Guessing games can be a fun and engaging way to reinforce learning and as part of getting to know you activities in a training workshop. They encourage participation, collaboration, and friendly competition among trainees.
This guide will provide an overview of guessing games, their key characteristics, tips for effectively using them in a training context and how they will help you to improve your trainer skills.
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What is a Guessing Game?
A guessing game involves one person or team guessing something that another person or team knows. This could be a word, phrase, person, place, object, or concept relevant to the training topic. The goal is to correctly guess within a certain number of attempts.
Key Characteristics of Guessing Games for Training Workshops
There are five main characteristics of effective guessing games for training workshops:
1. Engagement
Guessing games encourage active participation and engagement from trainees, rather than passive listening. The competitive and social elements make them fun and lively.
2. Critical Thinking
To guess correctly, trainees must use logic, evaluate clues, and leverage what they’ve learned so far. This strengthens critical thinking skills.
3. Recall
As trainees guess, they must recall information covered in the training. This helps reinforce key concepts and test comprehension.
4. Feedback
The guessing and revealing of answers provides instant feedback to the trainees on what they know or don’t know. We hear this from customers that regularly download our training course materials.
5. Energizing
The change of pace and active nature of guessing games can energize trainees and counter training fatigue.
Example Guessing Game: 20 Questions
A common guessing game is 20 Questions, where one person thinks of a concept from the training and the other(s) can ask up to 20 yes/no questions to try to guess what it is. This tests trainees’ knowledge in an interactive way.
When to Use Guessing Games in Training Workshops
Guessing games are great to use when you want to:
- Reinforce or review key concepts covered.
- Provide variety from lectures or long discussions.
- Increase energy levels and participation.
They may work best after trainees have learned fundamental concepts and can apply them.
The Value of Guessing Games in Training Workshops
Some key benefits guessing games offer for training workshops include:
- Improved engagement, positive non verbal behavior awareness and motivation to learn.
- Opportunities to apply knowledge.
- A fun way to review and reinforce concepts.
- Encouraging collaboration and teamwork.
- Fostering a positive, energetic learning environment.
Features and Benefits of Guessing Games
Key features and related benefits of guessing games:
- Participation: Gets all trainees involved, instead of passive learning.
- Competition: Creates a fun, motivating spirit of friendly competition.
- Interaction: Allows trainees to discuss and leverage each others’ knowledge.
- Adaptability: Games can be tailored to many training topics and contexts.
- Instant feedback: Trainees can quickly see what they know or need to review.
Tips for Using Guessing Games Effectively
Follow these tips to maximize the value of guessing games:
- Match game complexity to trainees’ current knowledge level.
- Keep the games short – 5 to 15 minutes works well.
- Tie the game tightly to training objectives and content.
- Establish clear rules up front.
- Consider team games to encourage collaboration.
- Offer small prizes to increase motivation and fun.
How to Get Started with Guessing Games
Follow these steps to integrate effective guessing games into your next training workshop:
- Identify key concepts – Choose important ideas, terms, or processes to reinforce that fit a guessing game format.
- Pick a relevant game – Select or design a guessing game that aligns to your objectives.
- Explain the rules – Set expectations by outlining the game rules and parameters.
- Relate it to training – Remind trainees how the game ties back to the training concepts.
- Have teams play – Run the game, allowing trainees to guess, discuss, and have fun competing.
- Review the concepts – After the game, revisit the key ideas and learning objectives covered.
Sample Guessing Game: Word Scramble
Here is an example of a simple word scramble guessing game for a project management training workshop:
- The instructor selects 10 key terms from the course content (e.g. “budget,” “milestone,” “scope”).
- The instructor scrambles the letters of each word (e.g. “edubgt” for “budget”).
- Teams take turns guessing the unscrambled words within a time limit.
- The instructor shows the unscrambled word after each round.
- At the end, the team with the most correct guesses wins.
This tests trainees’ knowledge in an interactive way and reinforces key terminology.
Conclusion
Guessing games are a time-tested technique to engage trainees, encourage recall, provide feedback, and make learning fun.
By following the tips in this guide, you can effectively integrate guessing games into your training workshops.
The end result is a more energized, participative environment and improved learning outcomes.
Alternative training activities include: The Guess Who Team Building Exercise.
With 30+ years of training experience, I founded Oak Innovation (oakinnovation.com) in 1995. I help busy training professionals and business managers deliver better training courses in less time by giving them instant access to editable training course material. I received my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from University College Cork. I hold qualifications in Professional Development And Training from University College Galway. Clients include Apple, Time Warner, and Harvard University.
