Types of Learning Activities

Three main categories of learning activities are discussed here: content/knowledge/ comprehension activities, structured exercises, and skill practice. Within each category are multiple and varied methods for facilitation.

1. Content/Knowledge/Comprehension Activities

These types of activities are intended to disseminate information, increase awareness, and assist participants in understanding concepts. The foundation of all skills is knowledge, and learners must know before they can do. These activities apply to learners who don’t have any or very little background in the content of the lesson or course.

Content/knowledge/comprehension activities are characterized by relative passivity on the part of the participants (they are usually listening, reading, or observing without interacting); greater focus on the facilitator (who must deliver the content because participants don’t know it); and (usually) individual rather than group work. Examples of content/knowledge/comprehension learning activities include

• lecture

• reading books or handouts

• videos/DVDs/films, slides, overhead transparencies

• prework

• PowerPoint presentations

• note taking

• self-assessments such as quizzes and checklists.

Think About This

Never lecture for more than 20 minutes. With lectures, not only do you lose your participants’ attention, but also during a lecture they are passive, not active. When they cannot engage with the content, they do not learn as much of it.

2. Structured Exercises

Structured exercises constitute the discovery bridge between knowledge and skills. In structured exercises, the learners work together to understand and use content at a deeper level than simply comprehension: They learn variations of the content, how to use and apply it, and how to make it their own. Learners are more active and involved than they are with content/knowledge/comprehension activities. The focus is on the learners, and the facilitator’s role is that of organizer, monitor, and guide.

Structured exercises are used with learners who have some knowledge of the desired content and are ready for more depth and concept application. Sometimes the supporting knowledge has been acquired earlier in the same course. In other instances, the learners have the content and experience when they walk in. In this case, the first type of exercise used is often a structured exercise. The learner groups are given questions to answer or a problem to solve, and, in the process, the new content is discovered.

Noted

What can you do in structured exercises with a mixed group of some novices and some who have preexisting knowledge? This special case is discussed in chapter 6.

Here are some examples of structured exercises listed in order of increasing learner involvement:

• Solo work: Learners are given an assignment to work on by themselves (such as a questionnaire to complete or a problem to analyze) and then discuss with others.

• Guided discussion or question-and-answer session: The facilitator asks the group planned questions designed to get them to wrestle with content at a deeper level. As they answer the questions, the facilitator summarizes their content, adds his or her own content, plays devil’s advocate to drive for deeper content or application, and guides the discussion to the next question.

• Small group discussion: Small learner groups are given a topic to discuss or questions to answer; the learners work together and then present their results to the larger group.

• Group inquiry: The learners are provided with content, and they work together to identify questions they have about the content.

• Information search: The learners are given reference materials and must search them for answers to questions presented by the facilitator. In a blended learning experience (a combination of face-to-face learning and e-learning), the search may involve using the Internet to conduct searches or to down-load information.

• Small group assignment or problem solving: Small groups of learners are given a problem to solve, a situation to analyze, a list of principles or guidelines to develop in response to a problem, or some similar type of exercise.

• Peer teaching: Small groups of learners study the material and then teach it to the other participants or groups within the class. Choosing the teaching methodology is part of the activity and is left up to the groups.

• Games: A popular game (Jeopardy, Bingo, Concentration) can be adapted to assist learners in remembering, comprehending, and applying content that has been presented.

• Debriefing session: The facilitator leads a large group guided discussion after a structured exercise or skill practice is complete; it is designed to close the gaps in the learning, summarize the main points, and help the learners apply the content to the job.

3. Skill Practice

Once the learners have mastered knowledge to the depth that they need, the next part of the learning is skill practice. Skill practice is exactly what it says it is—the actual practice of the skill. If the skill is driving a car, then the skill practice is actually driving a car (or a simulator). If the skill is conducting a job interview or making a sales presentation, then the skill practice is conducting a mock interview or sales presentation. If the skill is analyzing a situation and making recommendations, then the skill practice is analyzing a case situation and making recommendations. In other words, skill practice is the actual performance of the skill, adjusted when necessary for the learning environment. A detailed feedback instrument accompanies the skill practice. There are three types of skill practices, as shown in table 5–1.

Table 5–1: Three types of skill practices.

	Psychomotor Skills	Intellectual Skills	Interpersonal Skills
Definition	Actual physical skills that the learners must perform	Skills that learners perform using judgment and mental processes	Skills that learners perform while interacting with other people
Examples	Drive a car in rain, create a spreadsheet, repair a hard drive	Decide what to do at various traffic signals, evaluate a report, troubleshoot a process, analyze a budget, develop an account plan	Resolve conflict after a fender bender, conduct a job interview, give constructive feedback, provide coaching
Activities	Demonstration and hands-on practice: Learners see the skill performed, they try it and receive feedback according to criteria for how each step should be followed.	Case or problem solving: Learners in groups (sometimes singly) are given a situation or problem and work to solve it. Sometimes it is a real business problem, and learners present their results to management. Many transfer activities (e.g., action planning, barriers, and strategies) fall into this category.	Behavior modeling or role playing in which learners act out the situation with each other: Can be a videotaped model/ demonstration followed by practice; instructor-led; instructor interaction with the learner(s); scripted; fishbowl (in which two role players perform with the rest of the class observing); and free form (in which role players are given the general parameters of the situation and are free to improvise over and above that)
Feedback	Process checklist	Quality criteria checklist	Behavioral process checklist for behavior modeling or a quality criteria checklist for role playing
Reprinted with permission from Deb Tobey LLC, 2003.