"What I hear, I forget; what I see, I remember; but what I do, I underst&..."

We all know Confucius’ observation above and this is the goal of training activities, that participants can apply what they’ve learnt and do so with understanding.

This is why skill practice is so important in our sessions; if we want people to do things differently we should provide them with many opportunities to practice.

Here’s a simple exercise I recently used to demonstrate that knowing something is very different to doing something. I found it at BusinessBalls. The basic activity idea is very simple: It's to draw the ampersand symbol (the 'and’ sign).

Ask participants to draw the ampersand symbol: ‘&’. Then ask people to show their drawing at their tables.

What they find is it’s not at all easy to draw a good-looking ampersand, especially if people aren’t able to see the symbol to copy it.

Knowing and recognising the ampersand equates to 'knowledge'; being able to draw it equates to 'skill'. Knowledge we can learn by observation and other sensory input. Skill is generally only acquired from experience, practice, trial and error.

What are 3 things you could do to increase the opportunity for skills practice in your programs?

Clio Robertson