About the Author and Story Background
My name is Mr. Issa Adel Al-Douh, a life skills trainer from Dammam, Saudi Arabia. I am passionate about developing young talents, and my program, “Qualifying Youth Environment Leaders,” is designed to enhance the skills of those working with youth, aiming to improve the quality of youth work.
In this impact story, I share my experience designing the “Effective Communication Skills” program, inspired by the harmonious domains and principles of FIRST-ADLX Framework. I will also explain how activating these five domains in a cohesive and integrated manner during both the design and facilitation processes helped me create an Active Deep Learner eXperience.
Designing the Holistic Map
Influenced by what I experienced during FIRST-ADLX Journeys, I began designing a learning journey titled “Effective Communication Skills” using the Holistic Map with its five components.
Current Status and Learner Persona
While designing the learning journey in Al-Ehsaa, Saudi Arabia, I kept the learners’ demographic information, needs, skills, prior knowledge, and experiences in mind. The participants were males aged between 18 and 30 years old. I looked for key phrases commonly used in their environment, such as:
- “Silence is more eloquent than speech.”
- “Hear about me, but don’t hear from me.”
- “The wise person listens and thinks deeply before speaking.”
They felt that problems often arise when people don’t listen carefully. They also believed that non-verbal cues were undervalued, and discussions frequently shifted from focusing on ideas to focusing on individuals. They thought that many conflicts could be resolved with better listening skills and highlighted that many people nowadays are not truly listening to one another. Additionally, the learners noted challenges such as difficulty focusing during conversations and a lack of effective communication skills, expressing a desire to learn about barriers to listening and improve their communication abilities.
Transformative Status and Learning Outcomes
I started from the learners current status and designed for the transformative one, and the learning outcomes of my journey were as follows:
Attitude Learning Outcomes: By the end of the journey, the learner will be able to:
- Appreciate the importance of effective communication.
- Sense the significance of active listening to others.
- Appreciate the importance of constructive positive feedback.
Skill Learning Outcomes: By the end of the journey, the learner will be able to:
- Use different assessment techniques
- Listen effectively to others
- Communicate effectively with others
Knowledge Learning Outcomes: By the end of the journey, the learner will be able to:
- List the benefits of effective communication
- State the importance of active listening
- List the characteristics of constructive positive feedback
eXperience Description
In describing the eXperience, I reflected and planned for the desired adjectives, I want my learners to describe my journey with after its completion, as well as the undesired adjectives I don’t want them to use while describing my journey. The adjectives were as follows:
Desired Adjectives: Positive – Practical – Interactive – Developmental
Undesired Adjectives: Rote – Traditional – Boring – Theoretical
Physical Environment
The journey consisted of one on-site session and a video that the learners watched asynchronously.
Actions and Activities
Keeping all the above in mind, I designed a set of activities and actions to help me achieve the outcomes and create the Active Deep Learner eXperience I aspire to. Here are some of these activities:
- Icebreaker Activity: The Birthday Line-Up Game
- First Learning Activity: Self-Assessment of Communication
- Second Learning Activity: Role-Playing Game
- Third Learning Activity: The Communication Game
- Energizer Activity: The Red Car Game
- Fourth Learning Activity: Video on Active Listening
- Fifth Learning Activity: Debate among Learners
- Sixth Learning Activity: Analyzing a Set of Pictures and Sharing Insights
- Seventh Learning Activity: Learners Share Their Personal Experiences Related to the Topic
- Closure
All of this was conducted in an environment that encouraged positive competition and free sharing of ideas without fear of making mistakes or being judged by others. Every answer was important, and every contribution added value to the learning session.
Implementing the Domains of FIRST-ADLX Framework
Domain 1: Focusing on the Learner Behavior
To implement this domain, I took the following actions:
- I ensured that learners had enough time for personal introductions.
- I wrote the learners’ names on their mini whiteboards.
- I mentioned each learner’s name at least twice during their participation.
- Each learner shared an experience from their youth environment.
- Each learner narrated an experience from their workplace to reinforce the concept of effective communication with others.
- I emphasized the importance of communication and its impact on creating an attractive work environment for both youth and the team through direct questioning.
- I organized the sequence of learners starting from the newest to the oldest in youth work.
- I provided learners the opportunity to facilitate in the training room and benefit from their experiences.
- I asked them about their emotions and how they felt after completing the activity.
- I followed up with questions about how this activity might impact their lives.
Domain 2: Interacting within Positive Group Dynamics
- I provided opportunities for participation and leveraged experiences, with the most experienced in youth work sharing the factors that have contributed to their continued involvement.
- Connections between learners were strengthened through interaction in the clapping activity and by sharing opinions on each learner’s contribution.
- I ensured learners had the opportunity to share their thoughts and focused on the reflections and the impact of the experience on each learner.
- Interaction with the learners was lively, and they quickly engaged with the session and its activities.
- I used encouraging phrases like “Well done,” “Outstanding contribution,” and “That’s exactly the concept.”
- I implemented the Think-Pair-Share (TPS) strategy in summarizing a worksheet on the definition and concept of communication.
Domain 3: Reviewing Activities within RAR
All the learning activities were conducted using the RAR model. For instance, in one of the learning activities (The Picture Analysis Activity), I did the following:
In the Readiness Stage: I displayed a slide with six images of different characters and invited the learners to identify the emotional states of these characters. I began by asking them, “Can you guess the expressions of the characters that will be shown?”
In the Activity Facilitation Stage: The learners described the emotional states while I encouraged and motivated them to participate and explain their choices.
In the Reviewing Actively Stage: I asked them reflective questions and built upon their answers:
- How did you feel when you saw the facial expressions of the characters?
- What are you thinking about now?
- How will this activity reflect on your life and interactions with others?
At the end of the discussion, I highlighted the importance of acquiring communication skills and the ability to understand others.
Domain 4: Sequencing within the Session Flow
The fourth domain had a significant impact on the learning journey, ensuring continued enthusiasm and engagement from the learners throughout the journey. To put this domain into action, I designed a set of experience activities in addition to the learning ones:
- As an opener, I implemented a motivational activity for learner introductions, where I distributed colored cubes and each learner had to find a person with the same color and share their favorite food and drink with each other.
- The linking and summarizing activities used during the session were varied and progressively structured through presentation slides and the use of handouts to summarize what was covered in the session.
- I also introduced the Think-Pair-Share (TPS) activity for groups to link ideas and summarize the worksheet related to effective communication.
- At the end of the session, a closure activity was conducted where each learner wrote a piece of information they learned on a sticky note and stuck it on their forehead, wrote the feelings they experienced on another sticky note and stuck it on their heart, and wrote the skill or step they would take on a third sticky note and stuck it on their hand.
Domain 5: Transforming Learning into Performance
To ensure the ongoing application and impact of the Active Deep Learner eXperience, several steps were taken, including:
- Conducting a test to assess the level of effective communication with others and identifying the improvements they will make.
- Agreeing with the learners to perform a practical task after the session by revisiting a conflict they encountered due to a lack of effective communication skills and addressing it in future situations.
- Discussing with the learners the steps they will take in their youth environment regarding effective communication with beneficiaries.
Lessons Learnt
This journey provided many valuable insights. Some key takeaways were:
- The experience provided a new dimension for both me and the learners, making everyone feel like partners in the session.
- Today, I enter the educational session with a clear vision beforehand, thanks to the sequential methodology of the Framework.
- One area I aim to improve is managing the session time more effectively.
- Initially, I felt uncertain about implementing all the domains, but with continuous practice, things will become more intuitive.
- The learners lost track of time despite that the session was two hours long, as they were fully engaged in the educational process.
- One of the learners commented that they wished they had attended this session earlier, as they felt it had a positive impact on their personality.
A big thank you to SEGA Group and Dr. Mohamed Fayed for making us partners in implementing the Active Deep Learner eXperience using FIRST-ADLX Framework.