How can you incorporate adult learning principles in team building facilitation?

I think in order to aid adult learners we can appreciate they want to be there. Their desires and preferences see stronger than regular students as they bring real world knowledge to the class. So understanding the learners history, needs, skills and background and tailoring content that is meaningful and purposeful is a start. Having clear goals to achieve. Fostering interaction and collaboration on real world scenarios related to the topic, will foster offer empathic approaches and discussions, and utilizing a facilitator’s feedback and feed forward, leveraged against a digital platform to customize needs will allow for benchmarking success.

To effectively understand adult learning principles, let's explore integrating them into team building. Firstly, relevance is key. Adults value practicality, so tailor activities to mirror daily challenges. This captures attention and ensures lasting lessons. Encourage self-direction. Empower teams to have a say in their learning journey. Foster engagement and instill ownership. Embrace the wealth of experience adults bring. Create spaces for sharing stories and challenges. Utilize role-play and group discussions to validate expertise and cultivate respect. Prioritize immediate application. After each activity, debrief and connect the lessons to professional lives. Encourage concrete action items for implementation.

By incorporating these adult learning principles into team building facilitation, you can create a more engaging and effective learning environment for your participants. 1. Self-directed learning: Encourage participants to take ownership of their learning. 2. Relevant and practical content: Design team-building activities that are directly applicable to the participants' work environment. 3. Collaborative learning: Encourage teamwork and collaboration among participants. 4. Experiential learning: Emphasize hands-on activities and experiential learning opportunities. 5. Feedback and reflection: Offer constructive feedback and encourage participants to reflect on their learning. 6. Relate to prior knowledge and Flexibility and choice:

A critical difference between teaching adults, and children is that an adult has more experience, and information needs to fit into that and through trial and reflection, new knowledge can be generated. Most ”popular” adult training is designed for information retention but offers no or little application, reflection, and synthesis. Learning the differences and redesigning for androgogy is critical. One lost opportunity is asking participants to begin the learning in advance. Not only by defining personal learning objectives, but also by exploring their epistomology, and beginning application of something new before the training begins. So they have an experience to build upon in the training.

As a consultant who works with organizations, it's always helpful to know whether the participants raised their hand to be in the room if it was strongly recommended that they attend, or if it was made mandatory. Each option offers a different energy and approach. Ideally, I'd love for everyone to volunteer to be in the room; however, the reality is that every situation is unique, and it's best to understand how people ended up in the room first and then gather more information.

Clear objectives also have to be defined by the individual participants. I usually ask: What is a specific, real challenge you currently are facing (aligned with the session objectives and topic). Sometimes, it is worth to follow up with "What is the real barrier for you to overcome this challenge?" to be able to tackle root causes rather than symptoms only.

When facilitating adult learners it is also important to recognize, that there probably is at least some in the group, who are experts of team work and even might have excellent team building skills. So, instead of setting clear objectives for adult learners, you should set the objectives with them.

Being aligned with the organization's desires is imperative to build an effective and constructive program. I've found it helpful to create objectives and goals to help each individual and the group reflect, learn, and grow throughout the learning process. Regardless of the group dynamics, I always share that I'm also eager to learn from them.

Spot on about active and experiential learning methods! Adults want more than just information dumps—they want hands-on experiences. For example, when teaching team communication, skip the slides and play "Broken Telephone." It's fun and demonstrates how messages can easily get messed up. Real learning and laughs! Role-playing is gold for conflict resolution. Have people act out challenging work scenarios for immediate feedback on what works and what doesn't—no need to wait for a "real" conflict to test their skills. Simulations are another great option. Run a mock project to learn without real-world consequences. Teams can make mistakes, adjust, and figure things out safely. It's learning with a safety net.

I have built a business around experiential team building. Set clear objectives and then make it experiential and then debrief the team, pulling the insights out of them as to what they have learnt in the experiential team building that relates back to the workplace. This is far more powerful than just telling them.

It's so important for adult learners to be able to reflect on past experiences, analyze them, and share with others about those experiences and takeaways. Adult learners also need the opportunity to apply their past experiences to new materials, and to test new information in new ways. Didactic classroom learning is rarely effective for the adult learner (nor will it be enjoyable for them). Using applied and reflective learning is the most respectful way to teach new information to adults.

Adding gamification in all sorts of learning guarantees that everyone will get the experience of acquiring the skills or knowing something about the subject/ topic. Gamification makes it easier to find out continuously ‘what’, ‘why’ and ‘how’ at every stage of progress. For ex: initial video, demo or tutorials and then our mind will get clue on how to ‘explore’ further. Also learning can be effective if gamified experience collaborative and rewarding. For ex: co-operative/ multiplayer activities along with leaderboard like scoring mechanisms.

A lot of advice trainers get is to make things more practical and concrete. To add gamification. This can help with information retention, but it doesn’t help people go past application. Going past application is where the deeper knowledge is generated that leads to ability to apply what you have learned in different contexts. Blooms taxonomy is a great framework for thinking about training. Lack of gamification can lead to deep learnings, lack of application, reflection, analysis, and synthesis can’t. So avoid the temptation to make things ”fun” believing that’s all that’s needed.

Giving others acknowledgment for their efforts and insights is one of the more profound leadership skills available and has lingering and compounding effects. It's essential to recognize that everyone receives feedback and recognition differently and often prefers different styles. Asking how individuals best receive feedback and acknowledgment is super helpful. It lets them know you care about their well-being and demonstrates that you understand how they best process information.

Our mind works on challenge and reward system. When a person receives a feedback or recognition , even if they fail, they will reflect back and improve next time.

A golden rule is that every new tool or framework that is ”taught” is followed by application, reflection, and analysis. The reflection and analysis does not have to happen directly. It is fine to space it out. E.g. By creating learning groups that get together after, or between learning sessions. Training session > application > reflect in groups in between the session > follow up for a short period in the next training session. If there is only one training day, consider having participants try out using a tool or framework before the training in a self-directed way. That way, the training can be used for reflection, analysis, and synthesis.

One simple way to encourage reflection and action planning is to ask participants to take an action following the facilitation activity and then find an accountability buddy to check in with about the action they have taken.

Yes, questions facilitate reflection. But not any kinds of questions. These questions shouldn't be close ended. What you need are open ended, strategic, and thought provoking questions. This is especially critical after each exercise, role play, group or pairing discussions. The facilitator should come up with some relevant debriefing questions to process what they learned in these group discussions before going to the next section. These questions should allow participants to learn from within and among themselves. If the facilitator has quality questions and excel in processing the debriefing, he/she can induce reflection. They don't need to lecture. They speak less, allowing the audience to speak the majority of the time...

When running a facilitated meeting or learning event, it is essential to consider several elements of adult learning principles. One to start with is that everyone is a mature, accomplished professional with life experiences they value and hold dear. They want to be recognized and celebrated for that and not surrender it at the door to listen to an “expert” pontificate. Yes, they have come to learn but also to give. They want to give away their knowledge and experience during the session. They want to be recognized for what they already know. Great facilitators honor that expectation, design for it as part of the facilitated session, and step out of the way to allow the collective intelligence of the room to brew, germinate, and simmer.

Working intentionally to stay inclusive during my facilitation, I’ve learned to explore my own biases and discriminations deliberately and with determination. Naming my own flaws has led me to make spaces for difference. One of my biggest flaws is with neurological diversity, as my facilitation practice tends to favor fast verbal processors and gregarious people seeking external validation. I intentionally use different methods and strategies that engage other types of learners, whether through quiet introspection, dyads and triads, or other approaches that appeal to different thinking styles. When I facilitate conscientious of these differences, I’m more successful engaging learners with different identities than me, too!

Diversity and inclusivity are key ingredients for building a strong team. Let's make ice-breakers inclusive, allowing everyone to share something personal and connect on a human level. Keep language simple and universal, avoiding confusing jargon or sayings. Let's have an inclusive dialogue, giving everyone a chance to speak and handle any misunderstandings with care. Group activities should be collaborative, focusing on winning and learning together. It's about "one for all, all for one," not "survival of the fittest."

Every individual brings a unique set of experiences and perspectives to the table and acknowledging and respecting this #diversity is crucial. In a team-building session, creating a safe and supportive environment where every participant feels valued and included is key. It's all about using language and materials that are #inclusive, facilitating respectful discussions, and encouraging collaboration.

co-creating expected group norms of behavior is an effective way to create a set of agreed-upon expectations so that as a facilitator, you can call out if those norms have not been respected.

Keep our ever-shortening attention spans in mind. We check out when we feel we're being lectured at. Vary your tools and exercises to keep participants engaged. And use the self-reference effect to your advantage, constantly helping participants answer the question, "How does this apply to me?"

One of my favorite phrases when facilitating is asking others to steal the brilliance in the room. In other words, please share ideas, past experience, and current processes that have been implemented. To close the training/meeting, I love sharing that a training means nothing without action. The ability to take information or a shared experience from another individual and make it your own is one essence of being a learner. I also second Taylor's response about creating variety and not all lecture.