Playing with Purpose: How Experiential Learning Can Be More than a Game

Citation

Jun Jo, S. (2012), "Playing with Purpose: How Experiential Learning Can Be More than a Game", European Journal of Training and Development, Vol. 36 No. 4, pp. 483-486. https://doi.org/10.1108/03090591211220384

Book synopsis

The main goal of Playing with Purpose: How Experiential Learning Can Be More than a Game is to help trainers design, develop, and adapt artificial experiential learning activities such as simulations, role plays, in‐basket activities, or case studies to enhance training effectiveness. Experiential training methods have been increasingly used in practice as they help illustrate and teach “real‐life” principles and concepts.

With these experiential methods, trainers tend to focus on making their activities fun to attract trainees' attention and to engage them in the training program. Based on their observation throughout their careers as training consultants, however, Hutchinson and Lawrence indicate that most experiential training programs have lost sight of the main purposes: learning and change. In other words, for a training program to be effective, it has to be “objective driven” rather than “object driven”. The purpose of a game is not the game itself; rather, it should be to produce a real impact.

In the first chapter of the book, the authors suggest two overarching frameworks: an experimental exercise design process and experimental learning cycle. The former emphasises the inclusion of theoretical knowledge and understanding the experiential learning process as well as choosing effective methods and techniques when a trainer designs an experiential learning program. The latter model modifies Kolb's well‐known experiential cycle of a learning process with which a learner transforms a concrete experience into action. It also demonstrates that an individual learner has his or her own personal learning style that trainers must take into account in designing and developing a program: diverging, assimilating, converging, and accommodating.

The authors place attention on the fact that linking objectives with objects requires a continuous review of each activity. Trainers must not be afraid to ask “So what?” or “What was the impact of that?”. Participants in the program should be encouraged to reflect on what happened so that they can take the learning from the event and apply the key lessons to their daily activities. To accomplish this goal, the authors propose ten strategies for an experiential learning trainer when reviewing the activities that participants are involved in and helping them reflect on what they have learned through the activities. By applying these strategies in any experiential learning context, the trainer helps participants become more actively involved in training which, in turn, enables them to transfer more of the knowledge into their jobs.

The remaining chapters delve into specific techniques to take advantage of experiential methods in a series of eight developmental issues including team building, leadership development, organizational change, creative thinking, and diversity. For each training context, the authors present key issues in the specific training setting and provide possible scenarios, sample activities and useful questions that match the specific context.

Evaluation

The effectiveness and importance of experiential learning have received increasing attention from HRD professionals. Although since Knowles (1973) it has been generally accepted that experiential methods are preferred to traditional lecture‐oriented methods particularly for adult‐learners, recently, the nature of training has become more experience‐oriented. This changing trend of training reflects the contemporary learning environment that surrounds organizations and individuals in several aspects: the distinction between trainers and trainees has blurred; sources of knowledge have been diversified; people tend to learn more from their everyday experience including interaction with others; activities that they are involved in have changed; and the social contexts in which the activities take place are less likely to be traditional style training sessions led by an expert (Brockman and Dirks, 2006).

In these aspects, Playing with Purpose: How Experiential Learning Can Be More than a Game, authored by Steve Hutchinson and Helen Lawrence, is a timely publication. It is also an effective guidebook for HRD professionals whose traditional roles are challenged and who are looking for new role models that match the work environment.

The focus of this book is also clear: how to help trainees discover something meaningful and useful from their experience, no matter if the experience is a real one or artificially manipulated. In this book, the person who is in charge of experiential training is not called a “trainer” but a “facilitator” who facilitates the learning process rather than produces intended and predefined outcomes. According to Kolb (1984), learning is not an outcome; rather, it is viewed as a process whereby concepts are derived from and continuously modified by experience. Ideas are not fixed and immutable elements of thought but are formed and reformed through experience. Thus, the learning process is not linear but involves dynamic interactions between past and new experiences. Based on such a notion of experiential learning, this book is differentiated from other pervasive trainers' handbooks with sequences that comply with a linear training model such as ADDIE. Rather than structuring and organizing a distinctively specified model of the learning process, the authors attemptto fill this book with practical guides and tips that comprehensively cover various training contexts. It seems useful for trainers because learning contexts are not usually very structured or organized in the real world, but are full of unexpected events and circumstances.

The trainer's core role as a facilitator of experiential learning is to help learners reflect on their own experiences: not giving an answer but guiding them to the answer. Experience itself is not learning. Rather, “the experience needs to be minded, distilled, condensed and reduced for real learning to take place” (p. 27). While defining objectives, designing artificial activities, and developing training materials are still important responsibilities of experiential trainers, the primary focus should be placed more on reviewing and reflecting on each activity so that learners can extract lessons from the activity and achieve an effective transfer of learning. Therefore, the overarching strategies suggested in chapter 2 are insightful advice that experiential trainers must keep in mind as they read the subsequent chapters. Whatever the authors' intention was, placing the chapter at the beginning part of the book is appropriate and effective.

In spite of the enormous practicability of this book, I wish they had given us a complete process to reach the actual learning. Although they provide us with questions to be used in training rooms, this book does not present possible answers for the questions or guide trainers to the appropriate actions or behaviors related to those answers. Clearly, an experiential training does not define a perfect scenario unlike well‐organized traditional training, but for many novice trainers, it will be hard to predict what kinds of answers or reactions they will receive from participants, how they can handle the reactions, and how they should conclude the review process. Being experienced trainers, the authors could have shared their actual experience with the questions they asked. This would be tremendously beneficial to practitioners.

In addition, this book neglects a very important experiential learning trend: training via social media such as Facebook, or virtual reality such as Second Life. Without addressing experiential learning in the cyber world, the book is limited and does not accommodate trainers' demand for a comprehensive and updated guidebook. The absence of an index is also a drawback. However, these limitations are too minor to outweigh the benefits of this book. Overall, Playing with Purpose: How Experiential Learning Can Be More than a Game is full of insightful and practical advice.

In the author's own words

“At the foundation of every new activity, there needs to be a clear understanding of what the learning point is. The key to success of any activity or scenario is this: First, focus on the learning. If the learning intentions and outcomes are foremost in your mind right from the start then the chances of success are far higher” (p. 4).

About the reviewer

Professor Sun Jun Jo received his PhD in Human Resource Development from the University of Minnesota. As a professor at Utica College, he has taught various aspects of business, management, and human resources. He also has seven years of work experience as a business strategist in various industries in Korea. He is certified as a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) with research interests in employee training, organizational learning, mentoring, social network analysis, and historical aspect of management. Professor Jo can be contacted at: sujo@utica.edu