Active Learning Consultants, Richard Bernato Ed.D.

I do and I understand... Confucius

The fundamental mission of Active Learning Consultants is to promote practices and beliefs that are grounded in the belief that Confucius said many years ago. When participants are engaged in active, constructivist strategies and activities, they learn best and more importantly they make their learning real.

Put another way, by yet another sage, Experience is the best teacher.

But, how do we craft the experiences and create the strategies and activities that your organization needs? These are no easy tasks.

They require ALC Leaders to meet with you to

process your goals

and help you identify the skill and behaviors you seek for your organization's members.

Once identified, ALC Leaders will then create a simulation - based curriculum approach to meet those ends.

The diagram below generalizes what ALC will do for your organization:

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Develop a Model: ALC Leaders will work with you to

identify the training goals.

They will use that to develop a model, so that the participants can experience the key elements of your organization without the distractions and complexities the real world presents.

In doing this the participant - learners can focus on the goals you have set. Think of a computer or video game. You are not "really" driving the car around the race track. The game players can concentrate on the task at hand without really worrying about "dying". A model is a safe place to pursue the dynamics and interrelationships of your organization's milieu.

Identify Participants and Determine Relationships : ALC Leaders will

"populate" the model with the participants and / or the forces at play that energize the activity.

For example, were this a simulation about a President's decision to go to war, ALC Leaders would create roles of advisors and critics whose interplay would affect what decision the President might make.

These roles identify what power or authority or skills or resources each has so that the participants would be obligated use problem solving, creativity, decision making, and critical thinking skills within the dynamics of the "world and the players" in which they “live”.

See Cutthroat, Ups and Downs, International Cutthroat, and Which Way USA? as examples.

Produce Action / Sequences : Once the participants have mastered the model and the roles they will be playing ALC Leaders will lead participants

in engaging in the action - sequences of the activities where

they will interact, negotiate, compromise, problem solve and / or practice the target goals of the simulation training. This is akin to where the player actually now gets to "race her speed car" around the track.

Give Participants Choices to Make : These actions will lead to

decisions and choices they will have to make, sometimes as individuals, sometimes in coalitions, all of which were based on the sum of the dynamics of the actions, of the participants, and the parameters of the simulated model.

For example, does the President go to war or negotiate?

Does the school district change a personnel policy or retain it?

Does the Executive Board enact a new sales strategy or not?

And since ALC designs simulations instead of role plays, the outcome of the simulated decisions are calculated and the consequences are identified. Using the simulated race car video game as the example, the car may make it around the track and win, or crash.

And since this is a simulated activity the participants can take the risks and make the choices they decide are best and

Can now reevaluate them on the basis of the projected consequences and re-enact new actions in subsequent simulated rounds.

Develop Debriefing Activities: On the simulation's completion, ALC Leaders will

provide guidance for conducting all - important debriefing strategies.

This is a critical element of the ALC design.

It is essential that the training leaders wring every aspect of the skills, content, and problem solving strategies that the participants have experienced for at least two reasons:

The first lies in the need to evaluate whether the individuals or the target groups have mastered the goals that your organization has targeted to Active Learning Consultants .

The second reason lies in research that shows that the participants will need facilitation of discussion and thought to distill all of what they have learned.

Continue the Spiral: Simulations are process-based recursive training / teaching strategies. That is, they are based on instinctive systems thinking, of if-then thinking, of creative problem solving, of mixed scanning decision making. They often do not "end" in the traditional way we view training activities. The momentum of their activities and the opportunities for reflective thinking help your participants to evolve new ways of thinking and new ways to make your organization successful. It is often appropriate to use the simulation again or to retool its aspects to fit new goals you have for your stakeholders.

Active Learning Consultants promises that it can develop interactive, highly active participatory simulated activities to meet your organizational needs.

For more information, contact us at richber1@optonline.net