During the past four months, Matthew Richter, Esther, and I have been conducting workshops in France, Germany, other parts of Europe, and India on interactive training techniques. The specific techniques varied from one workshop to another. Here are brief summaries of the total collection of training techniquess.
1. Appreciative Inquiry is an alternative to traditional problem solving. Instead of focusing on what is wrong, this structure emphasizes positive aspects of a situation. The process involves encouraging participants to share stories of positive experiences with each other. Later, participants review these stories to identify themes for further inquiry.
2. Assessment-Based Learning Activities (ABLA) require participants to complete an assessment (such as a test, a rating scale, or a questionnaire) and receive feedback about their personal competencies, attitudes, or personality traits. In some ABLAs, participants' responses are combined to identify the characteristics of a team or an organization. ABLAs encourage interaction and discussion among participants to analyze their responses.
3. Board Games borrow structures and artifacts from popular recreational games to create highly motivating training activities. Board games typically use cards and dice to encourage individuals and teams to demonstrate their mastery of concepts, principles, skills, and problem-solving strategies.
4. Brain-Pick Activity involves one or more informants who share a common background. Participants interview these informants to learn about relevant topics and issues.
5. 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 instructional content.
6. The Case Method involve a written account of a real or fictional situation surrounding a organizational problem. Participants work individually and in teams to analyze, discuss, and recommend appropriate solutions and to critique each other’s work. In some cases, the facilitator may recount the actual decisions implemented in the real-world situation on which the case is based.
7. Cash Games are a special type of simulation game that involves actual cash transactions. 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). Real cash is used because it brings out real-world behaviors and emotions.
8. Closers are activities conducted near the end of a session. They are used for reviewing main learning points, tying up loose ends, planning application activities, providing feedback, celebrating successful conclusion, and exchanging information for future networking.
9. Debriefing Games are used to transform a learning experience into useful knowledge. They encourage participants we have to reflect on the experience, gain practical insights, and relate these insights to personal and professional action.
10. Flashcard Games are effective activities for mastering matching items such as foreign-language vocabulary, chemical symbols and elements, and roles and responsibilties. Typical activities present closed questions on one side and single correct answers on the other side of small cards. Some activities feature open questions. In these activities, the participants receive feedback and score points through peer assessment.
11. Improv games are activities adapted from improvisational theater. The actors do not use a script but spontaneously create the dialogue and action as they perform. When used as an interactive training technique, improv games facilitate the mastery of skills related to creativity, collaboration, communication, and change.
12. 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.
13. Interactive Lectures 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.
14. Interactive Story Telling involves fictional narratives. Participants listen to a story and make appropriate modifications at critical junctures. They may also create and share stories that illustrate key concepts, steps, or principles from the instructional content.
15. 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 debrief.
16. Live Online Learning Activities (LOLAs) are structured techniques that increase — and improve — interaction in virtual classroom sessions. Specific types of LOLAs may incorporate stories, jolts, structured sharing activities, interactive lectures, and textra games.
17. Magic Tricks incorporate a relevant conjuring trick as a part of a training session. They provide metaphors or analogies for important elements of the training content. The tricks are also used as processes to be analyzed, reconstructed, learned, performed, or coached.
18. 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.
19 . Openers are activities conducted at the beginning of a session. They are used to preview main learning points, orient participants, introduce participants to one another, form teams, establish ground rules, set goals, reduce initial anxieties, or stimulate self-disclosure.
20. 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 or inductive thinking.
21. Photocard games use picture postcards that are incorporated in training games. The participants choose photos that act as a metaphor for different concept, principles, and experiences. In some games, participants construct a story based on a random set of photos.
22. Production Simulations involve the design and development of a product. Different teams compete to create the best product. The activity begins with teams receiving specifications for the final product along with an evaluation checklist. Teams also have access to training sessions, job aids, reference materials, sample products, and expert consultants. Final products from different teams are evaluated by outside experts, end users, and peers on a variety of relevant dimensions.
23. Reflective Teamwork Activity requires teams to undertake a collaborative task. After the conclusion of the task, participants create a checklist to evaluative their teamwork and apply the checklist to their earlier performance.
24. 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 sometimes involve participants assuming alternative roles or reversed roles.
25. Structured Sharing uses templates that facilitate mutual learning and teaching among participants. Typical structured sharing activities create a context for a dialogue among participants based on their experiences, knowledge, and opinions.
26. Textra 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.
27. Thought Experiments are internal role plays that involve guided visualization. Individual participants mentally rehearse new patterns of behavior, ask imaginary characters for advice, or hold a dialogue with their alter ego.
28. Top Ten Activities feature effective tips related to such soft-skill areas as leadership, empathic listening, giving feedback, or facilitating teams. The activities require participants to review the tips and come up with ideas for applying and improving their use.
29. Values Clarification Activities help an individual to increase awareness of values that may have a bearing on decisions and actions. These activities provide an opportunity for a participant to reflect on moral dilemmas and allow for values to be analyzed and clarified.
30. Video Vitamins enhance the instructional value of training videos. In a typical activity, participants watch a video and then play one or more games that help review and apply new concepts and skills.