EXERCISE A

Lecturer : Overview – Rationale and Design

Seminar:

Outcome – icebreaking + perception of other (people, course etc.) + questions on learning

and knowing

negotiate and establish a contract with the students

Objective – clarifications

Knowing eachother

Expectations

Method: Game

Each member is given a peace of paper in which has to write

Name

Complete three of the following phrase in order to describe yourself.:

I am ………… because…………………

what do you expect from WIS and how do you intend to achieve those things.

Reflections on – What feelings are elicited in describing your self to others ( constraints, insecurity, etc.) what have you decided to put forward (for example general positive attitude like friendly, clever etc.) and why , could  it have been otherwise?

(Introduce issues of identity and insecurity)

What the answers tell us about beliefs on learning and education, reactions to WIS: new format, content and method. Feelings and thoughts and students' past experience.

Contribution for next week: reading first chapter of Management Lives and Chapter 2, Having and Being

EXERCISE B

Overview: Learning and Knowing - Having and being

Game:

Teaching as transferral of information/active process of understanding and questioning

Small groups- A : one sender – rest of group receiver. The sender has to describe using just spatial terms a geometrical drawings obscure to the others been as much accurate as possible. The rest of the group cannot ask questions, can show in three established moments the drawings they were able to do following the indications given by the sender. They are not allowed any communication between themselves or with the sender.

B: The sender has the same drawing but this time can give all the indications he or she feels useful and appropriate (example, metaphor or analogy with similar things, use the body etc.) the rest of the group can ask and will receive answer to all relevant questions and the sender is allow to give all the feedback he or she find appropriate at any time

Discussion on what the experience meant in relation to processes of learning. What was valuable in both modes, what we prefer and why.

Seminar:

Outcome- sharing as value and threat

Learning about the others and me with the others on (my) identity

Reflect on our identity being always already positioned in terms of

what people picked up of us and make of us and our behaviour –  having and being

Problematise perceptions and why and how it happens that we appears in a  certain way rather than another.

Game – Each member of the group writes an adjective for each person of the group and for him/herself. All the small pieces of paper are collected and read aloud by the trainer. Anonymity is essential for good results. It is optional to express publicly the choice of adjective.

Take care of possible abreaction under many different forms.

Questions to prompt reflections on the : 1. How much do you recognise yourself in the adjectives attributed to you ? Which one do you accept and which one do you refuse? Which are the adjectives that you believe describe correctly or wrongly other participants?

2. What  have each participants felt in being described by others in that particular way?

3. What effects do you thing this exercise had on the group? What implications and how the participants feel after this exchange?

Questions

Relevant readin : Management Lives, Ch 2 and The Social Construction of Reality

EXERCISE C

Lecture: Core concepts Insecurity and Identity

Game: Expectations, pressures and insecurity- The identity of whom?

Small groups (not more then ten people ):

Each member wear around the forehead a band on which is written an identity that is unknown to them. Next to the identity there is an instruction about the behaviour the others have to follow when interacting with that person.

Examples are:

The leader: follow me

The expert: ask me advice

The stupid: take the micky

The authoritarian: obey!

The looser:

The insignificant: ignored me

Blank

Etc.

The members interact on a certain subject for example discussing a part of the novel used to introduce the concepts, or an article in the paper but having to follow the instructions on the head band. Avoid overdoing, the task is not to tell or to make the person aware of what his or her band says. Be as natural as possible by following the instruction. After about 10 ms. they are allowed to read the band.

Some questions to prompt reflections on relevant issues:

1 What were the problems encounter trying to ‘be your self’ being in the condition of peer pressure? What did actually mean ‘being your self’ in this situation? Double binding?

2 How did you feel to be constantly wrongly understood? For example when the others where laughing at you while you were trying to make a useful or creative point about one of the issue to be discussed?

3 Have you found yourself changing your behaviour in reaction to the treatment the group was giving you?

In the seminar,

Outcome: make sense of issues of identity and insecurity reflecting on our experience and reading.

Vision of first part of Existenz (perhaps swap with exercise during lecture)

Reading : Management Lives, Chs 3 and 4