Fun Fire Training?!

Fun and Games
Hi Samantha

This sounds like a fun challenge, especially if you’re holding different courses for the same people. I’m not sure whether you’ve already done so, but it’s worth making any presentation as emotionally engaging as possible – including stories about real people, etc.

Here are some activities for increasing engagement:

Treasure hunt – if they need to know the location of eg, all the fire points, put a nugget of information at each point. Divide into pairs/trios and get them to go to all of the locations and collect the information. The group coming back first with all the correct information (who have not been seen to run, etc) are the winners. This is a good activity for physical learners.

Learner-defined quiz – useful to test factual knowledge: Ask each learner (or pair/trio of learners if a large group) to give you three questions, with answers, relating to the information they need to know. Select 10-20 questions from the ones you have been given to use as a quiz. The individual/pair/trio with the most correct answers wins a prize. (NB – it may be worth having a pre-prepared tie-breaker question which requires more thought to answer)

Process-mapping jigsaw – If there is a process that people need to know – Put each stage of the process on a card and have the learners put them in the right order.

Process-mapping game – a variation on the above game: get teams of learners to write out each stage of the process onto cards and put them in the right order. The team with the closest match to the model process wins.

Process miming – another game for when people need to know processes – To test recall of a single process, use cards each containing a single step in the process. Hand one card to each individual (if there are insufficient people, some can have two cards). Ask the person who thinks they have the first step in the given process to come to the front and mime their card’s step. Once it has been guessed, ask the person with the second step to come up and mime their step, etc. If people are unsure which step comes first/second, etc, this gives them an opportunity to debate with others who step to the front, so that they get a better understanding of why the steps come in that order. This is a useful activity for physical learners.

Why? – A variation on the learner defined quiz, aimed at testing understanding rather than purely recall – Either ask learners to write out cards which ask “Why do we do XXXX”, where XXXX is an activity related to the fire training (eg, “Why do we assemble at the fire point?”) or have sufficient pre-prepared cards to give one to each learner. Ask for a volunteer to ask the question on their card. They can select the person they want to answer the question. When that person gets it right, they ask their question and selct someone to answer it – and so on.

If you want any more ideas, do get in touch. Best of luck!

Natasha

One Response

User deleted says:

September 29, 2008 at 11:34 am

Fun and Games
Hi Samantha

This sounds like a fun challenge, especially if you’re holding different courses for the same people. I’m not sure whether you’ve already done so, but it’s worth making any presentation as emotionally engaging as possible – including stories about real people, etc.

Here are some activities for increasing engagement:

Treasure hunt – if they need to know the location of eg, all the fire points, put a nugget of information at each point. Divide into pairs/trios and get them to go to all of the locations and collect the information. The group coming back first with all the correct information (who have not been seen to run, etc) are the winners. This is a good activity for physical learners.

Learner-defined quiz – useful to test factual knowledge: Ask each learner (or pair/trio of learners if a large group) to give you three questions, with answers, relating to the information they need to know. Select 10-20 questions from the ones you have been given to use as a quiz. The individual/pair/trio with the most correct answers wins a prize. (NB – it may be worth having a pre-prepared tie-breaker question which requires more thought to answer)

Process-mapping jigsaw – If there is a process that people need to know – Put each stage of the process on a card and have the learners put them in the right order.

Process-mapping game – a variation on the above game: get teams of learners to write out each stage of the process onto cards and put them in the right order. The team with the closest match to the model process wins.

Process miming – another game for when people need to know processes – To test recall of a single process, use cards each containing a single step in the process. Hand one card to each individual (if there are insufficient people, some can have two cards). Ask the person who thinks they have the first step in the given process to come to the front and mime their card’s step. Once it has been guessed, ask the person with the second step to come up and mime their step, etc. If people are unsure which step comes first/second, etc, this gives them an opportunity to debate with others who step to the front, so that they get a better understanding of why the steps come in that order. This is a useful activity for physical learners.

Why? – A variation on the learner defined quiz, aimed at testing understanding rather than purely recall – Either ask learners to write out cards which ask “Why do we do XXXX”, where XXXX is an activity related to the fire training (eg, “Why do we assemble at the fire point?”) or have sufficient pre-prepared cards to give one to each learner. Ask for a volunteer to ask the question on their card. They can select the person they want to answer the question. When that person gets it right, they ask their question and selct someone to answer it – and so on.

If you want any more ideas, do get in touch. Best of luck!

Natasha