Ice breakers are harmful to the learning process

September 9, 10:25 AMWorkplace Training and Development ExaminerLenn Millbower

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Show biz secrets for adult learning success.

This article makes the case that ice breakers -- activities used to begin the learning event -- are harmful to the learning process.

In 1912, an unsinkable ship, the Titanic, sank when it hit an iceberg. In 2009 learning situations, unwitting trainers, sink training programs when they begin by announcing, “We’re gonna’ start with an ice breaker.”

Most of the participants, in response, experience a sinking feeling. And, they may be right. There are three reasons to steer clear of ice breakers during learning.

• Ice breakers suggest a frivolous training will follow – Forcing involvement in an activity with little seeming connection to the subject being taught implies a lack relevance in the training as a whole
• Ice breakers risk learner alienation before the subject has been introduced – Communication experts suggest that people, upon meeting someone new, make up their mind about that person and their message within seconds. The same dynamic holds true in the training environment. Ice breakers waste those precious seconds on seemingly mindless activity.
• Ice breakers squander valuable time on non-essential information – The short attention spans of modern learners brought on by the endless barrage of TV commercials and the point-and-click ease of the Internet make it difficult enough for learners to maintain a continued focus with on-target content. Activities that don’t readily connect to content send learners channel surfing.

The very term ice breaker creates the wrong metaphor. The goal of the first learning segment should be to defrost the ice, not break it. Learning can intimidate adults. Attending learning means admitting a lack of knowledge, and by inference, an admission of incomplete adultness. The learners are then forced to admit their perceived incompleteness in a strange, uncomfortable room, in front of strangers, and to an instructor they likely do not know who controls their fate.

In addition, many people have negative memories of school and training is all too reminiscent of those memories. Adults may also, based on those school experiences have a negative image of their ability to learn. Still others, especially those required to attend, have negative suspicions about management motives.

Fortunately there is a way to navigate this ice. A specific path steers clear of ice while maximizing the first fifteen minutes of the training program. In our next article, Ten concrete steps for beginning alearning event - part-one, we will examine those steps.