Around the world of education there is a growing trend towards giving learners more control over their own learning environments. This is particularly true in the realm of adult learning where more and more companies and institutions are calling for corporate education which recognises and values what the learners already know, and the experience they bring with them into the learning environment.
This trend is called the Generative Learning movement.
Until now there have been considerable difficulties in bringing this powerful way of educating adults into the arena of large-scale ropes/challenge courses. Giving learners any substantial degree of control over these environments has been dismissed as impossible, largely on the basis of health and safety considerations in situations where rigorous checks on equipment and processes are, very rightly, a necessary part of running a safe operation.
Traditionally, and necessarily, working on ropes/challenge courses has involved learners being offered a series of pre-constructed challenge elements and being asked to use the physical and co-operative skills they have in their team to overcome the challenge within prescribed boundaries (usually dictated by health and safety considerations). Thus the 'challenge' is largely limited to physical ability and emotional resilience. Webmaster® Bridge extends the range and complexity of this challenge by introducing, in addition to the physical and emotional components, a difficult intellectual problem and a multi-team cooperative working situation to manage.
Webmaster® Bridge achieves this through the unique dimension of asking the learners to assemble, construct and install the element before they are able to use it.
Webmaster® Bridge is, once constructed and installed, very recognisable as a traditional 'Burma Bridge', a tried and tested feature of many ropes/challenge courses around the world. However, learners first encounter the element as 29 separate components, each colourful, attractive and tactile, and each one forming a unique piece in a three dimensional puzzle that needs to be solved according to a set of simple rules.
Once the considerable problems of initial assembly have been overcome, learners are challenged to refine their assembly process to the point where they are able to successfully build the Webmaster® Bridge under time trial conditions. This initial activity extends both the duration and impact of the exercise in that it involves a broader range of learning styles, draws in the ‘physically reluctant’, shifts the emphasis from individual challenges to collective application, and hands ownership of the learning over to the learners themselves.
After the Webmaster Bridge® is assembled there is a need to get the learners through a personal safety briefing and equipping. This time offers exercise staff an opportunity to also do a safety check on the bridge construction before it is installed. The key to maintaining the learners’ sense of independence and ownership at this point is that the site has been carefully selected and prepared so that the learners can substantially achieve this installation themselves. This essential preparation will have been done during the compulsory site survey and installation work that accompanies every purchase of the Webmaster Bridge®. Given the appropriate site preparation, streams, rivers, gorges etc. become obstacles that the Webmaster Bridge® can be made to overcome.
The Webmaster Bridge®, installed and safety checked, is then tensioned and made ready for use by the learners, with advice and safety supervision from site staff. All of the learners are protected by a conventional safety cable and cows-tail system. Once they step onto the Webmaster Bridge® they are subject to all of the thrills and learning that are derived from a traditional ropes/challenge course element, with the additional knowledge that this is something that they themselves constructed! In itself this creates a powerful metaphor for development and learning - “We worked together to build a bridge that took us across a major obstacle to a celebration and a sense of achievement on the other side”.
We work in partnership with our clients to create highly effective, customised learning solutions to address specific organisational development needs.
Our catalogue of creative and well-proven experiential learning tools are available to learning and development professionals for integration into your own programmes.
We design and deliver learning experiences in the form of facilitated workshops and extended training programmes, event and conference activities and individual coaching.
We transfer our expertise to those who wish to build confidence and competence in offering engaging, experiential, learner-centred training.
