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Birth Date Sorting

Contributed by:
Tina Seelig,
Executive Director, Stanford Technology Ventures Program,
Stanford University, California, USA.

Introduction
The lecture mode of one person addressing many is common in a classroom. But
entrepreneurship education is like a contact sport and requires a participant-centered, hands-on
mode of learning; this exercise will assist you in facilitating this participative environment in your
class.

This amusing warm- up exercise engages everyone present in a class, allows them to loosen up
and get into the right frame of mind to actively participate. It can also serve as an interesting ice
breaker in any program.

Learning Objective
To break the stereotype of a typical classroom, where learning is much more passive, and
prepares the participants for a different type of learning experience.

When to Use
It can be used in the beginning of or during any class, program, workshop or training session.

The Exercise
This exercise involves asking everyone to arrange themselves in a line or semi circle (whatever
the layout of the room permits), according to their birth dates, starting with January at one end of
the room and ending with December at the other end. It is of course very easy, but the catch is
they will have to do it without talking to one another!
Instructions:
1. Announce that you have a warm up exercise for the class.
2. Begin with asking everyone to rise from their seats.
3. Indicate which end of the room denotes the beginning of the calendar,-January; and also
the end of the room which denotes end of the calendar-December.
4. Ask them to arrange themselves in ascending order of their birth dates in the next ten
minutes without talking to one another.
5. The fun begins now!

Time:10 -15 Minutes.

Concluding the exercise:
Once the participants have arranged themselves, ask them to call out their birthdays to check on
the order. You will find some sharing common birthdays. You may quote the mathematical fact
out this: "In any group of 22 people there is a better than 50% chances that at least two people
will have the same birthday."

Follow up:
You may also use this to group or form teams amidst the participants for any other activity, which
is a part of the session; for example, a case discussion, brain storming, group assignment or a
team project.

Created September 2006 NEN