One of the key elements to retain information, to transfer it to short-term memory, is repetition.
No, it doesn’t sound very exciting or groundbreaking, but it is. Simple repetition is essential to remember something.
That means you need to find ways to repeat the same things when you are training. But it doesn’t have to be boring. It doesn’t mean you have to keep saying the same thing over and over again.
One of the ways you can do this is by incorporating various activities that allow people to review what they have learned. The key is to engage students in processing the information, which is also important for remembering it, rather than just listening to it.
One of the main ways to do this is with some kind of quiz, where you ask people questions or they ask each other. But that is not the only approach. Here are 8 ideas for review activities you can use. Feel free to use them as your own, I’ve borrowed them from other people myself!
1. Snowball fight.
Have people write questions about the material on sheets of paper. Then they roll the papers into balls and throw them (gently) at him like a snowball fight. When they have finished, each person takes the ball closest to him or her and reads the question, then has to answer it correctly.
2. Image test.
One of my favorites is the picture contest or Pictionary. This is where you draw a picture that represents an idea you’ve talked about, maybe even using an image you’ve already used. So people have to say what the idea was and tell you all about it.
Instead of just drawing yours, you can put people in teams and have them invent a quiz with pictures. Or you can have each person on a team stand up and draw something for your team to guess.
3. Newspaper article.
Put people in small groups and give each one a topic or give everyone the same topic. Ask them to write a short newspaper article about it with a headline. You can give them different documents to copy, for example The Sun and The Times, to see what different styles they can come up with.
4. Advertising.
Get teams to produce a poster or written advertisement based on your theme. For example, if you’ve been talking about management, ask them to write an ad for a manager, stating the necessary qualities.
5. Alphabet.
Give the groups the letters of the alphabet (or, if you want to do it faster, give the groups a section of the alphabet, for example, A – F) and ask them to think of a word for each letter of the alphabet that relates to what that you have been discussing. The team with X and Z can have problems, but people usually think of something!
6. Visual aids.
A very simple method, give the groups themes and ask them to produce 1 powerful visual aid to summarize the theme, which people could use to remind them of essential ideas. You could ask them to produce them on pieces of A4 paper, which you could photocopy so that everyone can take one to their workplace.
7. Sketches or scenes.
Ask the small groups to prepare short drawings or scenes to illustrate the key points of the training, for example, good and bad behavior, meetings with clients, ways to use machinery or some process.
If you have the time and resources, you can burn them to DVD to keep as reminders (put them on YouTube?).
8. A poem or song.
Ask people to make up a poem or song about the topic. If you have time, you could even ask them to create an accompaniment using music-making objects (for example, percussion in the trash can) and add a dance routine.
All of these things will add variety and enjoyment to your training while increasing the chances that your students will retain what they have learned. Using variety will also help ensure that the material is accessible to people with different learning styles.
Involve the group as much as possible because this will make a difference in the impact of learning. In addition, you will be surprised by the creativity of people. Whenever I ask the groups to come up with ideas for pictures, songs, sketches, etc. I am always amazed by the things they come up with and are often far more creative and interesting than anything I would have thought of myself.