How to Use the Online Gaming Together Handbook

05.1 Preamble

As a group leader, or counselor, in an informal Jewish educational setting, you play an important role in structuring the experience of your group. For this, you need to know something about how a group develops naturally and with your assistance; to do this well, you require not only training, experience and skill, but also to care about the programs you prepare, the members of your group and their enjoyment of group life and activities.

Games will be an important tool and part of this picture and we shall explain how they work and how they fit into the overall picture. This is particularly important for newer leaders, or as a quick review of the process of group formation. Additional content links are provided.

05.2 The Role of Games

The more rewarding the group experience, the more satisfying the Jewish/ Israel connection will seem to the individual.

What can you do to make your impact the most beneficial? One well-tried technique to generate positive group feeling is that of playing games.

The more one uses games, the more one understands their versatility and richness.

Games are an invaluable aid to creating positive group life:

• They can be used to promote effective communication, to enhance the group
  crystallization process, and to create positive group feeling (see Group Development, below).
• Games enable people to play together in an organized framework, and play is a wonderful tool for talking, learning, and enhancing self-expression.

Groups benefit greatly from the consistent use of games throughout the group’s life.

Games are positive for the individual, as well:

• Through playing, the person can clarify his/her own values about issues and can find and maintain a place within his/her own group.
• Games offer a non-didactic method for giving and receiving information, for expression of feelings, and for many other aspects of communication.

Games can generate interest in various subjects, and promote enthusiasm within groups.

The only "caution" label we have on games is that they should not be used to invade privacy, threaten a group member's security, or to manipulate group members: some of the complex unfolding and trust games should therefore be moderated only by experienced counselors whom the group members trust.

The general rule about gaming with your group is therefore:
The leader with an enthusiastic attitude toward the group and the games will be able to achieve his or her goals through the use of games with great ease and to great effect. If games are conducted in a fun-loving and spirited manner, the good feelings engendered will also pervade the other aspects of the program.

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05.3 Using the Online Handbook

In the online handbook, you will find a wide range of games, designed to help you accomplish a variety goals, but it is far from an exhaustive list. Some of them are generic games, which we have adapted for Jewish and Israel content. The games are divided into sections with a short introduction to each, explaining the type of games included and their purpose. As group crystallization is one of the goals of the book, the emphasis is primarily on inclusive games - there are relatively few competitive games where the players are put "out".

These games themselves require little or no preparation, or equipment, and as such are especially appropriate for madrichim working on a hectic schedule, with introductory notes about their purpose. Most chapters also offer suitable related games from other chapters, so some games will appear twice or three times in the index.

We hope you will find these games helpful and seek numerous opportunities to use them, throughout your activities. We also hope that you will enjoy leading them, as much as the participants enjoy playing them.

Group Development

People come together for different reasons, but in the educational and community setting, these will largely be related to developmental needs or specific interests, irrespective of the affiliation. A group leader therefore needs to be aware, for example, that early adolescents will go where there friends go - while middle range and older adolescents may be looking to make friends, reinforce friendships, or occupy their free time, either constructively or recreationally. So group life needs to offer all these elements in its programming, as appropriate for a particular setting, while supplying the educational or specific content it deems important, and observing the framework or discipline. Essentially, if the supply does not meet the demands, young people will vote with their feet – at least to another organization, and very likely outside the community.

In "Running a Discussion"  there is a description of the different types of groups. Although groups share common features of development; the type of group and the reasons why members join will be significant factors in its development.

A group can develop from a collection of individuals with some common goal, need, or grounds for being together. The ideal process involves crystallization, goals and content of group life - and the formation of a whole that is more than the sum of its separate parts, but where the group "belongs" to all its members. Of course, sometimes group life is a new experience - or there have been previous, unsuccessful such experiences - and this is where the process can be greatly enhanced by a competent leader, who also needs to be someone the members can trust.

During this entire process, the leader or facilitator therfore helps shape these dynamics through the relevant programming and specific interventions. The goals should be to create a healthy environment, with mutual respect and creativity; to empower all the group members as part of the overall dynamic. (See also Leadership Style.) An additional aim should also be to form a stable group, while remaining aware that, at any stage, there may be a need for special intervention and support, as group composition undergoes minor changes.

We speak of five stages of group development, although many groups do not proceed far into the fourth stage – and many counselors do not prepare the group for the final stage. For short, we can call them "forming", "storming", "norming", "performing" and dissolution, but the initial three overlap.

- Group formation is the very initial stage of coming together and becoming acquainted, where members retain their privacy but need help to start feeling comfortable together and engage in the purpose for which the group was formed. If the leader facilitates this stage, he or she will give everyone an equal chance to come together. The first thing a leader will do, however, is to introduce himself or herself (briefly) and begin the process of creating group trust: the leader sets the example and the tone.

- The first phase leads to a thrashing-it-out stage, where members are still getting to know one another and beginning to impact on each other, as well as interacting more with the leader. There may be great contributions from members as individuals or sub-groups, but there can also be strong disagreements about the who, how and why of any issue in the group.

For the group leader, there will be tensions to dissolve, communication to re-channel and nurture, trust to build between group members, unfolding to facilitate. The leader works to promote trust and encourage the creativity generated, but has a responsibility to even out the odds within the membership, in order to help members create group norms productively, during the third stage. This intervention will assist the group's crystallization.

- The importance of the norming stage is often underestimated as an extension of the second phase, especially where the leader has successfully channeled members' energies, fostering group development and if many issues have been adressed, rather than deferred. Yet, every group should have time for norming: to determine its purpose and standards, working together as peers; to acquire some degree of "ownership" of the group and its life, under the guidance of its leader.

- Like a finely tuned engine on a good road, a developed group, with healthy dynamics and an appropriate educational setting, then enters the fourth and optimal stage of performance, where it is at its most effective in terms of its productivity. This is the group nirvana and members do wonderful things as a collective and separately – but it can't last forever.

- All wonderful experiences, however, have their season, or need to make way for the future – and a group is no different. It pays to explore the anticipations of a group's closing down and prepare members for future experiences at the dissolution stage.

The games in this book are introduced and annotated to help the leader identify developmental needs of his or her group. They are divided into chapters, either relating to both the stages of group development, or to thematic programming.

Leadership Style

Regardless of organizational affiliation, the role of the group in informal education is crucial, and therefore that of the group counselor is similarly focal.

A leadership style is a combination of planned response to a group's developmental and specific needs and educational goals with personal style and ability. Your style as a leader will also determine the type of programming you offer.

In a new group, a group leader needs to draw in the group members and to "pilot" manually between them to a great extent. As crystallization proceeds, the leader changes his or her style of intervention, withdrawing gradually from the dominant, central persona of communication and decision making, through acting as a guide, to the observer/facilitator. In reality, there is always a mixture of all these styles or modes, but their proportions change as the group dynamics develop. We address these Leadership Modes in considerable detail, and with hands-on practice ideas, in the second part of "Running a Discussion" http://www.jajzed.org.il/hadracha/rd/index.html

In Conclusion

Any group leader has both strengths and weaknesses, but training and preparation can enhance the best that he or she can offer the group.

A conscientious leader is always learning, always improving: the verbal leader needs to facilitate creativity and fun with games; the extrovert leader needs to delegate the center stage to the group; the fun-loving leader needs to address serious issues in simulations. Leaders can also try out games among themselves!

Each leader remains unique in his or her ideas, approach and interests, simply because personalities, knowledge and skills differ – so preferences for programming - and games - will vary, too. We hope that this selection of games is sufficiently broad to offer a helpful range of games and activities for most groups.

Each group is unique, each process is a one-of-a-kind event. We hope that you make it a memorable and a positive experience using this handbook.

Don’t underestimate the power of games and their potential impact on your group – and enjoy them!

The Editors