Inside Out » reflection

Big Screen Magic

Sam — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:06:18 +0000

Using a slide-show for reflection

This article first appeared in Horizons magazine, Issue 55 (Autumn 2011)

When was the last time you managed a quiet, focused fifteen minutes of reflection and review with your group? Almost no speaking, just the occasional smile, laugh or tear. A mental journey through the physical one they have just been on.

Unless you are working with Trappist monks, the chances are that this is a rarity for you, as it is for most of us. However, there is one fool-proof way of making it happen.

A slide-show of pictures from a group’s adventures is a beautiful way of rounding off a programme and with modern technology it is easier than it has ever been. If we embrace reflection as a key part of experiential learning, and believe that an image is worth a thousand words, we can help the participants relive the emotions of a programme and reinforce the learning that they bring.

Capturing Images

The key to a good slide-show is having lots of good, relevant images. The days of slide film are almost behind us and, if you want to use the images during the course, you are going to have to go digital. Digital cameras are cheap and ubiquitous and most participants will have one on their mobile phone.

Try to capture all the parts of the programme, remember to pause during activities to take photos and don’t forget about meal times, whether round a table, fire or camp stove. Photograph places you visit, beautiful views, signs for venues you use, and get team photos up on mountains or down in caves. If you can show learning happening, clear teamwork or discussions going on, even better. You are aiming to tell the story of your adventure so the more parts of it you capture the better.

We normally set up a laptop in the corner of a room and every evening download the images of the day from everybody’s cameras and phones. This is also a good time do some basic editing, weeding out blurry images and selecting the best of the duplicates Ten minutes each night can save an hour later in the course when you are under pressure to get your show ready!

Telling the Story

All stories have a structure – a beginning, a middle and an end; your story has one too and a few minutes think about what it is can convert your slide-show from ‘what I did on my holidays’ to a powerful narrative.

If you imagine your story as a Homeric epic or Hollywood blockbuster, the first thing you will need to do is to set the scene and introduce your characters. If you are working with an organisation, try to capture a copy of their logo, you can often get it from the internet but nicer is to photograph it during the week. Look out for it on minibuses, clothing, paperwork or have the group make a copy out of natural materials.

You can ‘introduce’ the group by showing a team photo, perhaps when they first arrived – clean, apprehensive and excited. Even nicer is to ensure that during the programme you capture a portrait shot of each group member taking part in activities and ‘introduce’ them one by one with a photograph they probably don’t remember being taken. However, only do this if you have a face-shot of everybody, missing someone out suggests they weren’t part of the story!

Once you have set the scene and introduced your players you can get on with telling the story. If you want your group to relive the journey they have been on it’s probably best to do so chronologically. It will help them anchor the feelings they have watching the show with the events on the screen.

Try to balance the sections out, the fact it was easier to take photographs during the low ropes course and bushcraft than while kayaking shouldn’t be obvious in your show. Consider also significance of the events in your photo, two or three landscape shots from the summit are usually more important than two or three shots of that pretty rock face you passed on the way up!

If there were key moments during the programme, try to include them, no matter how poor quality or boring the photographs you have. A typical ‘from below’ climbing shot of someone completing their first route may never make it onto a guidebook front cover, but it will be packed with emotion for the person in it.

Aim for a mix of pretty photos, key moments and story telling images. All three have a part to play in evoking feelings and helping the participants to reflect.

As with all good stories, yours must come to an end. If you have selected the right images, there is a real possibility you will have stirred up significant emotions and care should be taken not to just ‘dump’ the watchers back into the here and now.

One way to wind up your show include a group photograph, this time as a dirty, weather- beaten and accomplished team. Another is to return to the organisations logo, or a slide with the title of the programme, dates and names of participants, perhaps drawn in the sand or scratched on a piece of slate or wood. Finally you could emulate the great film-maker Charlie Chaplin and finish with a slide that simply says “The End”.

About 3-4 seconds per slide seems to be about the right timing, any more and it will drag, any less and the watchers won’t have time to process the image before they are whisked on to the next one. If you are using music (see below) then you can frequently find a ‘fit to music’ button to help keep it sound and vision coordinated.

How many slides to use overall is a difficult question. Undoubtedly it is better to leave them wanting more than have them drifting off but use as many as you need to tell the story. If each image is unique and significant, their attention won’t be far away. On a short residential course I might expect to use 20-30 photos per day.

Resist the urge to tamper with your images too much. You are telling a true story, warts and all, not creating a fantasy master piece. Crop and straighten if you feel you need to but the more ‘raw’ your show is, the closer it will connect with its audience. As tempting as it may be to add captions, funny or otherwise, remember that you are helping the participants reflect on their story not telling your version of it. You wouldn’t make a witty quip after everything that was brought up in a discussion review so there is no need to here.

Engaging the Ears as well as the Eyes

Playing music along side your slideshow achieves a number of effects. As well as discouraging too much discussion, the right piece can trigger memories and help elevate the journey from merely exciting to truly epic.

Methods of playing music during the slideshow vary, from the slick integration of slideshow software to the carefully timed pressing of play on the ancient tape recorder. Don’t fret too much, once it’s playing it will do its job. Do make it loud enough to have an impact, no-one wants to strain to hear it.

If there have been particular pieces of music that have been prevalent during the programme, grab a copy and use them. Perhaps every time you got in a minibus the same chart hit seemed to be playing, or perhaps the same CD has been looping round all week. One last time won’t hurt anybody!

Alternatively choose some tracks that fit the story you are trying to tell. Non-vocal pieces work particularly well, after all, they were designed to tell a story. In particular, soundtracks from films can be particularly moving, the ‘Lord of Rings’ theme suits its own epic story well, and there is no harm in letting little of that rub off on your own.

There are a few tracks that seem appropriate to almost any self-development journey, it’s worth having a copy of them to hand, in case you need to improvise. Labi Siffre’s “Something Inside So Strong” and the recent cover of “Don’t Stop Believing” from the television series Glee have both been to known to reduce hardy outdoor instructors to quiet tears in the right circumstances!

Let It Play

Once you have set up your slideshow, give it a brief introduction and then let it play. There is no need to narrate it, the participants were there, they know what happened and it is more important that they visit their version of the events than hear yours.

If you have anything to say to the group, it’s probably best to do it before you start. Once the slide show ends, they will probably need time to decompress and to parse the emotions they have just felt. It is quite common to have participants in tears, hopefully of happiness and achievement, and they may need a short while to compose themselves. Gradually they will start to talk to each other and comment on what they have just seen, which is after all what review is all about!

Post Script: Useful Music to Accompany your Slideshow

Jurassic Park theme – John Williams, E.T theme – John Williams, Harry Potter Theme – John Williams, Lord of the Rings theme – Howard Shore, Don’t Stop Believing – Glee, Something Inside So Strong – Labi Siffre, You’ve Got a Friend – James Taylor, Kodachrome – Paul Simon, Perfect Day – Lou Reed, Proud – Heather Small

Post Script: Distribution

With the advent of digital images, it is easy to distribute your slide-show to the participants to take home, either for themselves or to show family, colleagues and friends. There are a number of software tools that allow you to knit the whole thing together into a neat package. It is worth remembering that there are rights issues surrounding the distribution of images and of music and it is worth making yourself aware of these and making sure you have the permission of the photographers involved. In practice, on a small scale it doesn’t seem to pose much of a problem. Also consider the issue of confidentiality, is everyone involved happy with the photos going out into the world? There is no easy answer but it is something worthy of thought.

Advice for Apprentices, from Apprentices

Sam — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 11:21:55 +0000

In the last month we’ve had three groups of apprentices through our Personal Learning and Thinking Skills course, challenging themselves and thinking hard about learning in the beautiful surroundings of Snowdonia. With more groups taking on the course in the coming months we asked one cohort to come up with some advice for those that followed in their footsteps. With no prompting from our Development Guides, this is what they produced;

[Click for full size]

While the handwriting is much better than some of our staff, if you can’t read it here is what they have written.

Work together.
Put 100% into everything you do!
Support each other.
Walking boots will be your new best friend!
Find a positive in everything.
Be on point at all times.
You need to each as much as you can.
Stay up beat at all times – a happy group will progress.
Negativity is infectious.
Challenge yourself, you are not doing to die.
You will only ever do this stuff once.
Think outside the box.
Work with [what] you know, work out what you need.
NO restrictions means NO restrictions, use whatever you can.
CAN’T is not a work in your vocabulary.
Sleep a lot.
Get ready to push yourself to the ultimate limit.
Do not argue, resolve instead.
PLAN, do not dive in head first.
Bring supplies! (junk food, fizzy drinks, etc)

We’re not sure about the last one but otherwise I’m not sure we could have written a better list ourselves.

The best way to use the last five minutes of every day

Sam — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 12:54:14 +0000

We use review and reflection a lot at Totem. Experiential learning, which underpins everything we do is not just learning from doing, it’s learning from thinking about doing.

Have you got 5 minutes each day to help improve your life, across the board? This article suggests that it might be a good idea to find the time.

The best way to use the last five minutes of every day.

Via Lorna (again), photo from Slack12′s flickrstream under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

I want to go to work each day to a job I find challenging and satisfying…

Sam — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 09:25:05 +0000

For a project at work, Lorna, a friend of Totem’s was asked to think about her values, what’s important to her and how that influences how and why she does things. She describes her self as “over thinking the answer”. We think she got it spot on.

“I want to go to work each day to a job I find challenging and satisfying…”

How would you describe your values?

Reviewing Method : Verbs

Sam — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 15:53:25 +0000

A quick method for starting out a review (or reviving one that is stalling). Go around the room and ask people to tell the group all the verbs they have been doing today.

e.g.

Climbing, Canoeing, Swimming, Falling, Sliding, Catching, Carrying, Paddling, Shaking….

Alternatively, have them collect them on a flipchart, or white board.

I also find this useful in encouraging people to move from “task” to “process”, by guiding their thoughts towards the non-obvious verbs.

e.g.

Sharing, Arguing, Discussing, Leading, Learning, Helping, Supporting, Plotting, Scheming, etc

It’s a quick, lively, thought provoking exercise that can take on a life of it’s own!

10 Questions to Ask Before Conducting a Review

Sam — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 17:37:03 +0000

Review is a key tool for almost all forms of learning. Whether you call it an “after action report” or a “personal reflection”, we must review our actions if we are to learn from them.

Choosing the right form of review is a skilled task, more art than science. Here are 10 questions to ask yourself before you dive into your next review

1. Do we want to review what just happened?

Sometimes it’s important to review as a group, sometimes it’s best to let the action speak for itself. The individual’s reflection over time may be enough.

2. Are we ready to review yet?

Even if we want to review the action, are the participants in a state where it will be useful? Could they do with more time to process what just happened or are they bursting to share their thoughts?

3. Is this the right time to review?

Even if we feel ready to review what just happened, is it worth leaving until we have eaten or are less tired, or do we need to capture the learning now?

4. Are we in the right location to review?

Sometimes it helps to be at the scene of the action, sometimes some distance is useful. Is this setting inspirational, will it help anchor the learning. Are there distractions and are they useful?

5. Are the right people here to ensure a successful review?

Do we need the whole group here? Should we split into smaller groups? Do some people need to reflect on their own? With or without leaders/trainers?

6. What role will I have in the review?

Should I contribute? Facilitate? Sit quietly? Be absent? Observe?

7. What format and structure will the review take?

Options include: Group discussion, written reports, structured notes, questionnaires, presentations, personal conversations, pictures, slideshows.

8. What tools do I have available to me during the review?

Do I have access to exercises, models, pictures and theories that might help explain my points, or help others to make theirs?

9. Are we going to capture the review for further review?

Is the review of interest to anyone other than the participants? Will they want a chance to revisit the review again later? Will they be building on this review?

10. If we are, how?

Sometimes taking notes is useful, what about video? Is there a formal system in place for reflection that needs to be completed?

Reviewing Technique: Sorry Cards

Sam — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:18:11 +0000

“Always seems to me, that ‘Sorry’ seems to be the hardest word….”

-Elton John and Bernie Taupin

We all know it’s hard to say sorry. Even when we know we are wrong, or have wronged someone else, even when we know we should apologise, it can be the hardest thing in the world to do.

Maybe it’s the loss of face involved, the admission that we are failable. Maybe it’s the fact that we are making ourselves vulnerable to someone else, to scorn or ridicule. Even though we know that most apologies are accepted gracefully, we still have to find some inner strength to find the right words to say.

These Sorry Cards are designed to reduce the barriers to saying sorry. With groups of young people, I introduce them at the start of a course and let them know that they are available should the want them. If they need to apologies to someone they can come and get a card from me, no questions asked and give it to that person. If we have a base to work from I put them somewhere where they can help themselves.

By reducing the need to find the right words for the apology, and by turning it into a simple action, it reduces the feeling of exposing oneself to scorn, rejection or ridicule.

The have a number of different designs to let the giver chose a pattern they like, or think the receiver would like. You could of course create your own, or even get the group to create their own at the start of the course, in case they are needed.

Like all reviewing techniques it doesn’t work with every group, but if you have a fiery group where conflict is common, try it.

PDF: Sorry_Cards

20 in my Twenties

Sam — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:27:58 +0000

I leave my Twenties today. In a moment of reflection I decided to make a list of 20 things that I have achieved and I am proud of that took place in my twenties. They are in in no particular order.

1. Got a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Imperial College.
2. Got married to the lovely Ruth.
3. Started a company.
4. Led the first circumnavigation of the British Virgin Islands by Kayak.
5. Climbed Mt Gioberney.
6. Crossed the Andes on foot.
7. Run the Snowdon Horseshoe.
8. Come 15^th out of 900 in the Round the Island Race.
9. Got my ML, SPA, Level 2 Canoe and Level 3 Kayak.
10. Paddled a 32ft Waterfall in the Mexican Jungle
11. Helped grow a company.
12. Bought a house.
13. Visited the most Northerly, Southerly, Easterly and Westerly points of the UK.
14. Climbed the Old Man of Hoy.
15. Became an Accredited Practitioner of the IOL.
16. Thrown some awesome parties.
17. Changed some young peoples lives.
18. Been published in a Europe-wide magazine.
19. Read over 1000 books.
20. Passed my Driving Test.

I guess I’ll have to manage 30 things in the next 10 years.

10 Years to Save the Earth

Sam — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:30:11 +0000

I turn 30 this month.To mark the occasion, below is an open letter I wrote to my friends…

Dear All,

If you get this you have probably just turned thirty, or are about to in the next few months.

That means that it’s ten years since you turned twenty. Ten years ago the Euro was introduced, the Kosovo War started, Napster was invented, Lance Armstrong won his first of seven Tours de France and the ExxonMobil Corporation merger was completed, heralding the start of the age of super-corporations. Ten years ago, thirty looked a lifetime away.

Now it’s arrived.

You’ve all done some amazing things in that ten years, fallen in love, fallen out of love, got married, had kids, graduated, found first jobs, climbed mountains, saved lives, travelled to a hundred countries and more, invented new technologies, help people live better lives and amused the world.

I am enormously proud of my friends and their achievements. You’ve gained knowledge and skills that have allowed you to do these things and formed relationships to support and challenge you.

And it’s with this in mind we look to the next ten years. Given all you have achieved so far, what’s next? Forty is only ten years away, a lifetime from this end and a flash from the other.

The world still has problems, people still need help and technology is moving ever faster.

I set you this challenge, how are you going the make the world better in the next ten years?

Sam

PDF: 10 Years to Save the World

Edit: Some responses

Review: Let My People Go Surfing

Sam — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 09:38:13 +0000

Let My People Go Surfing
by Yvon Chouinard
The Penguin Press HC
ISBN 978-1594200724

The subtitle of this book is “The education of a reluctant business man” and Yvon Chouinard definitely falls into this category. He practices MBA, or Management by Absence which has meant that everyone in his company has to have a strong idea of what they are trying to achieve. It’s difficult to ask your boss for guidance when he’s halfway up a peak in the Himalaya.

The first half of the book deals with the history of Patagonia, from its start in the back of his truck through to being a multinational equipment and clothing manufacturer.

It should be a tale of how not to do it, with itinerant climbers promoted to senior managers and a staff that has permission to disappear when the surf gets big. However the tale reads as an adventure yarn, with a real feeling of teamwork, tolerance and ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking. Instead of despairing at the ineptitude of the participants, you realise that this may be an alternative way of doing business.

In the late 80s, Patagonia started struggling and Chouinard realised that they had overreached themselves. When he had to lay of 250 of his workers, he decided that he needed to clarify in his own mind why he was running a business. The book goes on to explain the “philosophies” that were created to guide the company onwards.

The philosophies are like a 50 page mission statement, split into categories like “Product Design” and “Environment” and are there to guide any member of the company in making the best decision for the company. While his goals won’t be applicable to anybody else’s company, the process of setting those goals will be. If you want to see how important the environment is to Patagonia, look at their philosophies. If you want to know how they expect their suppliers to be treated, looking at the philosophies.

Every business person who aspires to create, run or work in a business that isn’t a nine-to-five, cubicle farm, sweatshop should read this book.

Links to buy: Patagonia and amazon.co.uk

Team Task: Poker Communication

Sam — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 15:40:59 +0000

Takes 20-30 minutes

Resources

A set of poker chips. 200 in four colours works fine, the less you have in more limited colours, the harder the task will be.

Instructions For Tutor

Give the group a box of poker chips. Tell them

“You have 20 minutes to create a means of transferring a message from one half of the group to the other using only the chips placed on the table.

No paper or pencils are permitted.

After 20 minutes I will split the group in two and half of you will be asked to leave the room. I will give the remaining participants a 20-30 letter message that may involve letters or numbers but no punctuation, which you must pass to the other group using only the poker chips”

Facilitate the creation of the code. This is where the bulk of the team dynamics and personal development takes place as the participants try to refine their aim, then develop the code and finally to ensure that everyoe understands the code.

Use whatever means you like to capture this discussion, we have successfully used video, notes, phrases used jotted on a blackboard and having observers taken from within the group.

When they have a code, split the group into two and send half out of the room. Give the other half a short (20-30 letter) message on a piece of paper and help them encode it.

The messages are best if they have several words, and aren’t too easy to guess once you have 2-3 of the words. We’ve used short Shakespeare quotes and the names of the building we are in.

Invite the other half back in to decode it and ensure that there is no cheating.

Swap the two halves of the group over and try with a different message.

Using it elsewhere

We have used variants of this task in a number of places.

On a beach with different coloured stones.
In a forest using sticks.
On a draughts (checkers) board using the pieces.
In a park using “whatever you can find”.
In a mountain campsite using “the contents of your rucksack”.

Doing it outside makes it a much more physical, tactile task and adds whole new areas of discussion such as role allocation “You go and collect black stones” or even “What shall we use?”.

What have you Bruised Recently?

Sam — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 10:55:39 +0000

We’ve just spent the weekend surfing at Saunton in North Devon. Blue skies and clean waves were conspicuously absent but we did have a lot of fun. I’ve never been board surfing before and I’ve got a new found respect for those who make it look so effortless and easy.

Returning home on Sunday night I realised I was covered in bruises. There is the one on my back from falling off the board into 4 inches of water after I misjudged how far ashore I had come. I’ve got one around my left ankle where my leash pulled tight after I let go of my board while wading out. The one on my chin is the most visible, caused by throwing myself forward onto my board with a little too much vigour.

They might make me a little bit sore but I am proud of my bruises. Really proud. They are like little campaign medals and, to me they represent two things.

The first is the fact that I was learning a new skill. Learning any new physical skill normally results in bruising, aching or stiffness. Is there anyone who has never used the phrase “I’ve discovered muscles I didn’t know I had”? These aches and pains tell us we are moving outside our comfort zone and, quite literally, stretching ourselves.

The second thing that bruises represent is commitment. We all fell off our boards a lot in the surf. However we kept getting back on them, like the adage about falling off a horse. The bruises provide useful feedback that what we did last time didn’t work, so try something else.

Bruises tell you that you are making mistakes, they represent failed attempts at something. However, a core belief of experiential learning is that if we are open minded, we learn as much from our mistakes as we do from success. So with the right attitude, bruises are badges of learning.

Of course, nobody likes getting hurt but you can bruise plenty of other things than your body. Your ego, your confidence, your cashflow, your reputation, your business plan. The good news is, like your body, all these things heal and with a bit of luck, you will be wiser as a result.

So, what have you bruised recently?

Photo from Jules Li’s Flickrstream under Creative Commons License

Anything Could Happen – Participant Profile

Sam — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:04:56 +0000

After our last Anything Can Happen course we asked Mark, one of the participants, to write about his experience on the course. Anything Could Happen is such an unusual course with such a different methodology that it can be difficult for people to see what it’s all about. We hoped that by getting one of the participants to tell their story, it might help others to see what they might get out of it.

He did a fantastic job of describing his experiences, which we’ve presented below. There is also a PDF available for download if you want to print it out and give it to someone who would be interested.

ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN

PARTICIPANT PROFILE :

MARK MORLEY-FLETCHER

About Me:

I’m 30 years old and work for the Civil Service as an analyst; my background is originally in Theoretical Physics. I live in London and I‘m a keen musician in my spare time, but I also spend a reasonable amount of time playing sport and other general outdoor activities.

My Experience of Anything Could Happen:

I didn’t come on the on the Anything Could Happen course with a clearly defined goal in mind – rather, I was keen to see what new things I could learn about myself in an unfamiliar learning environment; I was sure the course would throw up some interesting development opportunities that I was previously unaware of. I also thought that a weekend of outdoor activities in Snowdonia would be enjoyable in its own right.

As such, I didn’t have any firm expectations of the course. I guessed it would probably involve various team building activities along with some more ‘challenging’ outdoor activities along the lines of abseiling, but I wasn’t sure how it would all be tied together or how learning points would be drawn out of it. This was another reason I was interested in the course as I was keen to find this out.

The course packed an awful lot into two days, but some of the main activities included: guiding blindfolded partners; hunting foam animals scattered throughout the town; creating art out of slate; abseiling and climbing; round table debates; creating codes on a chessboard; and building a bridge across a lake.

Each of these activities threw up interesting points, with some of the most revealing being the ones which I had initially expected to be less interesting. For example, I didn’t feel particularly enthused by the idea of slate art, but after being left to get on with it on my own for a while I found myself really getting into it – it ended up being one of the most enjoyable activities for me.

There was definitely a consistent theme to this and it helped me realise how much I can get out of things I wouldn’t usually consider doing once I actually start to engage with them. I also found it very interesting to compare how I approached those less familiar things with how I approached more familiar activities – I think I learned a lot about myself from the similarities and differences in approach.

Overall though, the biggest learning experience for me was the time devoted to group review after all the activities. In the past, I’ve not been particularly inspired by discussions after various development courses; they’ve tended to identify one or two “key” points (usually identified by the leader before the exercise even started) and then moved on. In this case the discussions were longer and I realised that the first few ‘obvious’ learning points which came up were not always the most revealing. Reflecting within the group rather than just individually led to a lot more ideas coming through. Also, there was no “right answer“ for us to take away and in some cases, people got different insights from the same activity. Overall, one of the few regrets I have about the weekend is that there weren’t more hours available in the day so that we could have spent longer on these sessions.

These in-depth reflection sessions were the biggest thing I took away from the course as I determined to think about what I can learn from different situations and experiences more frequently, and to spend longer doing it as well. On top of this I’ve come away with some more specific insights into team work – both on how I go about it myself, and how other people’s approaches can affect things too.

Overall, it was a very enjoyable weekend, packed full of all sorts of different activities (to the point where it felt much longer than just two days) which has provided me with some very deep learning experiences. I’d recommend it to anyone who’s keen to challenge and find out more about themselves – compared to many other development courses it really has the potential to give you some very individual and personal insights. Be prepared to throw yourself into it though; since the outcomes and learning points aren’t fixed, what you get out of it will depend on what you put in.