Early in my career I was a technical trainer and then later a training manager for a staff of 8-10.  I was recently reminded of some of the lessons I both learned and tried to teach back then and wanted to get them down electronically before I forget about them for another 10 years.  Edu-Chaos is the first one of these that comes to mind.

 

As I got to teach groups of various sizes and backgrounds (all adults though), I noticed that some classes were dull and boring with little interactivity while others were full of chatterboxes and egotists that could quickly get away from you and turn the class to chaos.  What I discovered was there was a narrow place just on the edge of chaos that was the perfect context for pedigogical flow.

 

Kathy Sierra put this nicely in a recent tweet of hers:

As I tried to explain this place to my fellow trainers and we brainstormed techniques for geting a class into this state and keeping it there for long periods, the phrase "edge of chaos" was shorthanded into a new term of mine: Edu-Chaos

 

The idea is that you want to increase levels of interactivity and "stuff going on" within the class so that each learner has a "place" they can go where they feel most comfortable and can learn the most.  This goes beyond interactions just between the trainer and the students, but must also be between the students themselves as that is where they can discover problems and work them out in a way that will be memorable for them.  Again another tweet from Kathy:

So increased interactivity can be achieved through many facilitation techniques.  At all costs we want to get out of the "lecture" style of teaching.  In cases where that is necessary, just the basic use of pattern interuptors can go a long way.  However, to really increase the level of chaos (interactivity) usually more drastic measures are needed.  This is especially true in mid-sized classes where most of the students don't know each other (like in a public class setting).

 

One of my strategies for this that worked out very well is to intersperse periods in the class where small groups of students on working on diverse activities all at the same time, which are designed to teach the same thing, but in very different ways.  I found that people would tend to migrate to the activities that were most interesting to them and best fit their mode of learning.  While some liked "switching stations" to get better coverage, I didn't force them to "rotate".  After these periods though, I did ask for feedback about each activity from those that participated in each so that the rest of the class could get a flair for what they may have missed.

 

This type of facilitated learning activity because of it's nature almost always brought the class to that "edge of chaos" just due to the fact that there was so much going on at once.  As a trainer, it is our responsibility to insure that we, as a class, don't cross that fine line and fall over the edge into chaos.  This was most likely to happen in large groups where most of the people know each other (like a corporate training setting).

 

One of my trainers had a great method for reeling a class back in (he liked to be a lot closer to the "edge" that I ever did).  What he would do is walk around to help/observe the different groups and if he felt the class was teetering on crossing the chaos line, he'd casually leave his coffee cup somewhere in the room and about a minute later shout "STOP!  EVERYONE STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING! ... WHERE IS MY COFFEE CUP?  OH YOU HAVE IT AGAIN. THANKS. CARRY ON."  This, of course, always got a laugh, but I was amazed at how effectively this little interuption would setting the class back down and back onto task.  I tried this a couple times myself, without nearly the positive effect- so basically, you need to find techniques and methods that compliment your own unique personality.

 

So to summarize this Edu-Chaos concept, here's my graphical depiction:

 

 

My goal now is to figure out how much of this is just good classroom management, and what from it can be applied to other settings, such as smaller facilitated meetings, or even un-facilitated meetings.  Certainly the ideas from Lencioni's Death by Meeting come to mind.  Just increasing drama within a meeting with a little chaos could be healthy.