Adjusting on the Fly

The mark of an excellent learning facilitator is the ability to adjust “on the fly” to changing conditions without shortchanging the learning process. The most common causes for adjusting on the fly are

• an unexpected change in time constraints (fire drill, a productive tangent, a surprise guest speaker, learners working faster or slower than you expected, a late start for the course)

• a prior assumption or assessment about the learners is off target (they are more or less experienced than you thought; their backgrounds are not what you thought they were; they are more or less open to certain types of activities than you expected).

Given the main causes for adjusting (time and learner characteristics), three main adjustment factors are available to you: learner groupings, logistics of the activity, and activity intensity. The actual adjustments you make involve either increasing or decreasing the parameters of the activity in one or more of these three areas.

Learner Groupings

The original plan for grouping learners in an activity is based on the grouping arrangement that will support the greatest amount of learning within the planned time. When reality gets in the way of your plan, a facilitator can adjust on the fly the number of learner groups working together, which changes the sizes of the individual groups. The guiding principle is this: The more learner groups, the more time and involvement the activity will take.

A couple of examples will clarify the use of this strategy. If you are running short on time, decrease the number of groupings for an activity in which you had planned for the learners to work in pairs or trios. Instead, have them work in groups of five or six. This way, there will be fewer groups to report on their work, and the overall activity will take less time. Conversely, increase the number of groups by breaking down larger groups into pairs or trios if more time has become available.

Or, consider the situation when you find that the planned groupings require more or less involvement than the learners are comfortable with. You’ll have to increase or decrease the number of groupings in this case as well. For example, if you have more shy learners than you expected, you may need to increase the number of groups to more, but smaller, groups. If learners are more comfortable in large groups and seem to enjoy speaking in front of others, then decreasing the number to a few larger groups (or one large group) may be appropriate.

Logistics of the Activity

Activity logistics can be adjusted for time or for changing learner needs. When you plan the logistics of an activity ahead of time, it is much easier to adjust on the fly when necessary. Logistics issues include the number of groups; physical layout of the room; conditions in which the learners will work (Will they discuss? Work alone, then discuss? Move around? Stay in the same place?); results they must produce (report out, flipchart, presentation, action); time of day (need to be more physically active later in the day); and learning styles (is there a preponderance of one style?).

What it comes down to is this: The more active or complicated the logistics, the more time and active learner involvement the activity will take.

If you’ve run short on time, a logistics adjustment you can make is decreasing the complexity of the logistics. For example, have learners appoint a recorder to take notes in their group, rather than have them draw up a flipchart. Or, have groups report their top three ideas rather than all of the ideas they discussed.

Conversely, if more time is available, you can increase the complexity of your logistics. For example, have groups do something physically active, like build a model, solve a puzzle, or make a flipchart. Or, have them work on assignments in segments and switch groups between segments. Alternatively, instead of having each group provide a complete report, you can use a round robin. In this situation, each group presents an idea. The next group adds a different one. This goes on until all ideas have been presented. This method reduces the amount of redundancy on reports.

If you find that the planned logistics will support more or less active involvement than is optimal with a particular group of learners, you can adjust the logistics accordingly. You can decrease the logistics for learners who are shy, reserved, novices, sedentary, or at the beginning of a course when they don’t know each other; and you can increase the logistics for learners who are more extroverted, outgoing, experienced, active in their jobs, and later in a course when comfort levels are higher.

Activity Intensity

Activity intensity can also be adjusted to accommodate time issues or learner needs. The more learner centered an activity is, the more intense an experience it is for the learners. Intensity of activities ranges from lectures (low intensity) to discussions (moderately low intensity) to structured exercises (moderate intensity) to skill practices (high intensity). Here’s a guideline: The more intense the activity, the more time it will take and the more risk learners experience.

For example, if you have run short on time, you can decrease the activity intensity one step (adjust a skill practice on the content to a structured exercise; adjust a structured exercise to a discussion; adjust a discussion to a lecture). If time is available, you will keep the activity at the planned level of intensity (no need to increase or decrease intensity).

You may find yourself in the situation in which the planned activity’s intensity is not a good match for the learners’ comfort zone or experience level. Once again, you can adjust on the fly. You can decrease the intensity (from a skill practice on the content to a structured exercise; from a structured exercise to a discussion; from a discussion to a lecture). You can also increase intensity with learners who are beyond the planned intensity in either their comfort zone or experience (increase intensity from a lecture to a discussion, from a discussion to a structured exercise, from a structured exercise to a skill practice).

Noted

When the intensity of an activity is decreased, the depth of the learning will also be decreased. For that reason, you may have to make later adjustments in your skill practices and measurement/assessment activities.

The most important aspect of adjusting on the fly is preparing ahead of time. Know which content and activities are most critical and which are nice to know. Know which activities reinforce skills and link to application to the job. Analyze your content and activities and identify what you will adjust if necessary and how you will adjust it. Develop ahead of time the specific changes you will make in groupings, logistics, or activity intensity should the need arise. In the classroom, when you make the actual adjustment, it will be seamless in the eyes of your learners—and that’s what counts!

Basic Rule 32

Plan ahead to adjust on the fly to maintain content and make learning happen.