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Seb Anthony

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Creativity facts and figures

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I am going to be presenting material to other trainers on the importance of creativity in training, ie the use of activities, energisers etc. I personally believe that, when used properly, this engages participants, makes potentially boring IT training a little more fun and aids retention.

Whilst I have qualitative material that supports this view, I would like something of a more quantitative nature (given that people often respond better to facts and figures).

Does anyone have any suggestions where I can find such material?

Thanks in advance!!
Shari Aubrey

3 Responses

  1. A question of viewpoints
    I am not aware personally of quantative study however energisers and activities all fall within Kolbs Experiential Learning Cycle (1974)as well as Honey and Mumfords Learning Styles (1986 and 1992), given that you are addressing trainers I’d have thought this would be an excellent starting point. What’s more you could tie it into some CPD for your trainers.
    I’m sure within the research for the models and styles there will be a firm basis for Activists and Activity.

    On a wider note, creativity for creativity’s sake is not something I’d encourage especially if its initially held as a personal belief, learning is the fundamental here. You mention “you personally believe”, better to remain objective before trying to prove assumptions.

    Creativity is not the reason we include energisers, icebreakers and activities, they rightly exist within training to maximise learning.

    Good luck

  2. Energisers
    I tend to agree with the comments made by Mark Starling to some extent. It sounds as though you feel you may have to “persuade” some of your colleagues that icebreakers/energisers etc are a neccesary part of any training course. I would hope that many would accept the need for such material especially within IT Training. I currently work on an SAP Implementation project and coming from a skills background it was clear from the outset that breaking the course material into digestable chunks and “lightening the mood” would certainly assist the transfer of learning. As for anything tangible to prove the worth of energisers it may be an idea to carry out one of the learning style questionaires as part of your training and link the results to your objective. If you are looking for some material to assist you with this, drop me a line and I will dig out some info which may help

  3. Experiencing is believing
    I don’t know of any quantitative data (though there might be some within the NLP – Neurolinguistic Programming – and/or Accelerated Learning literature). However, given the topic and the target audience, I would think that incorporating some exercises would be more convincing than any facts and figures. I agree that linking these this to learning styles is a very good idea, as well. Last year, a dozen people in my organisation, all of whom do different types of training on a variety of different topics, attended a Toolkit for Trainers course which made extensive use of these techniques, and everyone went away excited and inspired, and keen to try out what they’d learned. I’ve recently used quite a few of these techniques on a two day training course for S/NVQ assessors (a fairly dry and jargon-laden topic, potentially), and using a variety of creative techniques, had a very successful course which kept people involved and, hopefully, aided both their understanding and their retention (though time will tell on that one). Good luck!