Sep 23, 2022 Group Visioning, Goal Setting and Group Norms Reflection: Three Cards to Tell Our Story

Three Cards to Tell a Story, and a Fourth to Help Us Decide How We Are Going to Get There:

During this time of year, I often use my “Pick-a-Postcard” kit to focus on kicking off the school or program year by reflecting on shared vision, goals, and the practices that will help the group reach them. Metaphorical imagery and objects are my favorite ways to engage learners in meaningful individual or group reflection, goal setting, or creating connection and context to academic or training material.

My “go-to” way to use these tools with groups is collaborative—i.e., inviting the group to agree upon images representing their collective vision or experience together—which becomes a reflection, communication, and team-building experience. The reflective prompt I use to engage in these visioning and norms conversations is “Pick Three Postcards” to tell the story of your journey— and a fourth to represent how you will get there.

• First, lay out a collection of the postcard images (you also could use objects like Miniature Metaphors or your own found images) and invite participants to collaboratively work together to choose three that tell the story of their past, present and future journey. If it is a large group, you can divide them into smaller focus areas (grade level teams, departments on campus, etc.) to engage in this reflection.

~The first card represents where they were at the start of their time together (either when they first came together as a work team or in school settings) a year ago or before the pandemic.

~The second card represents where they are now as a team.

~The third represents where they hope to be in June or this time next year -depending on the group.

This prompt sparks meaningful dialogue and focused collaborative reflection on shared goals and vision beginning essential conversations about the group norms, actions, and behaviors that will help them get to where they want to be.

• When they have agreed upon their “story.” I ask the group or subgroup to share about their postcard image choices. Interestingly when I do this with large groups, and the subgroups come back and share their three choices with the whole group, they often choose some of the same cards.
• At this point, I add a “part two” to the reflection and ask them to collaborate on choosing a card representing how they will get there.

This reflection activity dovetails nicely with an US List Group Norms Reflection (see previous Inspired Educator blog post and Tips & Tools for the Art of Experiential Group Facilitation or Inspired Educator, Inspired Learner books).

Groups often ask to keep these cards hanging up in the shared workspace as a reminder. Or, I follow up my in-person groups with an online experience by posting a picture of their card choices on a Jamboard (Google Whiteboard) along with their “US List” and spaces for them to add ongoing comments on their evolving norms and visioning process.

I also use this technique in one-day professional learning programs halfway through the day to gauge and check where the group is at and spark conversation around shared goals for the remainder of the session. I often follow this activity with Postcard Appreciations and/or a Postcard to Your Future Self as a closing activity.