Group Exercises
CRMDEEN_at_aol.com
Thu, 3 Apr 1997 09:04:14 -0500 (EST)
This is an area I have experimented and learned a lot from. The exercises
are not only necessary, they can be fun.,That really helps relax the mood of
the students, and, if the facilitator orchestrates them well, the learning is
quite obvious.
One of mine, which is used during my Facilitator Training course, is what
seems to be a "trivia" test, on the CRM courseware. This comes on day four
(of 5), when the students have been repeatedly exposed to the technical
aspects and vocabulary of our course. In one partiular session, a certain
student taught the others something very important.
The exercise has two phases--an individual and a group. The
individuals take a test about the course. There are 15 questions that ask for
terminology and numbers that have been discussed in class and are in the book
(which they study at night of course). This is a closed-book test. The
individuals are given 5 minutes to complete the test, and the tests are then
taken from them. They are then formed into small groups, 3-5 each depending
on the size of the overall class, and asked to take the test again, as a
group.
During the group test, the facilitator scores the test and posts the
individual scores on the board. Only the test score is posted, not "which"
ones were correct. After 15 minutes, the "group" answer sheet is collected,
and scored. If the group is better than the strongest individual, we call
that "synergy", and the team learns that they did better as a group.
On the session I mentioned before, one particular student, during the
"individual" part, scored higher than anyone else. In fact over the next two
years, no one has scored as well as he. He answered 14 of 15 questions
correctly, when the average score is about 8. What was interesting in the
"group" session, is that the group's score was lower than his; they did NOT
achieve synergy.
Now you may be wondering what's so special about this? This
individual's aircraft job is a radio operator in the back of the airplane--he
does NOT have "aviator" wings on his chest, and he was not of an officer
rank.
Think about that!
Greg Deen--HTI
C-130 ATS