? Instead of asking the participants to write five words, ask them to write five sentences that summarize the key points of your lecture or handout. Have the participants to guess the missing fifth sentence after they listen to the other four sentences presented in a random order.
Did You Guess Correctly?
Here are my list of six words (or phrases) related to this article: LOLA, lecture, key words, ,missing word, and guess. So, the missing word is guess.