Anna Langheiter
Overview
The Austrian bank, Österreichische Sparkassenakademie GmbH, offers a train-the-trainer program to in-house specialists to enable them to train their other colleagues in the bank. The blended learning concept involves three live online training sessions and five days of in-person training. After the first brief live online seminar, which addresses logistical matters, the employees meet for the first two days of in-person training. After a round of introductions and presentation of the agenda, PerspActive comes into play.
Topic: Developing ground rules for collaboration
Staging
a. Preparation
I prepared PerspActive before the participants entered the room and made sure that each participant had one string. I then put the tool in the black bag and placed the red balls close at hand.
b. Performance
“We will be spending the next four months together as a learning team. The five days of in-person training will be very intensive. I have just shown you the agenda and you know that you will be responsible for conducting parts of the training sessions, that you will be giving and receiving feedback, and that a special atmosphere and appropriate rules are needed to make sure that the training sessions work for everyone.
When participants come together to learn with and from each other, it is a good idea to think about how we want to work together as a learning team. To help you figure out which rules you want to work with, I’ve prepared a challenge for you.
[I took PerspActive out of the bag and stood in the middle of the group, with the participants seated in a circle around me]. Everyone, please stand up. You will each take hold of one pair of colored strings, separate them and pass one of the two strings on so that everyone is holding at least one string.
You are a learning team with different skills. Each differently colored string represents a different skill. This is collaborative learning [I held up the tool] and you can see that learning doesn’t seem to happen in as straight a line as you would like it to. There can be times when everything goes great and you learn a lot – and then there are other times when you get stuck, and sometimes you feel like you haven’t learned anything at all. And then there are other times you might have to start all over again.
[I showed them the ball] The ball stands for learning. And the aim is to transport the ball from here [I pointed to the starting hole] to your goal [I pointed to the catching tray] and in the process get learning rolling.
Your task is to collaborate closely together to get learning to its goal by getting the ball to land and stay in the catching tray. If the ball falls out, you will have to start the entire learning process all over again.
Any questions? OK, I’m really curious to see just how you manage as a learning team to make learning a success and, should you encounter any difficulties, how you work together to develop excellent ideas and solutions.”
Transfer to the real World
| Elements in the learning project | Elements in the real world |
|---|---|
| Participants | Learning team |
| Differently colored strings | Different skills that are contributed |
| Tube sections | Shared path to learning |
| Ball | What is to be learned |
| Starting hole | Start of the training |
| Ball in the catching tray | Learning was successful |
c. Progression
The group quickly got down to business and were really enjoying themselves. The question arose of whether the ball was still going in the right direction. They were reassured that everything was fine. The question about direction came up again. The ball fell out at the starting hole.
I put the ball back in the starting hole and the group immediately began again. Three of the participants started to take over the lead. It didn’t work, frustration in the group grew. The classic question of “Can this be solved at all or is there a knot in the tube?” arose.
And then they succeeded – well, almost! The ball fell out of the catching tray. The group was about to give up and declare the activity over. I pointed out that the activity was not over until the ball came to rest in the catching tray and the learning team had got learning to its goal together.
I intervened: I asked the group to put their strings down and think about what they needed to complete the task properly. I waited a bit until I could see that they were on the right track. When I got the feeling that they had set enough clear rules, I put the ball back in the starting hole.
With the new rules, clear coordination and an observer who was holding one of the strings, but still had his eye on where the ball was coming from and where it had to go, the group managed to complete the task.
Reflection
The first – and my personal favorite – question was: What helped make learning a success? This enabled the participants to immediately get everything off their chest about what had just happened.
I then followed this up with: “Supposing you are a learning team that wants to make this training a success, what ground rules for collaborative learning do we want to give ourselves as a group? In particular, when considering what you just experienced, and in light of the fact that you, as future trainers, will be entering into some pretty unfamiliar territory?”
I collated the following rules on the flip chart:
• Listen actively
• Get personally involved
• Contribute different attitudes/perspectives/opinions
• Respect others
• Use different skills
• Allocate tasks
• Everyone contributes to making learning a success
• Take your time
• Remain calm
• Sometimes a second attempt is needed
• Have fun
• Accept and learn from setbacks
• Show appreciation for everyone’s contribution
Conclusion
The results were fantastic and different from the ground rules for collaborative learning that are normally agreed. Where the groups usually come up with rules like “no cell phones,” this time they formulated purposeful ground rules in a true team effort that we were able to draw on throughout the entire training period.