Training While Coughing
As a South Jersey native, I grew up on soft pretzels, hoagies, amazing pizza, and the world’s worst pronunciation of the letter o. I can’t reproduce it in writing, but it’s horrible. So, when the 2019 ComedySportz World Championship was slated for Philadelphia, I was overjoyed. Great food! Great friends! Terrible “o.”
As part of the educational programming of Championship, I was offering my Instructional Design for Applied Improvisation. ID4AI has been a passion project of mine since I achieved my Certified Professional in Talent Development certification back in 2009. It is not enough to just be the “fun training,” Improv-Based Training has to be more effective than traditional training options to survive and thrive. Quality instructional design is central to delivering that value, and that’s why I teach it to as many Applied Improv folks as I can.
But then I got sick.
Within 24 hours of landing at PHL I was beset by a combination cold, flu, and allergies. My first thought was, “have I lived in Chicago so long that I’m allergic to Philly now?” I skipped all the sessions and events I could to curl up in my DoubleTree bed and sweat, but I was determined not to cancel ID4AI, which was scheduled for the end of the week.
Well, the good news is, I taught the class. The bad news is, those students were treated to a manic, cold medicine-induced fever dream from a guy who had written six hours of material for a four hour training, and then had been sitting in a dark room for 72 hours. It was… a lot.
My students, though, were best kind of people in the world, CSz Worldwide facilitators: ComedySportz players by night, and Improv-Based Trainers by day. They were very patient and, by their own admission, still gained a lot from my presentation. Even after our time ended, several surrounded my “sick chair” to ask more questions or to exchange the elbow bumps in place of handshakes. I have it on good authority that I was both intentionally and unintentionally hilarious.
Want to know what you missed?
The Highlight Reel
My goal with ID4AI is to introduce the Instructional Design fundamentals that most benefit Improv-Based Trainers who may have more experience on the improv side and less on the training side. Many of these concepts and tools are framed by my Five Shifts to go from Improv Coach to Corporate Trainer blog post which I assigned in a pre-training orientation e-mail. I list some of the key topics below.
NOTE: Some links below are Amazon Affiliate links. Purchasing through Amazon will kick a portion of the price back to me. Otherwise, I am receiving no remuneration from any of the authors or publishers listed.
Answering “What do Adult Learners Need?”: I started with basic adult learning principles to show how teaching an adult differs from teaching a child. I drew from Telling Ain’t Training, which includes a simplified retelling of the principles of andragogy introduced by Malcolm Knowles as: Readiness, Experience, Autonomy, and Action (Stolovitch & Keeps, 2002).
Using Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs pyramid to show why learners need to feel accommodated, safe, included, and personally aligned with the material to be successful (Maslow, 1943).
Explaining the need for a structured approach to designing learning experiences, and helping trainers build their own personal checklist for moving trainings from the first client call to the last review afterwards. Because Improv-Based Training largely consists of one-off, live learnings, I suggest a variant of ADDIE.
Sharing some of my own favorite discovery questions that help validate the client’s stated need and identify hidden complications before making a recommendation
Applying the ABCD model for Learning Objectives outlined in the Association for Talent Development’s Learning System to get clear on the Audience we’re training, the Behavior they must demonstrate, the Conditions that must be present for that behavior, and the Degree of quality they must achieve (Biech, Designing Learning, 2006)
Mapping how improv games best pair with traditional approaches within a given learning module, a smaller section of a learning devoted to a specific goal. To introduce modules and how they function, I went back to Chapter 6 of Telling Ain’t Training for Stolovitch and Keeps’ “Five-Step Model for Structuring Training,” (Stolovitch & Keeps, 2002).
Outlining options for measuring the success of a training through evaluation. I introduced the evaluation models of Donald Kirkpatrick and Jack Phillips and discussed how behavior-based (Level 3) evaluation best validates Improv-Based Training (Biech, Measuring and Evaluating, 2006).
The pros and cons of credentialing and what those credentials are, both within CSz Worldwide (for this audience) and through such industry organizations as the Association for Talent Development.
These elements are valuable for all training, not just improv-based, which is why I also recommend them for all you “accidental trainers” out there. If you became a trainer because your boss said, “hey, if anybody asks, you’re our new trainer,” take a look the references at the bottom of this post. I include some commentary with each so you can make an informed decision about where to go next.
Rave Reviews
If you know anything about ComedySportz and the CSz Worldwide family of people who play it, you may have heard: “At ComedySportz, we’re nice.” It’s not something that goes in advertising, it’s more a credo that ComedySportz’s founder, Dick Chudnow, says a lot. Please indulge me as I share what some of these nice people said:
“I learned how important and valuable it is to design a training program that is objective-based, and tailored as much as possible to the students’ and client's specific situations, as opposed to a ‘one size fits all’ approach.” - Dave, CSz Seattle
“I want to sincerely thank you once again for running this workshop. You have such a wealth of knowledge, and I'm grateful for your willingness to share it with all of us.” - Kyle, CSz Milwaukee
Similarly, attendees offered the following answers to the post-training evaluation question, “what elements of this program were most valuable to your development of these skills?”
“Diving into every phase of the process & truly getting the why behind everything.”
“Giving us the technical verbiage and application devices to make a fully deliverable package.”
“I now have a much better knowledge of how to gain more specific information about the client, and can better tailor training to increase value.”
I was so honored to work with these incredible trainers; thank you to all 27 students! May you go on to do amazing trainings for your clients! I also want to share a longer reflection that one of my students provided about applications to the academic classroom.
Paying it Forward: Improv in College-Level Geography
One student in ID4AI, Darla from CSz Columbus, shared ways she is using improv as a university professor. I was particularly excited that she had heard similar content in other traditional instructional design programs. (I didn’t think I was making it all up, but it’s nice to have someone corroborate my story!) Here were Darla’s reflections, shared in an e-mail with me after the training:
So, as I mentioned in my pre-workshop form, I'm a geography professor who just happens to do improv. I have incorporated improv into my university geography classes in a few ad hoc ways. For the undergraduates, I often use improv games, like Countdown: students read and then orally summarize a paper in 1 minute, 30 seconds, 15 seconds, 7.5 and 1 second. I actually had one class spontaneously act out in play form Disaster Relief to Hurricane Katrina—without any prompting from me, they found that performance is highly complementary to social science.
For graduate students, I am more deliberate about improv. For homework, they pick a journal article with an analytical literature review section they like. In class, I teach them some basic Yes And games, and then they scrutinize their chosen article for instances where the authors are saying, "yes, and," or "no, but." We then discuss reframing research objectives as "yes, and," and how that changes the research process. Interestingly, in a class of ~10 students, I usually get 1-2 for whom this exercise is life-altering, and 1 who hates it, and the majority somewhere in between.
I need to do all this teaching innovation in a more systematic fashion.
What I got from your workshop: so I have had a fair amount of training in course design from our teaching centers on campus, and the structure you presented is consistent with those principles. I really liked the Instructional Design structure's emphasis on learning objectives that meet skills, knowledge and attitudes. "Attitudes" is a new one for me that we don't necessarily stress in geography or social science, so this perspective enhances what I'm currently doing and is making me think of many new possibilities. In our courses at the undergraduate level, we're often trying (in addition to building employable skills) to teach students to be "global citizens" (whatever that means) - so focusing on measurable attitudinal changes seems like an ideal way to do that.
Thank you, Darla, for sharing improv with your students, and using it in ways that seamlessly reinforce your syllabus! That’s how it’s supposed to work. I was so excited to share Darla’s generous feedback, because I believe it reflects the entire purpose of my four-hour, cold medicine-addled, wild ride. Improv-Based Training deserves to stand alongside all other learning interventions for improving performance.
However, an improv-based approach must be employed to fulfill rigorous instructional design, not excuse a lack of it. There are many great resources to get this foundation; I explain some below.
References with Benefits: An Annotated Bibliography
I learned this hint from one of my colleagues who studies improv academically: Annotated Bibliographies are GOLD. You’ve probably seen a long References or Bibliography section at the back of many a book or journal article, and had no idea what to do with it.
Cut to the all hallowed “Annotated Bibliography,” where someone takes the time to not just list out the references they used, but includes a paragraph or two about what a source demonstrates and why it might be useful to the reader. Therefore, to help you chart your reading course to becoming a more able, confident trainer, I’ve included some decidedly non-academic annotations below. Good luck.
Biech, E. (2006). ASTD learning system. (Vol. 1 Designing learning and Vol. 4 Measuring and Evaluating). Baltimore, MD:ASTD Press; Victor Graphics.
If you’re familiar with the Association for Talent Development’s Certified Professional of Learning and Performance certification, these are two of the booklets in the multi-volume study set ATD sells to help you not crash and burn on the CPLP test. I had to spend a lot of time with this book and its fellows, and they were essential to me passing. Now there’s a newer edition of the series you can buy as a PDF. It’s not cheap, though. Maybe hold off on getting it, and join your local ATD chapter; they may have copies they loan to members.
Maslow, A. H. (1943). A Theory of Human Motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370-96.
I really appreciated the chance to read Maslow in his own words, since I always seemed to be reading about him, and you can find this online for free. However, you don’t really need to. For what I wanted my learners to take away, the Wikipedia article was fine. Granted, if you’re a real glutton for punishment, you can check out his book: Motivation and Personality.
Stolovitch, H. D., & Keeps, E. J. (2002). Telling ain't training. Alexandria, VA: Silver Spring, MD:ASTD Press; ISPI.
This is my favorite book to recommend to new trainers. I love so much of their content, but more than that, they model who we as Improv-Based Trainers should be. They don’t just tell you, they include exercises that allow you to learn actively. And they do all this with the kind of approachability, warmth, and humor that clients expect from us.
Full Disclosure, though, I have heard some highly-credentialed Instructional Designers poo-poo this book, but that always seemed like the perspective of someone who outgrew the book without realizing that the rest of us hadn’t yet. If you’re new enough in your study of corporate training that this post opened your eyes to something you didn’t already know, this book is worth your time.
Thanks for reading. If you’re a ComedySportz player, hopefully I will see you at a future Championship when I’m decidedly not sick. If you’re not a player, please come see us! There are 30 CSz Companies across the USA and one in Great Britain! Find your closest place to see ComedySportz here.