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1. ICE BREAKING 7

1.1 Short introduction on the aims and background information of the section
Starting a course or a motivation workshop is always a new situation including new challenges.
The group of people mainly don’t know each other and have different backgrounds. It takes time
to get used to each other. As the title suggests, these sections deal with methods and
approaches to “break the ice” for the participants. On the one hand the trainer gets the
possibility to discover the different personalities, on the other hand the participants have time
to get to know each other. The goal of implementing ice breakers at the beginning of a
course/workshop is to prepare an informal and comfortable setting for becoming more familiar
with the course mates or workshop members.

Ice breaking can be more than just implementing a presentation round including the name and
age of the participants. Adapted to the aims and duration of the course there can be creative,
funny or active methods implemented to the first session. In particular, when the trainer plans
to offer a wide variety of didactical approaches (not only traditional teaching style), a trusting
cooperation among the participants should be aimed.

On the next pages you will find approaches and ideas for the implementation of ice breakers.
Beside needed resources and a step-by-step-implementation, the flexible and varied
implementation of those methods will be presented. As already mentioned, the used methods
should be customized to the personal training style and the aims and duration of the
course/training.