The exercise is designed to gather and understand diverse perspectives and backgrounds of participants, which helps in setting a foundation for discussions on diversity and inclusion. It aligns well with the objectives of creating psychological safety and fostering an inclusive environment through a better understanding of the group’s expectations and experiences.
The activity is highly adaptable and can serve as a useful tool for both school leaders and teaching staff, helping to strengthen team dynamics and enhance communication within educational institutions.
Facilitator’s guidelines: At the start of the exercise, divide the participants into as many teams as there are categories of information you want. Assign each team to a different topic. For example: definition of school leadership, desired outcomes from today’s training, summary of most common cultural dilemmas in education, why is an inclusive school desirable, etc. (add more as desired, related to the various training topics)
Ask the teams to retire to convenient corners and spend 3 minutes devising a strategy for efficiently collecting the information from all participants. Warn everyone that the total time for collecting all the data will be only 3 minutes.
Announce the beginning of the data collection period. Ask the teams to collect the data (using whatever strategies they devised earlier) within the next 3 minutes. Step back to avoid being trampled in the hectic rush to interview each other.
After 3 minutes, call time. Ask the teams to retire to their corners, process the data, and produce a summary report on a transparency or a poster.
After 3 minutes, announce the start of the show-and-tell period. Call on teams in a random order and give each team a minute to make its presentation.
Website: https://thiagi.net/workshops/albany2013brochure.pdf
