Suzie Savvidou prompts new PG students to "Put the Past in Place"

Interactive in-class exercises to enhance class dynamics

Unlike cognitive and behavioral theories, experiential learning theories claim that learning can be much easier if there is some kind of emotion triggered through experience, instead of being presented with the learning material.

That is why interactive or experiential activities are now becoming very popular in education. They can be used for various purposes: to develop a sense of belongingness, to boost group members’ self-esteem, to create a warm atmosphere, to welcome and integrate new members, to develop trust within the group members or to teach how to set boundaries, develop self-awareness etc.

They can include several parts like an ice-breaking introduction, the ‘main’ activity and if appropriate some ‘closure’.

The exercises that I use focus on building group dynamics, self-esteem and self-awareness in most cases. An efficient one is the ‘Putting the Past in Place’ exercise for Master students which I use to raise self-awareness issues. Students are required to:

• Recall three important childhood and adolescence experiences that have affected their character or their family members’ character
• Explain the effect these experiences had on them and exchange these explanations with classmates
• Identify someone else’s explanation that seems to be positive, healthy and optimistic and elaborate on it deeper and
• Think why and how they learned the ‘pessimistic’ explanatory style explaining their life events

Activities that are based on self-disclosure are not easy, but students find it very helpful to know that their ‘drawbacks’ are similar to everyone else’s and to exchange perceptions of the same event with their classmates and see where they had adopted an unhelpful thinking/perceptual style. They complete the coursework writing about their own and their classmates feelings and explanations and this gives them the opportunity to be assessed for their ‘ability to see why they are who they are’ which is always rewarding.

Obviously, this exercise can be used only within the particular context. But in a more general context with a different purpose (e.g. make the students feel comfortable during an induction session or help introvert students display a relative openness to their new classmates), other exercises can be used and tailored to the needs of the group. When expressiveness is limited or difficult to enhance because it’s a newly formed group, such interactions can make the group potential reasonably stronger.

                                                                                                       

Suzie Savvidou

Department of Psychology