Safety training is too important to be boring. Even with carefully planned slides, great content and a great video, safety trainers are still likely to see trainees dozing off or not paying attention. When safety training is not interactive and trainees focus on something else, they are not learning the important information that is being presented. Safety training games and other interactive activities are one way to keep the trainee involved while increasing his or her learning and retention of the material. Safety training games and activities make learning interactive by making the trainee an active participant and making mundane information something enjoyable and memorable.
The whole idea of using fun and games in safety training comes from the principles of accelerated learning. Whatever learning tools work to increase and enhance learning can be called accelerated learning methods. Alternative learning should not be confused with "fluff" activities that are often used as icebreakers. Everything in an accelerated learning class is focused on the results and not the materials or activities themselves. For example, a safety trainer announces that everyone is going to get up play musical chairs with the goal of getting everyone relaxed and "ready to learn." While this might seem like a fun icebreaker, a musical chairs game is fun only for the sake of being fun. None of the information to be covered in this training is being reinforced by this activity. In an accelerated learning class, we might also play games but the games have a different focus – on the results, instead of the activity. For example, a crossword puzzle could be completed by class teams, where the clues of the puzzle are really a review of the material covered in class. This game is still fun and gets everyone involved but accelerated learning principles are in action, especially when you have small teams work on each puzzle instead of individually.
