TRiO Works!: 40 Leadership Activities & Team-Building Initiatives for TRiO Groups. This item is unavailable.TRiO Works!: 40 Leadership Activities & Team-Building Initiatives for TRiO Groups

It was my first day on the job and we might have had better engagement with the students if we were selling life insurance. It was the Fall of 2006 and I was a bright-eyed guidance counselor for Educational Talent Search who was ready to change the world. However, to the seniors in the room, this presentation on financial aid was as interesting as evidence of insurability and disclosure statements. It was in that moment that I knew we needed to spice up our presentations and workshops. I wanted to find a way to present our core objectives - college readiness, high school success, career planning, financial aid - to students in a way that was not only engaging, but helped create substantial change in their lives. I started a journey. I wanted to learn every way in which I could engage our participants. The director of our ETS program, Diane Walker, was a huge believer in experiential education…or learning by doing. She was constantly encouraging us to develop new ideas for workshops that would both meet the needs of our students and our program. We went to trainings, workshops, and seminars on how to present our material experientially. We tried some things that worked…and some things that did not. I presented our new material at a “Best Practices” session at the SWASAP conference. The participants of the session asked for more the following year…so I continued learning. I found that the more we encouraged our students to become involved with our materials, the better the results. I joined with other TRiO professionals and leadership facilitators, like Jerrod Murr, who were on a mission to change lives. We started gaining more knowledge, more experience, and more results. This is my history and this is why I wrote this book. I spent seven years in TRiO and have spent the last few years consulting with TRiO programs across the country. TRiO programs that are looking for quality educational initiatives and team-building activities to make a difference with their groups. Quite frankly, there are not a tremendous amount of quality educational-based activity books. Fortunately, I have worked with Jerrod Murr and other facilitators for some time now, and know quite a few relevant activities. Jerrod and I bring a knowledge of experiential education that is completely underutilized in TRiO. We have worked with groups of all sizes in a variety of sectors. We have a wealth of icebreakers, name games, and leadership initiatives that we use with groups for years. We paired new, engaging games with deep, educational lessons to create the activities for this book. We work with students all over the world. We have seen the power of these activities to connect with students. We bring this experience to a usable format for leaders. We wrote this book for TRiO because we know TRiO Works. - Ryan Eller

Ryan Eller Ryan is the founder and lead consultant of Paradigm Shift, which provides custom-built team-building and leadership training. Ryan has facilitated in 30 US states and hosted leadership conferences in Cuba, Brazil, and Australia. Ryan has the goal of hosting a leadership training in all 50 states and all 7 continents. Ryan received his Bachelor’s Degree in Mass Communication and Master’s Degree in Higher Education Administration from Northeastern State University. He is a member of ODSA, SWASAP, and COE. He loves nothing more than a great Nick Collison pick while eating brinner with his beautiful wife Kristin and his little princess Jane. Jerrod Murr Murr has been speaking to groups since he was 14. He really stepped up his game in his early twenties. Murr works with small groups in experiential learning settings, as well as keynotes to groups in the thousands. A few speaking highlights include the privilege of planning a leadership conference for over 300 pastors in Cuba, speaking to over 1,000 students in Brazil, and holding the microphone for his kindergarten class song. Murr currently serves as the Director of 20 Camps and Leadership Develop for Paradigm Shift. He resides in Muskogee, OK with his wife, Jenn, daughter Adelae, and Josalyn. His favorite book is The Giving Tree, and he loves basketball, the OKC Thunder, and good coffee.