This Tip describes creative facilitated learning activities that training participants in Jordan designed and facilitated.
“Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.” Arthur Koestler
While in Amman, Jordan, I conducted a six-day Train the Trainer Program. The title was Designing and Delivering Dynamic Learning. The participants were humanitarian workers.
The 6th day was focused on Facilitating Learning. The participants had to design and facilitate a 10-minute participatory learning activity. The emphasis was on an activity that they had never facilitated before.
Creative Facilitated Learning Activities in Jordan
There were some absolutely wonderful activities that folks created. The highlights included the following;
A Communications Game
Heba created a game about the seven factors of communication. She split the eight people into four teams. She gave play dough to the A teams at each table. Heba also gave them a secret message. This they were supposed to communicate to the B team without writing out words.
Then she placed clown masks on the A team. The B team had to ask only closed questions to try to ferret out the message. Because of the masks, they wouldn’t be able to read the body language of the A team. The A team could only nod yes or no.
She then introduced a list of the seven factors and asked the participants to identify where each factor came into play. Just wonderful!
Inter-Gender Violence Art Project
Dalia used an art project to deal with the issue of inter-gender violence in Jordan. She separated the participants into two table groups of 4,. She handed them a blank flipchart. Each person was supposed to draw in a corner of the flipchart a picture of a good relationship between a man and a woman. This could be husband/wife, father/daughter, brother/sister, etc. Then Dahlia had the tables pass their flipchart to the other table and told them to “ruin” the relationship.
When they had completed that, she had them pass the flipcharts back to the original tables. She first asked them how they had felt when they drew the good relationships. They responded they felt peaceful, happy, safe, and loving. Next, Dalia asked how they felt when they saw their ruined pictures. They responded that they felt angry, hurt, sad, and depressed.
She used this to lead into a discussion of the nature of male/female relationships in Jordan. Dalia finally concluded with a passionate summary of the current level of violence, particularly against women.
Negotiation Concepts Retention Game
Nour had a wonderful game to check the participants’ retention of the five interest based negotiation concepts:
- separate the people from the problem;
- focus on interests, not positions;
- generate options for mutual gain;
- rely on objective standards; and
- keep your Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA) in your hip pocket.
She created a game “board” composed of squares of paper with different numbers on them, 1-10 I believe. Nour had two teams with four on one team and three on the other. She gave the fourth person a special assignment.
Nour instructed team A to read a content card to team B. If the team B could answer it, they got the number of points represented by the number on the top of the “board” square.This had the correct answer written on the opposite side.
If team B had difficulty answering the question, they could ask the special assignment person to read three options. They could select an answer from these options. If they selected the correct answer from the options, they got half of the points. The game was a great way to check their comprehension.
Conflict Management Game
Morad created another terrific game on the subject of conflict management. He lined up the group on two sides of a masking tape line. He then instructed each side to do anything in their power to get the other side over to their side. It was fun to watch Nadia trying to entice MagD with koosh balls and prizes. Nadia apparently told MagD that she would arrange for me to give the koosh balls to MagD! Others pulled or pushed each other, tried reasoning, or tried bribery. It was pretty noisy and chaotic.
Then he had them sit at the tables and review a list of 10 questions related to the activity. Some of these questions were “what happened,” “why,” etc. After they answered the questions, they discussed their different observations and rationales. He ultimately related their answers and the experience to three key points. One of these was the importance of reflecting rather than reacting. Just great!
I just love how much I learn every time I conduct train the trainer programs!!!
May your learning be sweet.
Deborah
