Page Updated on April 7, 2023

Standing in front of the workshop or training session participants for hours on end can make for a somewhat dull experience for those participants.

After a while, participants are likely to begin to daydream and gradually lose enthusiasm unless they are truly a captivating trainer.

Even the best trainers though appreciate the way in which interactive teaching males for a much great overall experience for the students.

So below are some thoughts on the benefit of using games as a part of your training plan.

What Types of Games Can You Use?

The type of game you choose to use depends on the type of training session but the most common games are based on team building.

By putting participants into teams and getting them to work as a unit, as a team, in order to try and achieve a given goal, can be a great hands-on way to give them a way to hone their skills.

Team building games can be mental or physical or a combination of both. The emphasis should be on all members of a team working together and for no individual to be excluded.

Games can be especially effective in their use in topic areas that otherwise might be considered quite boring by the attendees. Games are effective in spicing up the learning process.

These games can also be a wonderful tool as an ice breaker, meaning that they can be used to help participants to get to know each other, particularly when these people will not have known each other before the training day.

Training Games Preparation

1. Make sure that any game you decide to include as a part of the training, does have clear objectives from your point of view, as the trainer.

Is the game intended to act as an ice breaker to build the experience for participants and will the game give other benefits such as will it re-enforce the topic at hand?

2. Will the game or activity you plan to use, be one that is likely to get everyone in each group involved and help people to mix?

3. Consider if you want to use the game to re-enforce the course content with a Trivial Pursuit style Q&A game towards the end of the training.

4. Decide on a time frame that you will allocate for the game and ensure that you provide exact and clear rules and guidelines for the participants so that there is no confusion as to what the game entails.

Why Games-Based Learning Works

1. Games help participants to internalize information as this form of learning helps to re-enforce learning through a kinesthetic approach.

2. Games are known to help skills retention when the game connects with the training topic

3. In a training room, if games are organized well, the environment is a safe location for not winning, in that the games can be fun but without an overly set level of competitiveness.

4. As alluded to earlier, games help to offset the possibility of boredom that can otherwise be set up when participants have no real opportunity to be active and to have a voice in the training.

5. Games can be fun and make the training a memorable experience rather than a monotonous experience.

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Dr Valeria (Lo Iacono) Symonds

Involved with education for over 25 years, Valeria has taught at the University of Bath and Cardiff Metropolitan University (both UK) & Hankuk University (Korea). With a PhD, she has also worked as a researcher (Exeter University) & has many years of industry experience including with Cardiff University in management roles. She is the founder of Symonds Training.

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