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Student Reflections: Project Planning

Our Edventure Start-Up Students are reflecting on different aspects of themselves…

By Zoe Houghton

DAY BY DAY VIEW…

Wednesday…

This phase began on Wednesday afternoon after we had presented our ideas to Johannas, Sam and Amelia, and the rest of the group. It was amazing to see how far we had come with our individual presenting skills. We felt relaxed and confident and the Edventure team were very impressed. However, the review session with Sam afterwards made our brains go from calm →  frazzled as she seemed to have many ideas of her own, and instead of continuing the flow of our condensed ideas, she opened up all of the potential possibilities of what could be achieved a lot wider than we had anticipated!

So, Wednesday morning began with a check in about how we felt about Tuesday’s entire session. It seemed that in general the group felt overwhelmed and thankfully, we found out that Johannas had distilled both ours and her plans the previous night, ready to give us a brief to go into the next phase. Then after lunch, we dived into the process of transforming ideas into plans…

Thursday…

On Thursday morning we organised our “to do” lists into weekly plans. Using post – it notes and a piece of paper representing each week, we began to create timelines. We had arranged the tasks into categories the previous day, and we broke into 5 teams to start noting ideas of what needed to happen when. The smaller teams then all came together to explain what they had decided on the time scale of now only 5 more weeks to go! The afternoon of the end of the week ended how it usually does, with an activity to decompress and review, facilitated by Amelia. This activity included each of us making our own pie shape out of circles, and dividing it into slices of advice for ourselves, as a source of self – help, so that we can be our best, thriving selves for the rest of the Edventure course. We found this to be a really therapeutic exercise, and then afterwards talked about what qualities we wanted to bring into next week working together.

Photo of the qualities we decided we wanted to bring to the next week.

Monday…

On Monday morning we were assigned the task of curating roles for all the different things that needed to be done after putting them into categories. The group divided into their small teams again to come up with roles, which were then presented to the group, although we didn’t feel like we left enough time – only 10 minutes! In the afternoon, we had a guest called Andy come in to do personality tests with us, using “colour energies” and trying to see which people resonated with what colours the most. He did this by encouraging the group to work both individually, and to give personal feedback to the rest of their team members, in an aim for people to understand what kind of roles might suit them the most. We found that this was fun and a nice way to empower people with positive feedback. We did however feel that putting people into categories can also be limiting, and that, actually we may in fact resonate with many different ‘colour energies’ at different times in our lives.

Feedback from Tammie, Edventure student, for the session with Andy:

“I found that looking at the different aspects of myself and what that means to what I bring to a role really insightful, and has really helped me look at what aspects I can really draw on and what areas I need to develop and be kind to myself with.”

A photo of the chart representing elements of each colour energy.

Cards that we gave each other feedback with.

Tuesday…

The BIG DAY! On Monday night we were assigned the homework of deciding what role we wanted and why- categorised into our top 3, and on Tuesday morning we each had to “sell ourselves” to the group of what roles we wanted. The next part was awkward and tricky, to say the least, as a lot of people wanted similar roles and it felt quite confrontational to put people up against each other with everyone in the room. However, the team handled it really well, and we were all kind, reasonable and respectful in our insights and choices. After almost 4 hours of decisions, and Amelia and Zak facilitating, we were finally assigned to our roles, and not only roles we were good at, but also ones we wanted, so in general, everyone left the ‘interview day’ feeling satisfied. Then after lunch, it was straight into planning our 3rd presentation!!

Photo of the roles, and peoples names with choices 1, 2, or 3 on it.

Wednesday and Thursday …

On Wednesday morning the team put together a presentation where they described what roles they had decided, and what needed to be done by when, with key dates and rough plans. The team divided into lead and co-lead roles to do this, and in general we found that we felt a lot more relaxed for this presentation. Amelia, Johannas and Sam were impressed, and left us, this time, with more digestible feedback than last time, so that we could crack on with the doing, and enter the next phase ready with energy and enthusiasm for “action”.

Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning involved us diving into our tasks, and fulfilling our roles, and then on Thursday afternoon, as per custom, we had our weekly review, but in a new and greener setting. The team went to a nearby wild forest spot to build a fire, share food, and feedback on this phase, and how we felt moving into our “independent” roles. This afternoon was our favourite so far, being so nature-based as a group, we found it a highly nourishing experience!