Trainee-Centered Activities

Instructor-Led Classrooms are probably the most common setting for professional trainings. According to Piskurich (2015), classroom training should be used when:

ü  “Interaction with the trainer or other participants is important

ü  Guided discussion will lead to more learning

ü  Questions will come up that need immediate answers

ü  You have qualified facilitators in the right numbers to match the training load

ü  The trainees can afford to be away from their jobs for long periods of time

ü  The facilitators will do the traveling instead of the trainees

ü  Individualization is not critical

ü  You want more control over the training outcome” (p. 111).

What happens, though, when the facilitator has nothing planned but lecture and discussion? I’m sure we have all been to trainings like this…the facilitator lectures and provides information on the topic and then asks you to “Think-Pair-Share” with a neighbor. With this strategy, participants are given a set amount of time to think about their response, and then they are given time to discuss their thoughts with a partner or group before they are asked to share their thoughts with the entire group. Although this can be beneficial if implemented properly, we all know that those “Think-Pair-Share” conversations actually turn into…random tangents completely unrelated to the topic, or a discussion on what to have for lunch. 

In order to avoid these unrelated conversations, the facilitator needs to provide trainee-centered activities throughout the training. “The two key issues for all activities are: (1) that they must directly related to the objectives and (2) that they provide the trainees with feedback or information about their  performance” (Piskurich, 2015, p. 175). Although I have never conducted an actual training to educators, I have taught countless numbers of lessons to students. In these lessons, I provided plenty of “trainee-centered activities” to keep my students focused on the objectives and engaged in the learning. Since all of my students have laptops (Huntsville City Schools implemented a 1-1 digital curriculum in the fall of 2012), a majority of the activities I use to keep the interest of my students incorporate technology.

My favorite way to start a lesson is to activate my students’ prior knowledge of the topic. This way I can see what aspects of the material I need to focus on more, and what aspects can be breezed over. The best tools, in my opinion, for this are Kahoot and Quizizz. These are both digital “quizzes” in which students independently answer questions provided. While completing the quizzes, students are racing against their classmates to answer the questions quickly and accurately. Kahoot displays the questions and leaderboard on the teacher’s ActivBoard, while Quizizz displays the same information on the students’ devices. To try Quizizz in action from the students’ perspective, go to http://quizizz.com/join/ and type in code 932071. (I will announce the ULTIMATE winner at a later date! J)

Another tool I use during my lessons is a web strategy to foster creative thinking and cooperative learning. I use Today’s Meet in an activity similar to “Think-Pair-Share.” The students are provided with a topic, given a set time limit to think about the topic on their own, and then are given time to virtually discuss the topic with their group. (Today’s Meet allows you to create different groups and assign students to each group.) Since I am the administrator of the groups, I can see each conversation and can hold each student accountable for his/her discussion. Students know I can see what they are discussing which prevents any unrelated side conversations from happening. Also, the administrator can set the time frame allotted for the Today’s Meet conversation. By setting the time frame to just one hour (or whatever fits within the school day), this prevents students from obtaining access to this conversing tool after school hours. (Since cyberbullying is such an issue these days, the ability to control these conversations is a powerful tool for teachers.) A quick tutorial on Today’s Meet is displayed below.

Although I am not a professional training facilitator, I have been in countless trainings in which I was miserable the entire time. I feel like this has helped me in deciding what aspects of instructional design are important when planning a training. I definitely do not want my trainees to be bored and miserable while I am facilitating! Hopefully some of the tools described above can help with this issue and provide an engaging training to everyone involved.

Reference: Piskurich, G. M. (2015). Rapid instructional design: Learning ID fast and right (3rd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.