Asked this question, most people recall an aha-moment full of awe or inspiration that came after an intense experience. No one, however, recalls course material like Powerpoint slides or textbooks. This means that the impact of learning depends heavily not on the material itself but on the way it is delivered – this also means that the effectiveness of education can differ greatly based on the learning experience itself.


But how do most of our learning experiences look like today? Are they strategically designed, or are they like how they’ve always been – a strict divide between the trainer and the trainee, where the material is delivered one-directionally from the trainer to the trainee, and most of the trainee feedback consist only of short ‘thank you’s?


theplaycompany is a professional learning experience design group, where we design content-centric learning experience instead of trainer-centric learning experience. We design our content to motivate our trainees to actively participate, make cognitive decisions with resulting actions during the learning experience. The diverse processes and outputs created through this exercise is then discussed in an interactive way with professional facilitators, which in turn increases the trainees’ meta-cognition and stimulates his/her motivations for self-growth. More substantial trainee feedback than the typical ‘thank you’ – meaning feedbacks such as “I tried this out myself and really felt xxx, which made me realize yyy”, or “I feel like I should now change xyz and try this out really in my daily work” only come from actual experiences. Such self-motivated learning experiences result in not only individual growth but also lead to positive organizational dynamic change (especially in corporate environments), such as increased employee satisfaction and loyalty.