May 23, 2011

Training with the Minnesota State Patrol

Posted by Corrie Anderson | May 23, 2011 | Category: , |

I created a Minnesota State Patrol Traffic Safety game for the for the Annual Minnesota Safety Council Meeting just recently. The game used preview and summary slides for most of the questions which allowed the presenter to add additional teaching points that either preceded or followed a question. The game was even branded for the state patrol.

In the session we would break the attendees into teams, and each person would get their own audience response pads to enter their responses. The Trooper was a pro, even though this was his first time hosting a game. After about 3 questions, he got in his groove, and went through 25 questions in a 50 minute session. With the preview and summary slides, he was able to slow down the game, and discuss and answer questions from the attendees. After the session, the Trooper expressed how well it went compared to the event he did last year. The audience loved it and most importantly from the evaluations, they got what they came for. In his last conference, he used audience response pads, (the same keypads we used at the Safety conference), but instead of a game, he used PowerPoint with a plug-in. Essentially it was just a polling device that let him see the results after each question. In that session he had 70 questions, and because he only had an hour, he literally went from question to question with very little discussion. The large amount of questions is typical of how people use questions in both PowerPoint and in games but is a common issue I see with trainers. (To his defense, the organizers instructed him him to create 70 questions.) They simply see the question and the correct answer as the teaching point, and to not really expand on it. In the game session, the Trooper clearly saw how less was better. By slowing down the game and using preview and summary slides throughout the game he was able to deliver more content more effectively in the session. Overall he was very pleased with the results and the ease it took use the game with audience response pads. I've posted the game online if you'd like to take a look!