How to Choose a Learning Activity
By Matt Richter
Thiagi and I get asked how we choose an activity to use from the oh so many he has created…, or even more overwhelming when we add in the menus and menus of others’ activity designs. Given the hundreds, if not thousands of activities, to choose from, how do we pick the right one? There are several factors that go into a decision.
Choosing an activity should be embedded within a greater instructional design process. This article is only focusing on that phase. So, make sure before you jump to picking an activity, you have done all the other design requirements that enable you to choose.
But once at this design step, start with the objective in mind. Based on where you are in the design process, your module will have specific goals. At this point, there are only a few high-level goals one can have. You may want:
To assess or evaluate how much or how little the learner knows. This goal may happen early on and act as a needs analysis for the specific cohort of students you have. Or it may happen toward the end when you want to determine if the learners comprehend and can do what was intended.
Teach something new to the learners. In order to develop skills, participants must have the requisite content—the concepts, models, procedures, principles, process steps, rules, and other information they then apply. Skills are, by definition, applied knowledge. Skill mastery is applied knowledge done fluently. When students don’t have this knowledge, they must be taught the information directly. We have to give it to them. Contrary to popular opinion, teaching content need not be boring and can certainly be interactive!
Facilitate practice and provide opportunities for feedback. Once learners have that requisite knowledge, to develop associated skills, they must practice applying the knowledge over and over again. This process is called spaced repetition. It means participants practice applying what they have learned. Get feedback. Take some time to let it soak in, and then practice again. They space out the practice sessions so (1) they don’t get overwhelmed, and (2) ensure the knowledge they are applying moves into their long-term memory for eventual fluent recall.
Participants to explore and discover what they are learning. There are several contexts for which we may choose this objective. With novice learners, we use this format to explore their perceptions of the topic that might support or impede learning. We identify misconceptions they may have that we can later correct. With more expert learners, we empower them to learn from each other, problem solve, and evolve their technical prowess through social learning and the shared wisdom in the room.
Some additional thoughts…
All the interactive strategies Thiagi and I use have activities that can meet any of these four objectives.
Still more to consider when trying and categorizing the activities is that you have to ask yourself what you are evaluating or assessing when using an activity that way. You may want to assess how much knowledge an incoming participant has on a subject. The Hello Game can be used that way. So can all five of the ABLAs we provide. The key is with just some minor tweaking, you can adjust most any of the activities to assess and evaluate. We say most… not all… but please… do not challenge Thiagi to this point, or he will make it a life mission.
In other words, as you become more experienced using these frames and simulations, you will also become quite capable of modifying them to meet different goals. But, start with the obvious intent first, and expand your horizons with them later.
Another point to consider… For practice and feedback objectives, simulation activities are superb. Especially, high-fidelity simulations. For example, if you want a prospective pilot to get good enough to go fly a real airplane, start her using a flight simulator (after she internalizes the manual!). Those types of high-fidelity simulations are pretty obvious and you don’t need a book for those. Essentially, you take the real-life activity and fake it… or, simulate it. If you want learners to practice overcoming objections in a sales context… use an activity like our World’s Worst, which is a playful way of realistically getting sales professionals to practice overcoming them. Or, you can use the same activity using the context of customer service responses to angry complaints. Or, doctors delivering bad news. And so forth.
Next, consider the content sources you have. There are printed books, videos, lectures, podcasts, graphics, data charts, subject-matter experts, and even the participants themselves. Obviously, if you have a lecture, use interactive lecture activity. Or, if the content is in a text format, use text activities (we call the textras). If you are trying to leverage the wisdom of the crowd, use structured sharing. But do keep in mind, that all these activities are frames. Meaning you can use any of the interactive lecture activities with minor modifications with text. And vice versa. You have quite a bit of flexibility. As you just start out using them, we recommend that you go obvious. If you have a lecture… use an interactive lecture activity until you have mastered the format. Then play and make them your own.
Novice or expert, or in between. The first response we often from others is who cares? Well, your learners will. Most of the content we learn and the skills we develop in the workplace are not natural to humans. Meaning, unlike walking, breathing, or coordinating how we use our hands to grab and place things, most skills are not activities we would develop through sheer discovery. For example, if you want to learn how to master negotiation skills, while over time, you might get lucky and learn how to master the process, but you unlikely won’t without lots of frustration and failure. It is not something we humans have evolved to master innately. To learn how to negotiate effectively, we have to learn a process for doing so. We also need to internalize principles that help us make decisions when we negotiate. There are also values and guidelines that set a specific ruleset for how we engage with others when negotiating. And likely, there is a domain-set of knowledge required for us to negotiate effectively. The Thiagi team is more than capable of negotiating the fees for a training workshop, but unlikely to know how to negotiate a loan restructuring consultation fee. We don’t know that field.
So, novices in negotiation, or in any subject, need a basic set of information… of content… first before they can apply that information properly as a skill. Remember, a skill is simply the application of knowledge in a specific context. Why aren’t most skills transferrable? Because that domain expertise is essential to applying the knowledge learned appropriately. A highly skilled blues pianist would struggle to become quickly a highly skilled Mozartian pianist. She might achieve mastery faster than a complete novice, but not as fast as one might think since the context and the knowledge is indeed different.
We must teach novices the content needed to be able to apply it in their relevant situations. It’s that simple. Therefore, we use activities that facilitate instruction. Typically, interactive lectures, textra games, and others drive engaging ways for that direct instruction to happen.
With experts, they already have some level of mastery. So why are they taking a class with you? Perhaps to learn how to solve a specific type of problem. Or, to increase the breadth of their knowledge in the domain they have already mastered. Or, they have quite a bit of expertise, but can learn from the other experts—their peers—in the room. Now, we can facilitate experiences, guide them through activities that do indeed leverage the wisdom they all have in the room. For these experiences, structured sharing activities are great. So are role-playing and interactive storytelling. The key is to enable peer-to-peer and self-directed learning. This is when discovery-based learning actually has a good shot at working in the context of skill development.
With those who have moderate skills, we want to assess where they are at and identify a combination of different activities that close any knowledge gaps and give lots of chances to practice. The biggest challenge here is learners are the worst at judging their levels of competence. So many with moderate levels of skill often misjudge their expertise, usually overestimating it. So, using ABLAs and other assessment/ evaluation activities go a long way to managing expectations as long as the assessment is objective and feels fair to the learner. That’s one reason we like to use ABLAs at the front of a learning experience. You can also use role-play activities this way, as well.
Finally, logistics, unfortunately, all too often play a much larger role in our decisions for using an activity than we would like. That’s just the reality of things. The good news is most of the activities in this book can be adjusted to time, numbers of participants, and even the medium. But you must take logistics into consideration. For example, even though we certainly can play Sabotage with four people, it ideally works with 16-30. And while we have played The Hello Gamewith 600 people, we would prefer 20-24. And while we can play Envelops in 10 minutes, ideally 30-45 minutes would be nice. Or The Motivation Board Game can take at least an hour to play. Yes, we can modify it to last must less time, but why? Why when we can choose a different activity more readily designed for a shorter amount of time.
We should also point out that more and more stakeholders call us up and ask us to teach a complex skill in… say… two hours. We will qualify what they mean by “teach x complex skill.” And they mean mastery. Sorry… this is impossible. Meaning there is a difference between modifying an activity (which we can do all day and all night, all year round) and modifying the duration we spend with a cohort to get them to master a new complex skill. Developing skills takes time. It takes practice. It takes feedback. Modify activities… please! But, don’t skimp on what is needed to foster the development of skills needed to solve the issues that brought us to this point in the first place.
I name dropped a bunch of different activities and activity types. Sorry! But, you can always learn more about them by picking up our latest book— which includes a variation of this article, as well. You can find the book here: https://ldaccelerator.com/techniques-interactives-pour-lapprentissage.