Learning to confront fears, working in teams or individually to overcome obstacles and gaining a sense of personal empowerment are all benefits that can come from high-ropes course experiential learning. The Corporate Learning Institute offers a wide range of high ropes activities including the power pole activity in which participants shimmy up a 30 foot pole and then take a leap off the top. The institute also offers an expedition ropes course simulation that challenges teams to set goals and develop strategies to navigate 15 high ropes activities as a team.
This experiential learning game, recommended by Experiential Learning Games, teaches about different forms of verbal and non-verbal communication. To play this game ask for four volunteers from your group of participants and send three of them outside. The non-volunteer participants should sit in a circle. Instruct the single volunteer to imitate the actions of catching a chicken that is running on the ground. No one is allowed to speak. Now, ask the volunteers outside to come in one at a time and to join in the activity that the first volunteer is acting out. When all of volunteers have come in and joined the fun, ask the last volunteer what action they think they are imitating. The answers will be amusing to say the least and will set up a group discussion about verbal and non-verbal communication.
This game teaches trust, leadership and communications skills. Divide your participants into two groups and have one group step outside. Give this group blindfolds and have them blindfold themselves. Participants in the other group will now come outside and lead their newly-blind compatriots to two objects inside the room that they will be required to identify. The catch is that no words can be spoken at this time -- the sighted and the blind must communicate through touch alone. After the activity have both leaders and their blind friends discuss the experience.
This game, recommended by Experiential Learning Games as a way to teach about change management, involves a group of people working together to keep a ball from falling to the ground. Have the group stand in a circle and give them one ball. Tell them they must toss the ball and keep it in the air for a count of 100. If the ball is allowed to fall to the ground, the game, and the count, start over. The game should take about 15 minutes. When they have kept the ball in the air for the 100 count follow with a discussion about negotiating change and external and internal motivations.