When creating staff training games, I like to create content that has a bigger takeaway besides the obvious thing you’re trying to teach them.
But where do you begin to meet this objective? Start with your outcome(s). What do you want the students to get out of this/what’s the takeaway? What is the ah-ha moment you want to create? Some themes I’ve used before in staff training games include integrity, ownership, flexibility, paradigm shifts, comfort zone and learning zone.
It also doesn’t hurt to get student input. You can start your staff training by asking your students to create a “menu.” Ask them to think about all the staff trainings they’ve experienced. What did they like? What did they not like? Now ask them to think about what they want to see more or less of. Some answers I’ve had students give are more ‘getting to know each other’ icebreakers, less rules/content, more breaks, less time/shorter training days, more food, more time for questions, less lectures, etc. Having them give their input to what they want to see in staff training gives them a chance to speak to what they want out of their job experience. It also makes sure your trainings are aligning with their needs to empower them in their roles.
Once you know the direction you’re headed, you can move into content creation. Here are some things to think about when creating staff training games, as well as some games and ideas that have been adopted from “Excellence in Teaching and Learning: The Quantum Learning System”:
- Design the game/activity with an opportunity for an added challenge. Having options to take away elements or add hints always helps as well.
- An example of this is during my Bring it to Me game. It’s a scavenger hunt where they have five seconds to bring me a specific item. The challenge I added was bonus points for creativity or originality, or they had the option to pass or play. If they passed, the next person up would have that item and have three seconds to find it, and double points. One of the items was a “house pet” and a student didn’t have any pets, so they just showed us a stuffed animal they had in the house.
- Another example of this is the weekly team challenge for my QuaranTEAMS series during the earlier stages of the COVID-19 shutdown to continue to engage students at home. The staff was broken into teams, and we had a weekly challenge sent out. At the end of the spring quarter, each winning team member was mailed a prize package.
- Being inclusive with your activities helps to not only increase participation, but it allows for more things to talk about when debriefing the activity to discuss takeaways.
- An example of this is Virtual Family Feud. Whether they were able to join us in training, or chose not to be on a team, they were part of the answers to help support their team. I generated a survey that was sent out to the staff ahead of time, which included questions like:
- “Name a song that plays on our overhead speakers you can’t stand.”
- “If you were in charge of the ARC for the day, what is the first thing you would do?”
- “Name something patrons do that always drives you crazy.”
- An example of this is Virtual Family Feud. Whether they were able to join us in training, or chose not to be on a team, they were part of the answers to help support their team. I generated a survey that was sent out to the staff ahead of time, which included questions like:
- Open looping is helpful in creating avenues to be able to cycle back to previous things taught and reinforce the learning. By engaging students in higher order levels of thinking, it empowers them to make their own meaning and apply their knowledge to new situations.
- One example of this takes place when we speak about ownership. I play the game of Simon Says with students, and in time, fire a quick series of commands or establish a pattern, then repeat it without a “Simon says.” Then, when about 10 to 20% of the students are left, I stop the game without saying “Simon says,” a trick that usually gets most of the remaining students out. Also, as Simon do not tell anyone they are out or should sit down. Part of the debrief is about choosing or not choosing ownership. This leads into an activity with my staff for them to set expectations of myself and their coworkers, as well as laying out my expectations of them. In order for me to open loop this, we revisit this activity when we fall short on the expectations we set out together. This allows the students to understand the values of the area(s) they work in and check in with themselves on their accountability and ownership. Although many are already familiar with this game, the message/take away is reiterated but in a slightly different light.
- How can you take a current game or activity virtual? A good tip here is to explore your platforms — for me, it was Zoom — and know the ins and outs of it. Also, find a theme that resonates with the students. This is called “Know Their World.” This is an authentic and effective way to build rapport with students, so they are open to new learning. Through my facilitation, I’ve learned that unless we enter our students’ world and meet them where they live — technologically, musically, culturally, etc. — they will be hesitant to enter our world of expected behaviors. When we understand a student’s world, and they get that we understand and care about them, they become more likely to engage in serious learning. Consequently, they are more likely to follow us into our world — our world being defined as the content and behaviors we want them to learn. Then, if taught effectively, students take their new learning back to their world where they apply it in meaningful ways. By engaging in our students’ world, we can transport our students into new, comfortable, cognitive ways of viewing our world.
- One popular example is UC Davis Bracketology where I took campus landmarks, campus traditions, campus events, and popular eateries and, creatined a bracket in lieu of March Madness. The most popular item advanced to the next round. The inspiration for this came from the Ultimate Fast Food/Fast Casual Restaurants Bracket.
Regardless of any staff training games you choose to create, it’s important to always remember “the outcome is the standard, but the flow is fluid.” This attests to the fact your outcome is concrete, as the ultimate goal of the activity and what you want your students to take away. But how you get there may not always be straightforward or evident. Even in the moment, you can adapt the flow to your needs creating flexibility and avenues for further consideration while still keeping the end result in mind.
Stephanie Fung is the operations coordinator at the University of California, Davis Campus Recreation. She is a proud alum of Ohio University, with a Master’s in Recreation and Sport Science, and the University of California, Merced with a B.S. in Human Biology and a B.A. in Psychology. Stephanie has had the pleasure of working at numerous institutions across the country such as Duke, Washington State and Stanford which contributed to opportunities in a variety of areas within recreation, such as facility operations, member services, special events, student development, intramurals and sport clubs. Her passion for customer service and experience stems from her time with Nike as a lead product specialist. For the past nine years, she has been fortunate enough to be a lead facilitator for QLN SuperCamp, an academic and life skills summer camp that teaches and empowers students all over the world. She considers herself an extreme wanderlust adventurer, sports enthusiast, dog lover and a culinary amateur. She can be reached at slfung@ucdavis.edu.
