Reviving the Blog

The act of revisiting this blog has a special sense at this time in mid-January, during a cold and snowy northern Minnesota winter. The sun is slowly and surely lengthening the days as this month goes on. That means it is time to return to the Circle, and pick up some threads that were left over from a previous project in which I explored teambuilding methods, including group drumming, for organizational development. This time around, the thread I want to focus on is how to use debriefing methods to process the experience of a facilitated "percussion-based experiential exercise", to borrow a term from my colleague Keith Russell from the University of Kansas.

Here's a taste of what this semester's project will be "all about":

My research questions are: What are some best practices skilled facilitators use to debrief experiential exercises? What is the funneling facilitation technique? What is it used for, and why?

Which debriefing techniques are most effective in percussion-based experiential exercises (group drumming), and why?

And my learning outcomes: 1) to learn more about debriefing techniques (such as funneling) used in group facilitation. 2) To more effectively facilitate group learning with debriefing methods, and to evaluate their use in percussion-based experiential exercises (group drumming)

As I planned out my project calendar and envisioned how the next few months would go, I got an excited feeling, as well as a lessened feeling of anxiety--funny how filling out a calendar can help you settle into a better mental space. I can see that the pieces of the puzzle should hopefully fall into place to have a successful "journey". I'm already slated to do a percussion-based exercise for a "Traditional Skills Workshop" next month (sponsored by my workplace, Bemidji State University's, Office of Sustainability), and have a couple of other drum circle opportunities in the works. I hope that the synergy between this project and the drum circles continues to build. I am excited about what the next few months will bring!