Purpose: To get class members immediately engaged while giving them an overview of topics to be covered. Great opener, revisit and energizer.
Audience: Any size group broken into teams of 4-6 people.
Time: 10 minutes throughout class
Space: No extra space required
Materials: One PLAN-O card per person, PowerPoint slide with topics, prizes
Process: Using PLAN-O, a very close relative to BINGO, you can easily introduce many of your training topics to your class while getting them immediately engaged.
First, choose a team leader from each table. The team leader can be the person who traveled the farthest to be at your training. Have the team leader get one PLAN-O card for each person at his table.
Ask the class members to raise their hands if any of them have ever played Bingo. If learners haven’t played Bingo before, they can now ask those who raised their hands for basic directions!
Bingo is played on a 5×5 grid. Each space on the 5×5 grid typically has a number in it. When the “caller” calls any number, the players look to see if they have that number on their grid. If they do, they cover that number up in an attempt to cover up five in a row to yell BINGO.
With PLAN-O, you substitute your training topics or key ideas for the numbers. As you cover those topics, class members cover up that word on their PLAN-O board.
“We use four different boards with 16 pre-filled spots so we limit the amount of time spent filling in the card,” Becky Pluth said. The rest of the topics for the PLANO board are on a PowerPoint slide. Class members can choose in which space they want to write in the remaining topics. The center space is a free space.
When a class member has covered up five spaces in a row—either diagonally, horizontally or vertically, he yells, “PLAN-O!” You can then do a quick revisit of content by having the winner recount which spaces he had covered. You can award prizes based on class theme or content.
Variations: Instead of having class members only fill in five spaces in a row, you can play multiple rounds with different patterns.
T-Bingo—cover nine spaces in the shape of a T
H-Bingo—cover 13 spaces in the shape of the letter H
Four Corners—cover only the four spaces in the four corners
Blackout—cover the entire board to win.
This activity is used in our Instructional Design for Participant-Centered Training workshop. A variation of this activity for use in online, real-time instruction can be found in Becky Pluth’s book Webinars with Wow Factor.
