The Small Group Activity Method (SGAM)

The training activities of the OCAW Health & Safety Department use the Small Group Activity Method.

Why a Non-Lecture Approach?

Worker-oriented educators have learned the hard way that working adults learn best in situations that maximize active participation and involvement. The trainer-centered, lecture-style teaching methods used in most programs actually hurt the learning process, promote passivity on the part of workers, de-value our knowledge and skills, and make us feel inadequate. As we all know, too many lectures "go in one ear and out the other."

The Small Group Activity Method puts the learner in the center of the workshop. Participants are put to work in the workshop, solving real-life problems, building upon our own skills and experiences. Instead of learning by listening, as we are expected to do in a lecture-style course, we learn by doing.

Origins

The Small Group Activity Method is based on a training procedure developed by England's Trade Union Congress (TUC). (The TUC is the organizational equivalent of the AFL-CIO.) The TUC used this participatory, non-lecture method to train over 250,000 shop stewards on health and safety issues in the 1970s and early 1980s. The Labor institute in New York, which had pioneered a similar method around economic issues for workers, further developed the procedure into the Small Group Activity Method.

Through the use of this non-lecture approach, the Labor Institute has succeeded in training workers to be trainers. Since 1980, the Labor Institute has shared this method with over 200 different unions and community groups in the United States and Canada. (Currently there are over 150 worker-trainers using this method in the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union and the Service Employees International Union.)

Basic Structure

The Small Group Activity Method is based on activities. An activity can take from 30 minutes to an hour. Each activity has a common basic structure:
  • Small Group Tasks
  • Report-Back
  • Summary

    1. Small Group Tasks: The workshop always operates with people working in groups at tables. (Round tables are preferable.) Each activity has a task, or set of tasks, for the groups to work on. The idea is to work together, not to compete. Very often there is no one right answer. The tasks require that the groups use their experience to tackle problems, and make judgements on key issues. Part of the task often includes looking at factsheets and reading short handouts.

    2. Report-Back: For each task, the group selects a scribe whose job it is to take notes on the small group discussion and report back to the workshop as a whole. (The report-back person was first called the "scribe" by an OCAW worker-trainer during a 1982 session with Merck stewards in New Jersey.) During the report-back, the scribe informs the entire workshop on how his or her group tackled the particular problem. The trainer records these reports on large pads of paper in front of the workshop so that all can refer to it. After the scribe's report, the workshop is thrown open to general discussion about the problem at hand.

    3. Summary: Before the discussion drifts too far and wide, the trainer needs to bring it all together during the summary. Here, the trainer highlights the key points, and brings up any problems and points that may have been overlooked in the report-back. Good summaries tend to be short and to the point.