Making Training Fun and Effective

A study of adult educators conducted by Pennsylvania State University doctoral student David Tanis found that playfulness creates a learning environment of “fun, enjoyment, and laughter,” and that their students notice cognitive gains in terms of “engagement, retention, and understanding.”

Ways to incorporate playfulness into the training classroom include the use of games and other activities, along with humour, which will be explored in this course.

Purposeful, well-thought out, and engaging activities in a training course can help learners apply new skills and knowledge, as well as retain that information in a meaningful way, while meeting learning objectives.

Topics Covered:

• Let’s have some fun!
• Getting everyone on board
• Choosing the right activity
• When activities go badly
• Using humour in training
• Balancing act
• Quick and easy games
• Creating a game

Learning Points:

• Understand how training can include the use of activities
• Explore different types of games
• Identify methods to elicit participant buy-in
• Apply humour principles in adult learning
• Troubleshoot when activities go badly
• Develop activities to use