By Scott Winter
Over the past 20 years, I have lead thousands of individuals (young & old) through thousands of team-building and structured learning events and I’ve found the following 7 ingredients to be key in creating powerful learning moments for all involved. Keep these in mind and strive to align each game or structured activity with these elements and you will create happier and healthier learning environments.
The first element is safety. When leading students through team-building and structured learning activities, you must be mindful of both emotional and physical safety concerns. Emotionally, kids must know that it is safe to share ideas and thoughts without worrying about how their peers will respond. To set-up a safe emotional environment, ask the students to develop a set of behavioral guidelines to follow as they work together.
For physical safety, make sure the props you use and the place you choose are condusive to the size of group you are workiing with. If you are going to be lifting people, be sure to review the proper spotting techinques to keep your students safe.
The second element is inclusiveness. Be sure that the activities you choose allow for each member of the team or group to be involved. Think ability, age, and level of challenge. Work towards playing games where no one is left sitting out, or adapt the rules to make sure that happens. The “tweak factor” is always alive and well in structured learning.
The third element is promote connections. Great activities provide participants the opportunity to connect with others in a positive way. The more opportunities young people have to interact with one another, the more they can practice positive socialization when problem solving and the more they can get to know each other. This element is one of the most critical. Get the kids to interact. get the kids to laugh and play together and you will move more towards a community than a disparate group of kids.
The fourth element is challenge. We’re not climbing Everest, but building challenging components into your team building and structured learning activities helps to engage the participants more fully. Typically, the more challenge there is, the more you will see individuals come together to achieve the task.
The fifth element is relevancy. Give your students the opportunity to connect their life experiences with the team building activities. Thier ability to see the relationship between how they ‘played’ in the activity and how they ‘live’ their life can provide useful lessons for them to draw on in the future.
The sixth element is fun. Self explanatory. Kids just wanna have fun. You can do this in many ways, for example share a fun story, creat a role play, or assume a particular character to play as you introduce the rules of an activity to the students. Keep it live, action packed and full of energy and you will captivate any group of kids.
The seventh element is Reflection. A game is just a game until you reflect on the experience, then it become a learning opportunity. Think back about all of the things you have learned just by taking a closer look at what happened, and considering why. Providing time to “connecting the dots” after is critical to the success of the event.
Begin to measure your activities against these critical elements right now by thinking about one of your next planned activities. Ask yourself, is this activity safe, or what needs to happen to make sure it is safe? Is this activity inclusive and everyone, regardless of ability can be involved? How does this activity promote connections and challenge the participants, and how can it be more deliberate in doing so? Is there a clear reason to play making it relevant to the kids, and overall is the activity any fun? Finally, based on the experience what kinds of questions could be asked afterwards in the reflection component to really connect the activity to everday life? what could be learned or explored as a result of this activity?
If you begin to hold your activities against these 7 elements using a ruberic or even a mental checklist, you can be assured your activities wil be more purposeful and valuable in the long run. Good luck and have fun!
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