Classroom Activities that Engage Your Adult Learners

Walk into the majority of corporate training courses today and you'll see what everyone sees: tables and chairs. It's the format you had all through your public education and most likely college. For a typical slide presentation disguised as "training", this format works.

But that's not how you are doing training any longer. When we are looking to engage our students - early, often and on purpose - classroom-style seating will just not do - especially for those "prisoners" and "vacationers."

Yes, there are much better room seating options. In this lecture, we look at some of the ones I've used and why I believe they work much, much better in the corporate classroom.

NOTE: Some trainers may use these layouts, but I've seen many used poorly or improperly. These layouts should scream to your students, "I will engage you today, whether you like it or not!" :)

Some trainers, unfortunately, just drop the ball when it comes to this. 

Your students arrive anywhere from an hour up to a couple of minutes before your training course begins. 

Did you ever think about getting them involved before that official start at 8:30 am? Why on earth would I even suggest that, how would such a suggestion positively impact your students and what would you do to execute such a sinister plan? 

All great questions, my eager learner. In this lecture, I give you the answers. 

The first 30 minutes of your training course are critical, as your students are intently watching and evaluating you. Will your course be like every other one they've had? 

Do you want to give them the exact same experience as every other dull and ineffective training course they've had? Or do you want to learn how to make your training stand out?

Because you're reading this, your answer was most likely:  "Yes, I want to make my training stand out!"

Excellent! In this lecture, I will show you my most brilliant classroom creation - a technique that your students will long remember, and one that can provide you a great deal of insight into your students. 

And it only takes 99 seconds!

When I say "BINGO" you make think of senior citizens or smoky clubhouses with wood paneling. 

But it's time to change your perspective on BINGO. Quiet possibly the most robust activity in this course, BINGO can be a crazy helpful tool in your corporate classroom. In this lecture, I will talk about why it works and how to set it up. Then in a later lecture, we'll discuss how to best execute it in your training.

The PowerPoint version of the BINGO template is attached to this lecture, 

INSTRUCTOR NOTE: If you need the Keynote version of the BINGO template, please message me through Udemy. 

Breaks can be an escape for your students...from you and your classroom.

Or...you can be creative and use break time to challenge students with tasks, both at the beginning and end of breaks. 

Videos are a phenomenal tool to pull your students in from break. 

In this lecture, I'll talk about some ways I use videos and why. I promise you will never look at breaks the same way again.

I came up with the idea for using Speed Dating in the training environment in 2010. Then I had the even brighter idea of using it with about 40 customers for the very first time. Which meant it would either succeed, deliver a resounding "meh" or crash-and-burn gloriously. I'll give you one guess what happened...

Just between you and me...It worked!

Here's what I learned from my very first Speed Dating application. 

Competition can and should be woven into your training programs. 

In this lecture, I discuss two activities that work really well when the pressure of competition is applied. 

[Just between you and me, when you use competition, everyone works harder and learns more. So everyone wins. But don't tell.]

Another of my original creations, this came out of a need to help my students walk away with a prepared list of specific questions they could use in their training programs. 

The Group Leader Duel is a competition. But if you want your students to come up with a list of steps, questions, etc., this is a fun and effective activity to use. 

As promised, I'm back with the rest of the BINGO activity!

You've already set up BINGO for your students. In this lecture, we revisit how it plays out and talk about how best to manage it. 

Be warned: BINGO will cause you to press PAUSE on your training delivery, especially as you get closer and closer to the end of your course. But that's a good thing! Watch to find out why.

Practice makes perfect. Some say only perfect practice make perfect. 

With practice comes almost-got-it or not-quite-right (I'll avoid saying failure). That's just part of the learning process. So your students can either practice - and get closer - in your classroom or when they are back on the job, in the real world - where not-quite-right has consequences. 

Either way, you should be setting up opportunities for your students to practice the specifics of what you are teaching them.