Reflecting on Reflection Activities

The Canadian ADE Academy in Montebello, Quebec allowed me the opportunity to co-facilitate the Storytelling Workshops with fellow ADE Jason Trinh and Dr Shawn Lennie.  We set the sessions up with the Minds on, Hands on and Reflect on model.  I took on the role of creating the reflection activities for our sessions. When creating lessons, I often add a quick reflection activity to end off the learning but I will admit that it is usually the first thing to get cut out if I am running out of time when delivering the lesson. Our sessions, this summer showed me the power of taking a step back.  

Reflection is Powerful

Our first session involved finding a story to tell and for some, it was difficult. Throughout the session, there were some people who were struggling with their stories and, every time they shared it with someone, they couldn’t see its worth…until it came time to take a step back.

 

Our reflection activity for this session involved choosing three objects from a random group of objects we collected on a table.  One object to represent the feeling coming into the session, a  second object to represent the feeling after the session was over and a third object to represent how having been part of the session had changed them.  

That simple activity helped one of the people struggling with their story to find the missing piece.  The act of stepping back and reflecting on how the session had changed them allowed them to see more clearly the value of their story.  They shared with me that one of their reflection photos was going to be the photo that would represent their story.

Reflection doesn't have to be fancy

Our second session involved finding ways to craft the story they wanted to tell.  The participants broken up into smaller groups, working with some amazing ADEs on design, drawing and photography.

 

The second reflection activity involved writing a postcard about the session.  We asked participants to think of the times they sent a postcard to someone and what information they would share. Usually it involves:

1. Where you are and what you are doing?
2. Something memorable. 
3. Something that you don’t want to forget.
4. Something that you want people to know or experience about the place.

We asked them to do the same thing but with the session they just experienced.  As we went through questions you could hear chatter about what people were writing.  Some mentioned the key phrases that were repeated during the sessions, tips shared by the ADEs and ideas that they didn’t want to forget.  Some focused on the information they wanted to share with others who could not attend.  The act of taking the time to stop and reflect with a small piece of writing allowed the key pieces to sink in (and be shared).

Keep Reflection Simple

Our last session involved having participants discover different ways to tell their stories.  We had ADEs work with small groups on making books, short form video and presentations.  Many of the participants had been in multiple sessions and had ideas from other sessions to work with.

 

This being the final reflection activity we asked them to do some hexagonal thinking in Freeform.  Our prompt was, “An essential part of storytelling is…”. Each table worked as a group to add elements they thought were essential to storytelling in a hexagon. Coming up with the elements was fairly easy but connecting the hexagons and explaining how the ideas were interconnected through discussions as a group was not. There was a lot of discussion which was intended though some of it was about the difficulty moving the hexagons in Freeform.  The activity did allow participants to reflect on all their learning but may have been too complex as a reflection activity.  Reflection activities need to have some simplicity to ensure that the focus is on looking inward and not on the complexity of the task.

Having seen the power of reflection, I will make sure not to skip a good reflection activity moving forward.