These first weeks of January mark the return to work for many educators, students, community program and school staff. Whether you are an educator or business professional, January brings the beginning of the year, a new school term, the start of new programs, and for many, a tradition of making resolutions, goals, and personal commitments [...]

Journals come in a choice of three designs: Teach, Tree of Life and Dream (7″x 8″) $13.95 Choose Design:  Teach Tree of Life Dream secure checkout through Paypal, or click here for alternate payment methods Record your team development experiences or track your trainings Time spent reflecting alone, away from the group, balances and supports [...]

Promoting new ways to engage groups in reflective practice has been a personal passion and focus of my work as an educator. From the beginning of my career as an education and clinician in therapeutic and educational settings I noticed that both facilitators and participants often struggle with engaging in reflection. In books, articles and [...]

Latest Wood ‘N’ Barnes Friday Lesson: Thoughts on Sharing Journal Entries With Others Excerpts from The Me I See: Click Here to Read Full Post

Processing in the Middle of the Experience Jen Stanchfield Often when we facilitate reflection with groups, we make time after the experience or lesson is completed to review and reflect. Many educators describe their reflective practice with groups as “debriefing”—a word that originated in the military for the act of eliciting a report from a [...]

Engaging Groups in Meaningful Dialogue and Reflection While Practicing Decision-making and Consensus Building. Jen Stanchfield My last few posts have explored the power of play to help learners build decision-making, and conflict resolution skills. I have emphasized that educators can intentionally “weave in” opportunities for groups to practice these skills throughout their day- to-day lessons. [...]

Just recently I returned from a trip to Ontario where I had the honor of being this year’s guest speaker at the annual Adventureworks! Author’s Symposium.  I  appreciated the positive energy and enthusiasm of everyone who attended my  two workshops: The Art of Experiential Group Facilitation and Teachable Moments : Processing Tools  & Techniques. It [...]

In last Friday’s author’s lesson entry at Wood ‘N’ Barnes I posted: “Bringing Learning to Life Through Reflection”: Last week’s lesson ended with, “The lasting lesson for facilitators is to find ways to help participants and group leaders transfer these successes back to day-to-day participation in school work, or other life activities.” Reflection brings learning [...]