Way Beyond Icebreakers: Powerful Tools To Engage Our Young People

Presenters

Eric RowlesFollow
Jamal TateFollow

Focused Area

Improving School Climate for Youth-At-Risk

Relevance to Focused Area

This presentation focuses directly on facilitative tools and methods that can be used in the traditional and non-traditional classroom. Designed by educators, the hands-on application-focus of this session is best geared for those working with youth in school based settings.

Primary Strand

Social & Emotional Skills

Relevance to Primary Strand

This presentation focuses directly on techniques that can be used by professionals and educational providers to effectively build the communication and social/emotional rationalization and reasoning skills of young people in both academic and OST settings.

Brief Program Description

GET READY TO MOVE! In this HIGHLY interactive session participants will

experience how to take various risk-level activities (often mistakenly

referred to as “ice breakers”) and turn them into powerful vehicles for YAR

participation and engagement. This session will be presented by one of the

premiere training agencies in the country, and will showcase tools that youth

providers can put into immediate use! You'll walk away with your head spinning FULL of new ideas - don't miss this one!

Summary

NOTE - due to previously scheduled travel, only available on 10/25 or 10/26. NOTE - requesting this presentation as a LARGE group presentation please due to the high level of interaction and previous attendance numbers.

Group dynamic theory illustrates the critical need to establish risk appropriate initiatives that are used to motivate and increase the level of production in any setting. Yet, the fact remains that many practitioners undermine the multi-risk balance by playing games rather than structuring their community and team development initiatives with a much greater level of intentionality. This session is designed to provide participants with an immersed based learning environment to practice facilitating youth focused challenges and than dissect the technical strategies that can be used to inspire, motivate, and enhance the collective communication and trust of a group of YAR participants through multiple, ascending risk levels. The initiatives that will be introduced can be tailored to all ages, and will be described in detail, along with the specific tactics and tool that we have used with over 150,000 students and adults. We will introduce the MIST approach to facilitation of team challenges (Metaphor, Instruction, Struggle, Tie It Back) and than model via MIST a minimum of 9-12 different challenges. After each initiative, participants will have the opportunity to explore HOW they could use the tool, as well as debrief their own experiences.

Evidence

Multiple studies have been conducted to assess effective methods to educate and engage young people in the academic and OST settings. While common sense may tell us that students have to be physically and cognitively engaged, there still exists a significant absence of proven and effective strategies that when applied, provide a young person with an interactive, immersive learning experience. These active learning techniques, when used by a collective staff, can have a profound positive impact on the educational experience of the participant (Bonwell, C. C., & Eison, J. A. (1991). Active learning: creating excitement in the classroom. ASHE-Eric Higher Education Rep, 1. Washington, DC: The George Washington University, School of Education and Human Development.). Furthermore, when young people are exposed to effective active learning methodology, they are able to apply a real world/first person filter to the experience (M. Oliver-Hoyo and D. Allen (2005), Attitudinal effects of a student-centered active learning environment, Journal of Chemical Education, 82 (6). This presentation will provide a very brief of this research, but more importantly focus on the HOW TO facilitative techniques for professionals to immediately use.

Format

Individual Presentation

Biographical Sketch

One part motivational speaker, one part DJ, and two parts community organizer and parent of 2 daughters, Eric Rowles runs a customized consulting and facilitation practice that, through a network of over 20 dynamic and diversely talented trainers, works with for profit and non-profit organizations to achieve progressive and dynamic change. Eric’s previous experience includes his work as Senior Director of Training with the Youth Leadership Institute where he designed a national training institute that provided over 1,000 days of training in five years to community organizations and coalitions throughout the country. Prior to his work with YLI, Eric was the Director of Leadership Development at Rutgers University (NJ), managed his own touring educational theater organization, Leadership Through Motivation Productions, was the Director of International Youth Summer Abroad programs, and spent five years as a substance abuse prevention coordinator in Los Angeles. Additionally, Eric through his double bachelors and Master of Science degrees in Ethnic Studies and Educational Leadership, he has served as a faculty member at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte as well as Rutgers University (NJ) and has over a decade of innovative and cutting edge classroom instruction and facilitation experience. Eric has also been a volunteer trainer and partner for a wide range of social change agencies and organizations including the National Conference on Community and Justice, College Leadership Diversity Conference, and Teaching Tolerance Curriculum Instruction.

Jamal Tate is a dynamic coach who engages youth through interactive sessions. Participants leave feeling energized and motivated, with renewed spirits in knowing they are adequately prepared to step into adulthood. The story of Jamal defines what it means to never give up and prove it’s never too late for any young adult to change. Faced with many hardships in adolescence, Jamal should statistically be dead or in jail. Along his path of self-discovery, Jamal discovered a few secrets to success that elevated him from his circumstances and changed his life forever. He has been featured in TIME Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, and even Times Square. To date, Jamal is a graduate of Queens University of Charlotte, certified life coach (CPC), national speaker, and is currently obtaining his certification for substance abuse counseling (CSAC). Jamal sits on the boards of Communities in Schools National Alumni Council, Keeping Charlotte Beautiful, Playing for Others Band, and Communities in Schools of North Carolina. As president and CEO of Generation Y Life Coaching, this former delinquent is now inspiring youth to become self-motivated and take control of their lives.

Start Date

10-26-2017 12:30 PM

End Date

10-26-2017 1:45 PM

Recommended Citation

Rowles, Eric and Tate, Jamal, "Way Beyond Icebreakers: Powerful Tools To Engage Our Young People" (2017). National Youth-At-Risk Conference, West (2015-2017). 1.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/nyar_vegas/2017/2017/1