Learning with Bingo?!

How would you like to connect your learners to your content ALL the way through your session?

I know what your thinking.. what’s Bingo got to do with this?

Well, I'll tell you...

I call it ‘Learning Bingo’ and here’s how.

Connecting your learners...

There is lots of evidence to suggest that connecting your learners to the content early on is a powerful contributor to making learning stick. A way of doing this is to help them consider which training concepts are important to them early on in your session. Even better if you can find a novel and fun activity to help them remember during and way after your training is complete.

That’s where Learning Bingo comes in (I got this amazing idea from Sharon Bowman’s ‘The Ten Minute Trainer’ book).

Here’s how it works

When designing your session choose a list of key topics, concepts or keywords that are part of your session. Try to think of around 10-15 to make it exciting.
Get some prizeys! (I often get 1 for each learner) maybe there are some big prizes and some little so that it’s a bit more exciting!
(Optional – if you are using a Miro board you could cover up the prizes and get them to choose a surprise!)
Present the topics at the start of your session and ask each learner to take a sticky and write down 5 that are interesting to them
Give an instruction like "When you think you can explain what it is, you can cross it out"
When they have crossed them all out, they shout “Bingo!”, get them to read out each topic and explain something they’ve learnt about it, and then choose a prize.
Get everyone else to give them a round of applause!

Here is an example from an Agile & Scrum session I ran recently...

The benefits...

I love this exercise! Not only is energising, kind, and super novel, but it also has these benefits:

You are connecting learners to the topics/concepts really early on in your session
It helps them decide which concepts are important or interesting to them
It really keeps everyone focussed on the learning through the session
Its novelty is bound to stick in their mind when they recall your amazing session
You can add movement and celebration into your online sessions
By hearing them explain the topic, it will be very clear to you they have learnt something! (Even if they get it wrong!)

Want to learn more?

If you like this idea and want to learn more lots more tools, tips, and techniques for building and running your own creative workshops, why not check out my “Training from the BACK of the room (Virtual Edition)” workshop here.