💥The Quest #16: How to put the spark into online learning

Hello Friends!

Greetings from Barcelona☀️. Many thanks for your feedback on the last edition and for reaching out. A special shout out to the following people: Jackie and Connie in Toronto, Mamen and Caroline in Barcelona, Kasia in Brussels, Michaele in Bracebridge, and Nadia in Montreal 🙌. 

If you are joining The Quest for the first time, welcome to our weekly exploration of creativity, facilitation, and learning. You can catch up on past editions here.

This week:

• Does online learning have to be so exhausting?

• What if it was energising, creative, and engaging?

• How can we add a whole lot more spark and human connection to our online sessions?

That’s what we’ll be exploring this week.

Let’s go!

💥What Happens When You (Really) Stretch Online Learning to the Limits…

When friend, professor, and researcher Jordi Díaz Gibson invited me to lead an online interactive session with his teacher training students in Barcelona it took me about a nanosecond to respond with an enthusiastic 👍.

After months of online classes, Jordi told me that he and his students were feeling tired and demotivated.

I’ve written before about not mistaking Zoom fatigue for boredom.

Could that be what was happening to Jordi and his students?

If so, could we create a whole new online experience for his students?

Fuelled by the enthusiasm of Jordi’s class, we set to see how we could stretch online learning to the limits.

Our conclusion? With the right facilitation tools and solid experience design. online learning can spark deep connection and learning.

With the expert help of my husband Andres we produced this short video that shows what this looks like in action.

How are you experimenting with your online sessions?

🧰What facilitation tools do you need?

There is a growing universe of tips for running engaging sessions. So many that I often feel like I am drinking water from a firehose.

Here are 3 tools that are part of every session that I run online:

• Warm-ups. Also known as icebreakers. But hold on. I know what you may be thinking. The answer is no. I’m not talking about the ones that make you cringe. I’m talking about icebreakers that can help people to connect at the start of a session. Ones that give people an opportunity to share something about themselves. Why? Warm-ups help to build psychological safety. That helps people take creative risks and collaborate. I like this list of virtual icebreakers from Mind Tools. Also check out this list of icebreaker questions from Museum Hack, especially the “Awkward, Weird Icebreaker Questions” section.

• Theatre Improv Games. Theatre activities help people to activate their imaginations and build on the ideas of others. They also help people relax and have fun. Check out these two taught by seasoned PYE facilitators Devon Little and Alan Wong: Yes, And, This is not a…

  I recently learned a brilliant improv game from the folks at Scaling Intimacy called Story Spine. It was developed by Kenn Adams then popularised by Pixar. Here’s a short video of Kenn Adams explaining the structure.

  In the Scaling Intimacy version, we chose a story from our own life. We then wrote a quick story using the prompts and shared it with a partner. Telling our own story took the activity from entertaining to magical and meaningful.

  This is the Story Spine:

• Movement. There is no rule that says we have to sit in front of our computer screen during an entire online session. Scientist John Medina, author of the book Brain Rules. Medina calls physical activity cognitive candy. You can stand up and stretch, walk around the room, and dance. You can (and need to) do it often. About every 20 minutes.

  Here’s a movement game (and warm-up) that I learned from PYE called Zoom Neighbours.

• Ask the group to stand up and go on Gallery View so they can see everyone.

• Ask the group to stretch up to say hi to the Zoom neighbour above them.

• Then stretch down to say hi to the Zoom neighbour below.

• Then stretch to the left, and right greeting the neighbours to the sides.

• At the very end you ask people to put their hands up to the edge of the screen and give their neighbour a high-5.

What’s in your facilitator toolkit?

💡How to Get to Creative Ideas

As facilitators, we need to keep our creative well filled. That’s why I was so excited to discover the work of Dave Birss, author of the book “How to Get Creative Ideas”. Dave is like a modern-day Leonardo. He has been a musician, comedian, veterinary assistant, TV presenter, film producer, advertising Creative Director, and more. Now he is a trainer, facilitator, online educator, speaker, LinkedIn Learning instructor, author. Let’s call him a creator.

In his book he reminds us of a few keys to getting creative ideas:

• To access our creativity we need to shut off the pre-frontal cortex. That’s the part of the brain that is linked to inhibition and self-censorship. That’s where your self-critic hangs out.

• Play helps us get into a curious state. Curiosity leads to new ideas.

• Creativity is not about the destination, it’s about the journey.

  (*He also has a bunch of free resources on his website.)

Thanks for reading. I always love hearing your feedback and suggestions. Feel free to email me at gwyn@gwynwansbrough.com. Visit my website for ways we can work together here. 

If you are enjoying The Quest, I’d appreciate it if you shared it with anyone you think might like it. 

Until next week!

Gwyn

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