What are your expectations?
Featured in the Continuing Professional Development training manual
By Sandy McMillan
Category: Personal Development
Credit price: 3 download credits (Single user)
This opening training activity breaks the ice and sets up a useful climate of cooperation from the start. It also provides a baseline for people to measure their reactions to the event at its end (see ‘Were Your Expectations Met?’). People begin a learning event with varying feelings of excitement and dread and may fear that they will be ‘talked at’, patronised or criticised. There is a real need both to break the ice and set the climate of a working alliance between learner and trainer. An effective way to do this is to ask people unthreatening relevant questions and invite them to share their answers with one other person. They are then more likely to feel able to talk to the rest of the group, and can do this by introducing the views of the person they talked to.
You begin this training activity by briefly introducing yourself, taking care to look and sound friendly, good-humoured and relaxed, while also being organised and efficient in the practicalities. Using a visual to brief participants, you invite them to answer the question, ‘What has to happen here to help you feel that it was worth your while?’ They record their answers on a form which you provide. You then invite people to share what they choose of their answers in pairs, stressing that they may reveal or keep private whatever they like. If you are using this training activity to introduce a new programme, you also ask participants to find out something about the person they’re talking to, specifying appropriate questions. You then ask each participant to say what their partner wants to happen in the learning event (and introducing them to the group if this is a new programme). While this is happening, you record these expectations on a sheet of flipchart paper headed, ‘What we want to happen here’, adding your own expectations. These expectations then form a baseline for checking participants’ reaction to the event (see ‘Were Your Expectations Met?).
Who is it for: This training activity is intended for use by trainers as an ice-breaker, making it easy for participants to contribute at an early stage and to focus their objectives for a learning event. It also reassures participants that their views will be respected and valued.
| Resource Type: | Activity |
| Min Group Size: | 1 |
| Max Group Size: | 12 |
| Typical Duration: | 01:00:00 |
| No of Pages: | 11 |
Resources: View standard resources for Fenman training activities
Purpose: This training activity is very useful as the first activity of a programme (within five minutes of the start) to relax participants and help them to start contributing in the group. If a programme is divided into modules, a modified version of the activity at the start of the second and subsequent modules will help participants to focus on the topic after a break. It also gives a useful check on whether participants’ expectations match the assumptions you have made as the trainer or facilitator. A modified version of this training activity can also be used to start a counselling, coaching or mentoring session since it provides a positive, forward-looking beginning, and helps to set up the working alliance. The original notion came from a technique used in solution-focused therapy.
Download the training activity, What are your expectations? as featured in the Fenman training manual; Continuing Professional Development