Mapping Influences: Reflection & Summary

Each participant of the activity gets a paper with a printed human figure in front of a window. For the representation of external factors that might influence the individual, a sun and/or clouds could also enrich the working sheet.

Participants get a printed out human figure with the instruction to fill out: 

• Head- What new concepts did I encounter about identities? /  Did I understand some of the concepts more in depth. 

• Body/Heart – What new perspectives did I acquire about my own identities? What are the relations between them? Did some of my perspectives change? 

• Sun/Cloud/Window- What shapes my identities?

• Arms/Hands-  How do we relate towards diverse and multiple student identities in our own practice? (How do we support the development of students own identities/ How do we support them to express/build new identities)  In what ways do we suppo different student identities? 

• Legs/Feet-  What could I do to be more sensitive about different student identities?  What could I do to raise student’s awareness on their own and the identities of others? What can I do to further support the development of student identities in my own practice?  How could I make my own practice more supportive for building/nurturing different student identities? 

Participants have 15-20 minutes to fill their work material and afterwards a plenary discussion could be done in order to hear different perspectives on the above mentioned topics. There is also a possibility that facilitators take notes and try to group the answers in order to see whether some answers occur more often than others. These critical points could then be tackled more in-depth at a later time. 

This activity was carried out during the WIIIDE workshop in Belgrade in the final phase. It was aimed to reflect on what had been done in the previous days and sessions. In our context the activity served to recall, reflect, and  summarize the participants' experiences from the previous workshop activities.

We see this activity as omnipotent, as it can be used as a stand-alone activity to introduce a new topic or to summarize activities that were carried out beforehand. It also leaves room for adaption and other elements can be included and given different meanings depending on what the aim of the activity is.

In our experience, the activity was quite interesting for the participants as they had the opportunity to present their experiences and realizations about their own identity in a more creative and rather unusual way. Moreover, they also reflected on practices and asked questions about promoting different student identities.