• You will learn practical ways of applying the principles of experience-based learning to Management Development Outdoors.

• You will develop insights and competencies in facilitation, reviewing, evaluation and programme design.

• You will extend your toolkit for reviewing outdoor learning experiences and for ensuring transfer back to the workplace.

• You will enjoy networking with other trainers and learning from each other both as co-participants and as co-trainers.

• The structure of the programme is unique: two courses will run in parallel.

• The morning sessions will be like a management development course in which each new day focuses on a new theme.

• The afternoons and evenings will be more like a trainer-trainer course in which the main theme for the day is explored as trainers.

The daily themes

You will be taking part in sessions and activities that can be used near the beginning of an outdoor training event. The emphasis will be on ways of setting up a supportive and dynamic learning environment. This includes ensuring that each learner knows how to get the best out of the opportunity - and is motivated to do so. You will also be trying out reviewing techniques that can help to accelerate learning at this early stage of a programme.

This day provides an intensive grounding in group dynamics and teamwork. The morning will involve a wide variety of short teamwork tasks. The main purpose will be to build the team and accelerate group development. Even where outdoor courses have aims other than team building, it is still important to create a team that will work well together. A range of strategies, exercises and reviewing tools for team and group development will be tried out and compared.

The emphasis today is on individuals. It is a deliberate contrast to yesterday’s emphasis on the group. We will explore designs, activities and reviewing tools that help individuals learn about themselves and achieve personal targets. Giving sufficient attention to each individual is always important, but especially when the programme aims to build confidence, provide assessment or develop leadership and management skills. There will also be opportunities to explore ways of working with other individual objectives that feature in your training programmes.

This is ‘learning to learn’ day. This is one of the most powerful benefits that people can take away from an outdoor training course. In the morning you will be asked to take part in a skills swap shop. Do you have a skill (outdoors or indoors) that you would like to pass on to others? Any skills (from work or leisure) e.g. musical, creative, physical, dancing, circus or magic tricks, martial arts, yoga, survival skills. Please bring any equipment or resources you might need to conduct a 30 minute taster session for anyone who wants to learn your skill. The rest of the day explores how you can develop learning, coaching and facilitation skills during an outdoor training programme.

‘Powerful endings’ - how to conclude experience-based training events for maximum value and transfer. The day begins with concluding the morning course. This will involve active reviewing of the previous four mornings, and various exercises for carrying your learning into the future. The afternoon brings together your learning from the trainer-training event as a whole and provides you with ideas and strategies for your further professional development in experience-based training. As well as carrying out evaluation throughout the five days, you will also have a chance to explore evaluation as a topic on this final day.

Two courses in one

The whole programme (mornings, afternoons and evenings) is designed as a trainer-training event, but in the mornings you will be a participant on an outdoor training course. Experiences from the morning activities will be carried forward into the afternoon when we will actively explore the theme for the day from a trainer-training perspective.

These depend on the location chosen for this event, available activities, and on the previous experience of participants. Weather permitting most of the course will be outdoors, and there will be a number of short outdoor training games and activities.

• Index to articles by Roger Greenaway on training and facilitation topics 
• Index to Active Reviewing Tips archives and the latest issue

• Reviewing Success strategies for getting the positive/negative balance right in reviewing.
• Active Reviewing article about bringing the worlds of talk and action together.
• Review Discussions conversation or interrogation? tips for involving everyone.
• Reviewing with Pictures how to use ready-made and learner-made pictures in reviewing.
• Reviewing with Large Groups Issues, solutions, strategies and methods.
• In Search of Respectable Adventure
• Simulation vs. Stimulation: Outdoor Stories and Indoor Stories
• The OMD Links Index
• Research in Experiential Learning Index
• Course Evaluation Methods