Hi Jonathan
Apologies if this reply is teaching anyone's grandmother to suck eggs, but here are some quick thoughts.
Sadly there isn't (yet) an online database of good practice training activities towards which I can point you (Any funders listening in? Hint. Hint.).
Also, outline descriptions of activities can be problematic as the ultimate effectiveness of the activity usually lies in nuance. Nuances of creating a playful and safe atmosphere. Nuances of managing the activity responsively in light of your group. And nuances of facilitating a de-briefing of what universal ideas to best draw from each individual, practical experience.
On a good day (:-) ), I aim to model the communication techniques I'm teaching in how I deliver the session. So with a conscripted audience, spend some time working out the main motivations for any resistance they reveal eg PE not seen as important; PE seen as too easy; presentation anxiety; etc. Then you can tweak the activities and delivery to take account of these starting positions.
"Creative" training activities (eg improv exercise; theatre games) certainly can foster a playful approach from participants, but without careful setting-up they can be intimidating for nervous groups, and without structured de-briefing they can reinforce the misconception of PE as trivial to cynical groups.
The value of such activities, though, is often in "tricking" participants into revealing themselves and their true passion for their subject - to get past the lethal zombie presenter which we all fall into when communicating to an audience. One of the biggest misconceptions about acting is that actors try to be people who they are not. In fact, theatre games help communicators to find and helpfully exaggerate those parts of themselves which are most engaging for that subject and that audience.
Notwithstanding my caution above, here are a couple of fairly common training activities for direct science communication:
1) Metaphors - challenge each group/ pair to come up with several metaphors which help to explain a given scientific concept to a given audience; list the strengths and weaknesses of each metaphor - none will be perfect; then select their best metaphor and description. Report back, compare and discuss.
2) "How not to do it" - give an appalling demonstration of how not to communicate science and ask the group to identify detailed points of poor practice for discussion afterwards. Mix in exaggerated errors with more debatable faults.
3) Constructive deconstruction of videos of their short presentations - painful at the start, but there few better ways of realising how you really come across as a communicator. It's all about the details.
4) Randomly assign each participant a card from each of these three sets of contexts:
- simple but fascinating science question (and some supporting information);
- audience type;
- treatment OR technique (eg highly interactive; story; humour; provoking curiosity; surprise; etc).
Under time pressure they have to bring together all the skills they have been learning earlier, to devise and present the most interesting and accessible 3 min answer to that question, for that audience, in the form of that treatment/ emphasising that technique. There are many variations on this common finale activity.
I hope some of this helps. If you want any more information about any of the activities above Jonathan just give me a shout.
All the best
Paul
--
Dr Paul McCrory
learn differently ltd
Unit 11, Farranshane House, 1 Ballygore Road, Antrim, N Ireland, BT41 2RN
t 028 94488415
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w http://www.learn-differently.com
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