THIAGI GAMELETTER: December 2009

Job Aid

Laws of Adult Learning

14 Important Principles Every Trainer Should Know

Parts of this article were published earlier. Here's my collection of 14 important laws of learning. Notice that all of these laws support the use of training games.

Adults Only

These laws are particularly relevant to adult learners.

Law of previous experience: New learning should be linked to (and build upon) the experiences of the learner.

Law of relevance: Effective learning is relevant to the learner's life and work.

Law of self-direction: Most adults are self-directed learners.

Law of expectations: Learners' reactions to a training session are shaped by their expectations related to the content area, training format, fellow participants, and the trainer.

Law of self image: Adult learners have definite notions about what type of learners they are. These notions interfere with or enhance their learning.

Law of multiple criteria: Adult learners use a variety of standards to judge their learning experiences and accomplishments.

Law of alignment: Adult learners require the training objectives, content, activities, and assessment techniques to be aligned to each other.

Everyone

These laws apply to all human beings, from infancy to old age.

Law of active learning: Active responding produces more effective learning than passive listening or reading.

Law of practice and feedback: Learners cannot master skills without repeated practice and relevant feedback.

Law of individual differences: Different people learn in different ways.

Law of learning domains: Different types of learning require different types of strategies.

Law of response level: Learners master skills and knowledge at the level at which they are required to respond during the learning process.

All Creatures Great and Small

These laws apply to all animals, include white mice, pigeons, dolphins, and people.

Law of reinforcement: Participants learn to repeat behaviors that are rewarded.

Law of emotional learning: Events that are accompanied by intense emotions result in long-lasting learning.

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Textra Game

20 Reasons

Last month, we published a textra game called 20 Interventions that explored different methods for improving human performance. We deconstructed the game, isolated its frame, and used it as a template for creating this month's game on why trainers should use games and other learning activities.

Purpose

To convince people that it is appropriate, efficient, and effective to use learning activities in a training session.

Participants

Any number.

Best: 20 to 40.

Time

20 - 60 minutes.

Handouts

• Reason Card Masters (33k PDF)
• Menu (one copy for each participant)
• Complete List of All 20 Reasons (one copy of the complete set of reasons for each participant, distributed at the end of the activity)

Supplies

• Paper
• Pen or pencil

Equipment

• Countdown timer
• Whistle

Preparation

Print the five pages of Reason Card Masters on cardstock. Cut each page into four Reason Cards. (If you have more than 20 participants, print and cut apart extra copies.)

Flow

Distribute the Menu. Explain that the Menu identifies 20 different reasons to use learning activities in training sessions. Also explain that each participant will receive details of a reason from the menu.

Distribute Reason Cards. Give a different card to each participant. (If you have more than 20 participants, some cards will be duplicated.)

Ask participants to get ready. Ask them to read their Reason Card. Each participant should personalize the explanation on her card and get ready to explain it in her own words. Distribute index cards or pieces of paper and ask participants to jot down key elements of their explanation. Warn participants that they will be sharing their reason with another person during the next phase of activity. When ready, ask the participant to give back the Reason Card to you and walk around the room in search of another participant who is also ready.

Conduct the first exchange. Ask participants to pair up. In each pair, ask one of the participants to present the reason she studied. The other participant should listen enthusiastically, ask questions and take notes. When completed, participants change roles: The explainer becomes the listener and vice versa. Warn participants that they will required to share their partners' explanations with someone else during the next round.

Conduct additional exchanges. When both participants have shared their reasons, ask them to go in search of new partners. When they pair up with a new partner, ask them to repeat the process of sharing the most recent reason (that they learned from their previous partner). When the sharing activity is completed, tell the participants to go in search of new partners and to share the latest reason they learned.

Conclude the activity. After a suitable period of time, stop the conversations. Ask each participant to count the number of different reasons they have shared. Distribute the Complete List of All 20 Reasons. Encourage participants to study this handout at a later time and get themselves ready to influence other trainers and participants.

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Handout1

Menu

1. An intelligent choice
2. Computers can take care of complex logistics
3. Different types of diversity
4. Everyone recognizes the advantages of active learning
5. Games are available for introverted learners
6. Games benefit from the increased blending of education and entertainment
7. Games exploit the power of peer teaching
8. Games help people to add value to their leisure time
9. Games help us handle rapidly changing training content
10. Games permit faster instructional design
11. Games provide integrated assessment
12. Games provide performance-based training
13. Games help self-help groups
14. Games permit large-scale participation
15. Games make use of media design tools
16. Games allow more trainers to become facilitators
17. Games involve teamwork for training
18. Humans are the playing species
19. Training games provide appropriate practice and feedback
20. Games help train the new generation

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Handout2

Complete List of All 20 Reasons

1. An intelligent choice. Everyone has practical intelligence and analytical intelligence. People learn by using both types of intelligence. Traditional training approaches cater to analytical intelligence whereas learning through games and simulations cater to practical intelligence. Effective use of training games enables us to combine practical intelligence during play with the analytical intelligence after play, during the debriefing discussion.
2. Computers can take care of complex logistics. Trainers are sometimes hesitant to use complex simulations because of the computations involved in keeping track of different scores. Trainers can now facilitate complex simulations by letting the computer take care of the scorekeeping and random events.
3. Different types of diversity. Participants in training groups are becoming much more diverse than ever before. Training takes every effort to cater to ethnic, cultural, gender, generational, and learning-style differences. Playing games is one approach that accommodates differences among participants, especially their learning-style differences.
4. Everyone recognizes the advantages of active learning. Cognitive scientists and learning theorists have persuaded trainers that passive strategies do not produce effective results. Current research suggests that anything that can be—and should be—taught through active learning approaches.
5. Games are available for introverted learners. Introverts used to feel threatened when they are required to play interactive games. New game formats now permit participants to play solitaire card games and to solve challenging puzzles all by themselves. Computer games provide opportunities for players to compete against imaginary opponents instead of real-life ones.
6. Games benefit from the increased blending of education and entertainment. Today's learners want to be entertained while they learn new skills and knowledge. One of the recent trends is that the video game industry is seriously competing with the billion-dollar movie industry. Serious gamers are bringing sophisticated video games to the training of critical skills.
7. Games exploit the power of peer teaching. A proven strategy for effective learning is to encourage participants to learn from one another. Many training games require cooperative learning among team members and competitive display of skills between teams. Within the structure of a training game, when an advanced participant teaches a beginner, both of them gain in their mastery of new skills and knowledge.
8. Games help people to add value to their leisure time. Playing a game is an active alternative to watching TV in a passive fashion. Active games improve the player's physical, mental, and social health.
9. Games help us handle rapidly changing training content. Many games provide effective templates for training activities. We can keep the game structure intact and update the content to provide the latest information.
10. Games permit faster instructional design. Training games can be wrapped around existing content resources such as handouts, video recording, and websites. This enables us to use the same game structure to accommodate different content sources.
11. Games provide integrated assessment. For example, the final test for a training program can be presented in the form of a crossword puzzle. In a team game, quiz contests can be held periodically to test participants' mastery.
12. Games provide performance-based training. Participation in a game requires the players to frequently make decisions and perform activities. The play of a game involves some form of action on the part of the players. All of these factors emphasize active performance.
13. Games help self-help groups. People who have special needs, expertise, problems, or experiences organize themselves into self-help groups. Instead of just talking to each other in an informal fashion, we can use training activities to provide useful structure and increase the effectiveness of interaction in these groups.
14. Games permit large-scale participation. New types of games enable large groups to participate in the play. On the Internet, there are many massive multiplayer roleplay simulations. These large-group games provide more economies of scale than ever before.
15. Games make use of media design tools. New and sophisticated computer hardware and software enable us to produce audio and video recordings. Most people are now able to incorporate high-quality media materials in their simulation games instead of limiting themselves to the traditional printed text.
16. Games allow more trainers to become facilitators. These trainers know the importance of being a guide by the side instead of functioning as a sage on the stage. They are also trained on facilitation skills in train-the-trainer programs. They can conduct training activities more effectively and debrief participants to share their insights from these activities.
17. Games involve teamwork for training. Most corporate work is performed not by individuals, but by teams. Games enable us to train participants in teams. This results in better team performance on the job.
18. Humans are the playing species. In the evolutionary tree, what makes human beings different from other animals is that they are the most playful species. The Dutch cultural theorist, Professor Johan Huizinga, called the human species Homo Ludens or “Man the Player”. This fact supports the use of games for teaching and training human beings.
19. Training games provide appropriate practice and feedback. The best way to acquire fluent mastery of most skills is to repeatedly practice appropriate behaviors and to receive immediate feedback. Many games transform drill practice activities into highly motivating contests that provide targeted practice and score points that are directly associated with increased competencies.
20. Games help train the new generation. New hires in our workplace come from the twitch-speed generation. They have been brought up playing video games and other types of activities. They have low tolerance for the slow-paced and passive learning approaches. Let's meet their learning-style preferences by using training games whenever possible.

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Jolt

Shapes and Colors

I recently read a description of an activity in which a participant uses a paddle to scoop white marbles from a pile of black and white marbles. I came up with this variation that elicits different learning points.

Summary

Facilitator picks up a red rectangle and a blue triangle from a grocery bag, displays them, and throws them back in the bag. A volunteer is asked to pick up seven red pieces from the bag, with her eyes closed. She picks up seven rectangles mistakenly assuming that they will all be red. She ends up with a mix of red and blue rectangles. After a debrief, another volunteer tries to pick seven blue pieces.

Purpose

To explore the impact of hasty generalizations and partial information.

Participants

Any number. (Two volunteers actively participate in the activity while the others watch.)

Time

3 minutes for the activity and 3 minutes for debriefing.

Supplies

• Rectangular and triangular pieces cut from red and blue card stock. (See below for details.)
• A grocery bag.

Preparation

Get sheets of red and blue card stock. Cut them to create the following 24 colored pieces:

• 6 red rectangles
• 6 blue rectangles
• 6 red triangles
• 6 blue triangles

Place these pieces inside a large grocery bag.

Flow

Show the cardboard pieces. Bring out the bag. Reach inside and pull out a red rectangle and a blue triangle. Show them to all participants.

(Tip: Before the session, pick a red rectangle and a blue triangle and paperclip them together. At the beginning of the session, grope inside the bag until you can feel the paper clip. Still working inside the bag, remove the paper clip and bring out the rectangle and triangle pieces.)

Say, “This bag contains 28 pieces of cardboard. The come in two shapes and colors. Here is a red rectangle and here is a blue triangle.”

You are encouraging participants to assume that all rectangles are red and all triangles are blue. But you never say that because that would be a lie.

Invite a volunteer. Ask a participant to come to the front of the room. Tell her that she should select red pieces with her eyes closed.

Begin the first phase. Do not let the volunteer see the card pieces inside the bag. Ask her to close her eyes, reach inside the bag, and pick seven red pieces, one at a time. When she gives you the pieces, hold them up so that the audience members could see them. Place the finger on your lips to signal to the audience to be silent and not to give any feedback.

Conclude the first phase. When the volunteer has given you seven pieces, ask her to open her eyes. Show her the pieces she selected. They are likely to be a mix of red and blue rectangles. Playfully complain, “But I wanted you to select red pieces. What are the blue pieces doing here?”

Debrief the first phase. Conduct a discussion with all participants by asking questions to elicit the following:

• In this activity, sight is a more useful sense than touch.
• After seeing a red rectangle, we jumped to the conclusion that all rectangles are red.
• Sometimes we jump to similar hasty and stereotypical conclusions about people.
• We are misled into judging people based on their external appearance. We need a lot more information before we can really understand other human beings.

Invite another volunteer. Thank the first volunteer and send her back to her seat. Ask another volunteer to come to the front of the room.

Begin the second phase. Tell the volunteer that she would be performing the same task as the earlier volunteer, but with a minor difference. Ask her to close her eyes, reach inside the bag, and pick seven blue pieces. Emphasize that she is to pick blue pieces and not red ones like the earlier volunteer. If this volunteer claims that she cannot accomplish the task with her eyes closed, encourage her to try her best.

Conclude the second phase. When the volunteer has given you seven pieces, ask her to open her eyes. Show her the pieces she selected. As before, they are likely to be a mix of red and blue pieces.

Debrief the second phase. Ask questions and elicit the following points:

• It is impossible to pick blue pieces without looking at them because both shapes come in red and blue colors.
• It impossible to make decisions about people without additional information. People of the same “type” may have different values, beliefs, and thinking styles. We need to talk to people and see them in action before making decisions about them.

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Interactive Storytelling

Time Travel

Interactive storytelling features fictional narratives that involve participants in a variety of activities. In one type of interactive stories, the facilitator presents a story and discusses its significance in a debriefing discussion. In another type, the facilitator pauses at critical junctures in the middle of a story and invites listeners to play the role of a character and make appropriate decisions. In still another type, participants themselves create and share stories that illustrate key concepts, principles, or procedures.

Time Travel can be classified as a textra game and as an interactive storytelling activity. It is also a framegame into which you can easily plug in new content. As a framegame, Time Travel is best suited for achieving training objectives that require participants to adapt and apply basic rules and principles. You can do this simply by changing the handouts while keeping the rules of the game the same. Creativity, the sample Time Travel game described below, uses four short handouts exploring the principles of creative thinking. You can substitute other short handouts and create your own game.

Creativity

Purpose

To learn, adapt, and apply basic principles of creative thinking.

Participants

Any number can play. The best game involves 12-40 participants.

Time

30-45 minutes. The exact time requirement depends on the number of handouts and the amount of time allotted to each round.

Supplies

• A set of short handouts dealing with basic creative-thinking principles. Reproduce copies of each handout on different colored paper.
• A timer and a whistle to help you stick to the schedule.

Flow

Distribute the handouts. Give one handout to each person, making sure that approximately equal numbers of each handout are distributed.

Ask the participants to read the handouts. Give these instructions to the participants, using your own words:

Announce a 5-minute time limit and blow the whistle at the end of 5 minutes.

Ask the participants to apply what they read to a personal project. Give these instructions to the participants, using your own words:

Select a project that you are currently working on. Decide how to apply the ideas from the handout to this project. Explore how to modify these ideas to fit your goals, needs, and constraints.

As before, announce a 5-minute time limit and blow the whistle at the end of 5 minutes.

Invite the participants to project themselves into the future. Give the instructions to the participants, using your own words:

Announce a time limit of 3 minutes and blow the whistle at the end of 3 minutes.

Invite the participants to create a short story. Give these instructions, using your own words:

As before, announce a time limit of 5 minutes and blow the whistle at the end of 5 minutes.

Ask the participants to present their story to a partner. Give these instructions, using your own words:

Suggest a 2-minute storytelling period for each partner. At the end of the first 2 minutes, blow the whistle and ask the partners to switch the roles of storyteller and listener. After another 2 minutes, blow the whistle again and announce the end of the storytelling period.

Ask the participants to find a new partner and repeat the process. Suggest that participants find new partners with handouts of colors different from their previous partners. Encourage the partners to embellish their success stories with more imaginary details. Remind the listeners to exaggerate their pleasure at their partner's success. Impose a 2-minute time limit for each story.

Conclude the activity. Repeat the storytelling sessions to suit the available time. Ask the participants to nominate the best storyteller for handouts of each different color and have these storytellers present their latest version the entire group. Remind the participants that they have an opportunity for making the story come true by applying the principles from the handouts. Distribute additional copies of the handouts so that all participants have copies of all four handouts.

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Handout3

Walk on Both Feet!

Different ways of thinking have their own extremes. Thinking at the extremes is dangerous but thinking in the middle is mediocre. To produce exciting—but balanced—ideas, alternate between the extremes.

Creative thinking is not a single type of thinking, but rather a combination of different types. At one extreme, you have to generate lots and lots of ideas. This is divergent thinking. At the other extreme, you have to filter down these ideas into a few useful ones. This is convergent thinking. Convergent thinking is the opposite of divergent thinking.

But thinking at one of the extremes can be dangerous because we end up with biased ideas. At the same time, middle-of-the-road thinking can be mediocre thinking. In the creative process, we arrive at balanced thinking by oscillating between the two extremes.

Here are some extreme positions along different dimensions of thinking:

Rational vs. Intuitive: Rational thinking involves logical and systematic thinking. You base your thoughts on verified facts. You derive your ideas using a logical process. Intuitive thinking involves going beyond the data and coming up with ideas that are not directly based on the verifiable facts. You base your thoughts on imagination and fantasy. You trust your instincts about the validity of your ideas.

Adaptive vs. Innovative: Adaptive thinking involves accepting and working within a given set of assumptions and constraints. You come up with efficient strategies for achieving a specified set of goals while operating by an existing set of rules. Innovative thinking involves challenging existing assumptions and constraints. You come up with breakthrough strategies by doing different things to reach different (but worthwhile) goals and by rejecting the existing set of rules.

Analyzing vs. Synthesizing: Analyzing involves breaking down larger objects or events into increasingly smaller ones. Synthesizing involves combining smaller objects or events into larger ones.

The important principle in creative thinking is to remain flexible and become fluent in all types of thinking. You should think along different dimensions and in opposing ways. Your mind should be able to hold different thoughts (even contradictory thoughts) at the same time.

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Handout4

Put Yourself Under the Gun!

Totally free thinking does not produce useful ideas. The right amount of constraints increases the usefulness and productivity of creative ideas. If there are not enough external constraints, impose them yourself.

Creative thinking is not always wild, imaginative, out-of-box thinking. There are times you should get inside the box and think in a disciplined fashion under real-world constraints.

Given total freedom, we prefer divergent, analytical, intuitive, innovative, and lateral thinking modes. We need some constraints to force us into the opposite modes of thinking to achieve a balance.

Deadlines have a powerful effect in concentrating your attention, pumping more adrenaline into your system, and making you more productive.

Necessity is the mother of invention and external constraints impose necessity. Here are a few examples of realistic constraints:

• Cramped space
• Discerning customer
• Divergent opinions
• Enforced procedures
• Finicky sponsor
• Fixed budget
• Impatient buyers
• Insufficient data
• Limited number of pages
• Minimal personnel
• Moving targets
• Tight deadline
• Tough standards

Set up your own constraints similar to those listed above. Commit yourself to these constraints, believing that they are real life-or-death issues. This should straighten up your priorities, focus your mind, and force you to work at higher levels of efficiency.

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Handout5

Distill Crude Ideas!

There are no useless or stupid ideas. Use even the “worst” idea as the starting point for generating new practical ideas.

In solving a problem or planning to profit from an opportunity, you tend to classify your ideas into “good” and “bad” categories. Then you select the good ideas and discard the bad ones. Sometimes you do this consciously, and sometimes unconsciously.

A paradox in creative thinking is that most “good” ideas are actually bad ones and “bad” ideas contain the best ones. This is because “good” ideas typically match your conventional notions and make you feel comfortable. Implementing these ideas can only strengthen the traditional approach. In contrast, because “bad” ideas make you uncomfortable, by definition, they suggest unconventional approaches. Work on these ideas to come up with breakthrough strategies.

An effective technique in creative thinking is to treat “bad” ideas as starting points for generating good ones. Use them to provoke you into thinking along different lines. Free associate with these ideas until you come up with more that are unconventional and yet practical.

Here's an example of an apparently stupid idea for satisfying the customers in your restaurant:

Using this stupid idea as a starting point, we can come up with these other ideas:

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Handout6

Cultivate Multiple Personalities!

Look at a situation from diverse points of view to come up with creative ideas. If you don't have access to a diverse team, simply play different roles yourself.

Diverse teams produce powerful, creative ideas because their members look at a problem (or an opportunity) from different vantage points. However, such teams present logistic problems in getting organized. We can benefit from diversity without the hassle of organizing a cross-cultural or cross-functional team simply through creative role playing. This strategy involves assuming different personalities and thinking from different points of view.

Edward de Bono, a prolific writer on creativity, has developed a technique called six thinking hats in which people put on one of six different hats and use a thinking mode associated with that hat. For example, a white hat is associated with objective thinking while a red hat is associated with emotional thinking.

You can increase your creativity by assuming different personalities and perspectives and training yourself to think in that role. You can change from one role to another to increase the number of ideas and their quality. Here are some dimensions along which you may assume appropriate roles:

• Age (examples: 7-year old boy and 80-year old woman)
• Culture and ethnicity (examples: African and Australian)
• Customer type (examples: long-standing loyal customer and new customer)
• Gender (examples: male and female)
• Personality (examples: introvert and extrovert)
• Political preference (examples: liberal and conservative)
• Primary value (examples: economy and quality)
• Profession (examples: accountant and artist)
• Reaction to change (examples: innovator and resister)
• Social class (examples: rich and poor)
• Time perspective (examples: focused on long-term results and impatient for immediate results)

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Framegame

Design Your Own Time Travel Game

As a framegame, Time Travel is best suited for achieving training objectives that require participants to adapt and apply basic principles.

Here are samples of suitable content for this framegame:

• Criteria for customer satisfaction
• Formulas for financial security
• Leadership behaviors
• Marketing principles
• Problem-solving techniques
• Rules for cross-cultural communication
• Teambuilding principles
• Time-management techniques

Use this framegame to explore several related principles rather than dealing with a single principle. The sample game described above deals with four different principles of creative thinking.

For an effective game, use three to seven principles. If you have more than seven principles, choose six or seven of the most important ones. If necessary, play the game twice with different sets of principles.

Prepare brief handouts describing each rule. Creativity uses short handouts. Since we want to encourage the participants to come up with personalized adaptations of these principles to their own situations, avoid the temptation to provide too many details. Do not exceed a one-page limit.

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International Calendar

Tracy and Thiagi in Singapore

As the last stop in this year's international circuit, Thiagi and Tracy will be conducting their 3-day workshop on Interactive Training Strategies in Singapore. This event is organized by the Center for Communication and Sales Training PTE LTD.

Target Group

This workshop is designed for trainers, instructional designers, facilitators, and performance consultants.

Workshop Description

This workshop practices what it preaches. It helps you design and conduct 24 different types of effective training games, simulations, and activities. Based on 30 years of field research, these design formats enable you to create training faster, cheaper, and better. You will receive a hefty collection of training games during the workshop and have access to 2000+ web pages with additional games, activities, and facilitation tips.

Location

This workshop will be held at the Grand Park City Hall (10 Coleman Street, Singapore 179809).

Dates

Two sessions of the workshop will be held during these days:

Session 1: January 11-13, 2010

Session 2: January 14-16, 2010

Workshop Brochure

Download the workshop brochure (170K PDF) for additional details and registration information.

Contact

Email

ccst28@singnet.com.sg
Or ccst28@gmail.com

Telephone

Shann at 68325919
Or Stanis at 98522440

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Guest Gamer

Interview with Marla Allen

TGL: Marla, how did you get into designing and using games?

Marla: I took action on Tom Peter's statement over 20 years ago. He said, “If you are not working for a company that is enthusiastic, energetic, creative, curious, clever, and just plain fun; you are in trouble…serious trouble. Fun has hit the headlines as a key ingredient to better training, better business, and a better quality of life.” In the late 80s, I was crowned Training Manager in a business I knew nothing about. My original premise was not to put myself to sleep as I trained professionals in business and taught in a community college environment. In those days, lecture with an overhead projector was the norm. Using games in my training created more energy, enthusiasm, and effectiveness.

TGL: How did your participants respond?

Marla: They would come to college classes or professional workshops with their arms folded, raised eyebrows, and giving me the stink eye. Midway through the sessions they were new people, fully engaged, laughing, having fun, and remembering the learning content. They always asked, “When is our next session?” or said, “Looking forward to seeing what rabbit you pull out of the hat next week”.

Using creative games in training sessions create lasting retention. In fact, to this day, when I am contacted by any of my former participants, they always say, “I will never forget what I learned in your class” or “I still use the skills you taught us through a game”. That is a testament to how participants not only retain information but transfer it to the real world when their brain is engaged in learning.

TGL: What types of games do you use most frequently?

Marla: Most of my sessions utilize as much body movement away from tables and chairs. I experience the best learning results by using games that require the body to move so the brain will groove.

TGL: Marla, tell us about the therapeutic laughter stuff that you are doing.

Marla: Therapeutic laughter improves emotional well-being, facilitates improvement in health, and prevents “hardening of the attitudes”. Laughter discharges physical and emotional tension. Incorporating therapeutic laughter in my training workshops is based on the principle that you can and should laugh independently of your state of mind or mood. Real laughter or fake laughter has the same healthy benefits and response in the body because the brain cannot tell the difference.

TGL: What are the benefits of guided therapeutic laughter and how does that impact your training and the workplace?

Marla: The last time I searched online for the benefits of laughter, more than 3 million documents 3,360,000 options were available. The research is overwhelmingly positive about the benefits of laughter in the workplace.

Here are just a few reasons I am an advocate:

• Laughter decreases stress hormones. Stress robs people of their ability to focus and work at their maximum potential. People are a company's greatest asset only when they are enabled to perform at their full potential. Laughter puts anxiety on the back burner for everyone. We can't laugh and worry at the same time. Laughter eases muscle tension and keeps the brain alert and allows people to retain more information!
• The ability to laugh and make other people laugh actually has physiological effects on the body that causes people to become more bonded. Improving team cohesiveness, communication, creativity, and performance will impact the customer experience, employee retention, and the bottom line.
• Laughter eliminates us-versus-them thinking. It flattens the hierarchy among individuals, establishes rapport, and decreases social distance. Reducing narrow-minded perspectives, biases and connecting as a team will impact bottom line profits.
• The positive mood created by laughter inspires people to think and work more creatively. Allowing creativity at work could be the difference in maintaining competitive edge and becoming the brand of choice.
• Laughter improves brain function by stimulating both sides of the brain. It increases the production of catecholamines resulting in increased levels of alertness, memory, and learning. Laughter stimulates and is stimulated by playfulness. When people play, they are at their most creative.
• Laughter is not only about making people happier; it's about making organizations more productive. The best companies are made up of great teams. And those teams have individuals who offer their full capability to the organization.

TGL: Give us a history lesson on therapeutic laughter.

Marla: Using laughter as medicine is not actually a new concept. As early as the 14th Century, a French surgeon used humor therapy to aid recovery from surgery. In the 1930s, U.S. hospitals began to bring in clowns to cheer up children hospitalized with polio. In the 70's, Norman Cousins was diagnosed with a potentially fatal disease. With his doctor's consent, he checked himself out of the hospital, checked into a hotel room and he literally laughed himself back to health. He immersed himself in funny movies and laughed until his sides hurt. From this experience, he wrote an enlightening book, Anatomy of an Illness. In 1998, the movie Patch Adams was a great endorsement of the power of laughter and healing for hospitalized children. In the mid 90's Dr. Kataria, a medical doctor in Mumbai, India, noticed that many of his patients seemed to do better and feel better after a bout of laughter. So he borrowed breathing and stretching exercises from yoga and combined them with fun activities and laughter. Since 1995, Laughter Clubs have grown into a worldwide movement with more than 8,000 clubs in 60 countries.

TGL: Do you incorporate therapeutic laughter for any other business purpose?

Marla: Laughter is a universal language and anyone can enjoy the benefits either sitting or standing. Anyone on Earth is welcome to join in laughter regardless of their age, disability, language, culture, ethnicity, religion and so on. Laughter will break down barriers among groups. In addition, therapeutic laughter can be utilized around a teambuilding or leadership event and as an opener or closer during a conference.

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Framegame

Fun with Snowballs
by Marla Allen

I had very few opportunities to throw snowballs growing up in Texas. The closest we came to snowball fun was using an ordinary sheet of paper. This activity energizes the group. So use it when participants need a spurt of energy.

Purpose

You can use this activity to help participants enjoy the following:

• Debriefing discussion
• Taking a pretest or a posttest
• Specifying session expectations
• Asking or answering questions
• Reviewing a previous class
• Writing action plans
• Reviewing any learning content

The main element of this activity is the anonymous way in which participants provide their inputs. The facilitator can use the information gained through this activity to evaluate what the participants have learned or want to learn.

Participants

6 or more.

Time

15 minutes or more, depending on the number of rounds played.

Supplies

• Paper and pencil
• Whistle

Flow

Ask an appropriate question and ask participants to write their responses on a standard piece of paper.

Form a circle away from tables, furniture, or any obstacles. If the weather is nice, this is a great outdoors activity.

Ask participants to crumple their sheet of paper to make a “snowball”. Say “Let's have a snowball fight” and start throwing the snowballs.

Allow 30 seconds for the participants to throw, catch, and throw again as many snowballs as they can.

At the end of 30 seconds, blow a whistle to stop the snowball fight.

Ask each participant to pick up a snowball and open it. Ask participants to take turns to read the response written on the paper.

Play several rounds with different questions if you want to review the training content.

Variations

Instead of asking participants to write responses to a question, you can type relevant pieces of information on the pieces of paper for making the snowballs.

Put all the snowballs in a container and throw them behind your shoulder like a bride throws her bouquet at a wedding. This is a good option if you have limited space.

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Say It Quick

Good Grief!
by Brian Remer

We hope you'll get a chuckle or two with our focus this month on the use of comics. But cartoons can also provide a window to the profound meaning of life. Not convinced? Start with this 99-Word Story about the world's most famous cartoonist then read on and discover how to reveal your own hidden cartoon talents!

Good Grief!

He didn't just invent Charlie Brown; he created the whole universe of Peanuts. Daily comics, Sunday strips, books, TV, movies, products, endorsements, he was involved in all of it—including marketing the “empire.” He even drew some cels for the animated flicks.

Charles Schulz was clearly the parent and manager of a world of comic inspiration. Just before he retired, Schulz drew two months of comics. Astonishingly, he died the day before the last strip ran. The deep connection between passion and purpose was broken.

Sever links to a meaningful life, and you may relinquish your reason for living.

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Discoveries

Make Beliefs Comix
by Brian Remer

It's wonderful when someone takes something complex and makes it simple and easy for the rest of us. That's exactly what Bill Zimmerman has done with his website MakeBeliefsComix.com . Using a point and click interface, anyone can make a two, three, or four panel comic strip to tell a story, express a complex idea in its basic form, or just to have fun.

Zimmerman, a comics-lover since his childhood, has written several books about how to write comics and use them for educational purposes. At his site, all you do is click on one of fifteen different character templates, choose an emotion, then type text into a talk or thought balloon. You can add more characters, re-size images, or flip them around until you get the story you want. Then print it or email it to a friend! Besides creating your own comics at his site, you can find a couple dozen ideas of how to use them for teaching.

The site is great for learners of all ages. The characters are a mix of realistic and fantastical images with a consistently playful tone that would resonate with people in the schoolroom, training room, or boardroom. Use MakeBeliefsComix.com to make your point by creating a series of strips to enliven your next slide show. Ask the participants of your workshop to make their own cartoon that illustrates what they learned during the day. Make a comic to brighten the cube of a colleague. Or experience the shear joy of successfully creating a comic with professional style.

Try your hand at Zimmerman's site then be sure to send us a copy (email Brian) of what you've created!

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Ideas

Comic Relief
by Brian Remer

If you like the idea of using comics for learning, the resources to do so are right at your own ink-stained fingertips! Just open the Sunday paper to the funny page and grab a pair of scissors.

Newspaper comics are cheap and readily available. In a few weeks you can easily save enough for a year's worth of workshops—especially if you gather them from more than one paper each week.

People like the funnies. Everyone has their favorite and is able to identify with specific characters. Written as they are for mass consumption, they speak to contemporary themes and can be easily related to current issues. It is this aspect of the Sunday comics that makes them valuable as a training tool.

Spread a few dozen comics on a table and invite people to read them with a metaphorical eye. What aspects of the characters or stories relate to the topic you are teaching? Are there parallel connections or opposite views that point out contrasts and contradictions? If someone were to write a sequel to a particular comic, what would it be?

Looking for more specific ways to use the Sunday funnies to broaden and deepen learning? Click here to download a PDF of my activity, Comic Relief. When you use it, send me a note (email Brian) with news of what happened!

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Activities

Exercise Your Funny Bone
by Brian Remer

It's your turn now! Here are three different options to try your hand at comic creativity.

1. 
   Be Original — Go to www.MakeBeliefsComix.com and write your own comic. Start from scratch or use some of the story prompts you find there. The screen shot above shows the tool palette with characters and options for manipulating the elements within the frames of the strip. Your comic doesn't have to be especially witty, clever, or even funny. You can start by simply telling a story.
2. 
   Get a Jump Start — The comic above was made at Make Beliefs Comix. Use it as a template and fill in the dialogue that you think fits with what the characters are doing. For an added challenge, think of an issue that has been prominent in your life for the last few days. Can you come up with dialogue to turn the cartoon into an illustration of that issue?
3. 
   Change the Equation — Take one of the comics that I've made for this newsletter and re-purpose it for your own use. Change the dialogue to tell a story or make a point that's relevant to you. Alternatively, you can take one of my comics and explain how it is really a metaphor for a problem you are facing at work, at home, or in your community. Above is one more comic.

Whatever you do, you simply must share what you create or write. Send me a note (email Brian) with what you've done and I'll be sure to include it in a future issue of the Firefly News Flash. Thanks in advance and good luck!

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Check It Out

Reviewing for Starters? ( http://reviewing.co.uk/archives/art/11_2.htm )

Roger Greenaway is a practical and prolific author who specializes in the area of debriefing. (He calls it “Reviewing”.) I talked about his website in the July 2006 issue of TGL; it is a treasure chest of activities and ideas about reviewing.

(For more about Roger, check out his Guest Gamer interview from our September 2001 issue. You can also search for Roger's articles that have been reprinted in the back issues of TGL.)

Roger also publishes a free monthly newsletter called Active Reviewing Tips for dynamic experiential learning (ARTips). Check out the most recent issue (ARTips 11.2).

Debriefing or reviewing usually happens after an event. In this issue of ARTips, Roger explores the provocative concept of using reviewing as an opening activity. “Reviewing for Starters” is about debriefing before the action starts.

If you are intrigued by this idea read more about it in the issue. In addition to specific activities, Roger gives you 10 tips and 10 benefits.

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Single Topic Survey

How to Bring about World Peace
by Tracy Tagliati

In this month's gameletter we explored a textra game called 20 Reasons. Next month we would like to use this same framegame and, in the spirit of the season, call it 20 Ways to Bring About World Peace.

Here's your chance to be part of the design. We know that as interactive trainers and performance consultants, there is no task that is too challenging for you. Answer both the poll question and the open question that follow. Next month, check out the game and read all of the suggestions. Discover how your response is included in the game.

Poll Question

Do you think we are closer to having world peace than ever before?

• Yes
• No

(The poll opens in a new window.)

Open Question

(The survey opens in a new window.)

Send us your thoughts and ideas. You may choose to include your name along with your response, or if you prefer, keep it anonymous.

Dinner Table Conversation

We brought up this topic during the Thanksgiving dinner with family and friends. Here are some of their thoughts:

Sam “I think we need to be more tolerant of other religions. Organized religion poses a formidable obstacle in the path to a peaceful world, especially when fanatics justify their violence from it.”

Diane “I think we need to see the realities of other people's lives. When this happens, feelings of connection and empathy naturally arise. This is why war and violence always start with efforts to dehumanize the enemy. This is why the media in any country will exaggerate our suffering and minimize or ignore the misery inflicted on the anonymous mass that is ‘them’.”

Eric “In times of war, it helps to be reminded of the hauntingly reminiscent affirmation of the human spirit in John Lennon's song ‘Imagine’, which captures this quest for peace in the shadow of war: ‘You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one, someday you too will join us, and the world will be one’.”

Nina “Equally essential is the courage and vision to address the underlying conditions of poverty and injustice—the enabling factors in terrorism.”

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Survey Results

New Workshop on Training Games Coming in 2010
by Tracy Tagliati

Last month we asked you if you would you like to be certified to conduct a Thiagi workshop.

An overwhelming number of you enthusiastically responded with a resounding “YES”.

As a result, we are happy to announce that we will be offering our workshop on Interactive Techniques for Instructor-Led Training with an option for certification. We plan to conduct this workshop in Chicago during July 2010.

Look for more details in upcoming newsletters or contact me at tracy@thiagi.com .

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Coming Soon

New Podcasts

Beginning in January 2010, we plan to launch two exciting podcasts. One of them will deal with training topics; the other with management and leadership.

Matthew Richter will be hosting these podcasts. He has already recorded six of them!

See our next issue for details, and links.

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