Using Adventure-based Activities
for Change
Dr Christian M. Itin
ci3@humboldt.edu
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Experiential Learning Cycle
Adapted from Dewey
What? So What? Now What?
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Experiential Learning Process
• Experiential Learning is best considered as a learning process that happens for an individual involved in direct experience.
• Stehno (1986), in reviewing seven models of experiential learning, indicated that each includes: 1) action that creates an experience, 2) reflection on the action and experience, 3) abstractions drawn from the reflection, 4)
application of the abstraction to a new experience or action.
– Concrete Experience - An action or interaction between the student and either the environment, subject or teacher.
– Reflection - The action is considered either through observation, reflection, discussion or some combination of these.
– Abstract Conceptualization - Deriving some meaning or knowing from the experience. Integrating previously generated knowledge (wisdom) with this new experience.
– Application - Testing the deductions made or applying what has been learned from the experience to new experiences.
Central Elements of
Adventure-based Practice
• The Unknown – Adventure is first and foremost an exploration of
the unknown. Life is by definition unknown in its course and
direction. Adventure is about actively engaging in this unknown
and exploring how to live/work/play in it. This exploration is often
framed in the context of exploring beyond an individuals comfort
zone. There can be many emotions experienced in the exploration
of one ’ s comfort zone but often there is both fear and excitement.
Those who explore their comfort zone can discover that what is
known and comfortable may not be the healthiest or best. In
exploring outside one ’ s comfort zone new experiences, resources,
and opportunities are available. In this exploration individuals and
groups often discover they are capable of more than previously
believed.
Central Elements of
Adventure-based Practice
• Action Orientation – Life requires action to live
it fully. Life is not simply about talking about
life. Participants and leaders are engaged in
an active process that requires everyone to
take action. One can not simply talk about
change or action in an adventure experience
actual movement is required.
Central Elements of
Adventure-based Practice
• Challenge and Difficulty – Life is difficult. The
active exploration of the unknown presents
challenges and difficulties. Adventure
activities provide opportunities for
participants to explore these challenges and
difficulties and learn about how one engages
these elements in ones life. New skills can be
developed in problem solving and dealing
with the challenges presented by life.
Central Elements of
Adventure-based Practice
• The Practitioner takes an Active Stance – The
practitioner in the adventure context is actively
involved in presenting challenges, being a
resource and providing necessary information. In
many adventure activities the practitioner faces
the same challenges and obstacles that the
participants face. Participants and Practitioners
are involved in a shared adventure and therefore
there are opportunities for developing shared
relationships.
Central Elements of
Adventure-based Practice
• Opportunity for Genuine Community – Life in the
human context is not lived in isolation. Human ’ s are
my their very being social animals. Adventure calls
forth on people to be active members of their
community. Participants are challenged to participate
fully, called on to be ready to make personal sacrifice,
encouraged not to give up on themselves or others,
dared to find creative solutions to problems, motivated
to strive toward attainable goals, and inspired to be
compassionate with each other. In this way adventure
offers the opportunity for participants to discover the
power of community in the empowerment and change
process.
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Experiential Education
• The Association for Experiential Education defines
“experiential education [as] a philosophy and
methodology in which educators purposefully
engage with learners in direct experience and
focused reflection in order to increase knowledge,
develop skills and clarify values.”
(http://aee.org/customer/pages.php?pageid=47)
• What is clear from this definition is that experiential
learning is a part of experiential education but is
more about the transactive process between
educator and learner.
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A Model of Experiential Education
• What follows is a model of experiential education
that I have published. It attempts to reflect the
nature of the philosophy of EE. The transactive
nature of the relationship between learner, educator,
content and environment organized around a
common shared experience are central to the model.
• The model is presented here to help expose the
relationship between EE and EL.
(Itin, C. M. (1999). Reasserting the philosophy of experiential education as a vehicle for change in the 21st century. Journal of Experiential Education, 22(2), 91-98.)
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Double Diamond Model of
Experiential Education
Application Reflection
Abstract Conceptualization
Application
Concrete Experience
Reflection
Abstract Conceptualization Learning Environment
(Physical setting, other students, geo-political- social-economic systems)
Teaching Process (Includes establishing
teaching/learning goals, tailoring material for students,
delivering the material in a manner
appropriate to the content, and understanding how students interpreted
the content and process)
Subject Matter (The content or topic area, the pre-existing knowledge of the
material) Concrete
Experience
Learner Educator
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Facilitation as an
Exchange of Gifts
Client’s Gift
Practitioner Receives Gift
Practitioner Engages in the Gift Giving Process
Client Receives Practitioner’s Gift
The client brings a concern to the relationship to work on, this is their gift. The potential solution is the practitioner’s gift.
The Process
• The relationship between client (individual
group, family, etc) and practitioner involves a
transactive exchange.
• Each person brings something to the exchange
and receives something.
• This exchange is really an exchange of gifts.
• It is a process that is ongoing – a gift is given, a
gift is received, a gift is given in response and
so on and so on.
The Client ’ s Gift
• The client brings the gift of an unmet need, an
unsuccessful solution to a problem, a request
for more information or some other concern
that the client has not been able to resolve.
• If the client did not bring these gift there
would be no need for the facilitator/client
relationship.
• The client comes to the relationship looking
for something.
The Practitioner ’ s Gift
• The practitioner brings the potential of
helping the client explore the concern in a
new way.
• The potential for helping the client to find
what they are looking for.
• The practitioner ’ s gift is offered as something
that is hopefully useful to the client ’ s quest.
The Practitioner ’ s Gift
• The gift is the potential, the opportunity – it is
NOT the solution
• The gift is the intent of the practitioner – that
is what the practitioner is offering as the
opportunity to explore the need in a new way.
• The gift is NOT the activity – it is the intent
behind the activity.
The Practitioner ’ s Gift
• Understanding that the core of the gift is the intent or
goal – that is what need, the opportunity of a new
solution, the information or concern is the gift
addressing.
– If the client has given the gift of difficulty maintaining
boundaries - the gift might related to experiencing healthy
boundaries.
– If the client has given the gift that aggression get ’ s me
listened to – the gift might relate the experience of being
listened to in a non-aggressive way.
– If the client has given the gift of internal competition is
not helpful to developing teamwork, - the gift might
relate to exploring cooperation within a team.
The Role of Facilitator
• Utilization – The facilitator must use anything and
everything that the client provides.
– The gifts the client brings to the relationship provide
useful information.
– Who the client is, what they value, what motivates
them, what they believe in, and how they understand
the world are all a part of the gift clients bring to the
relationship.
– Building on what is working, using what already is
working.
– Using what is (not what one wishes).
Role of the Facilitator
• Maintaining a response ready stance. Able
and ready to receive to any gift given by the
client – without being thrown off balance.
– Acuity – able to pick up on the gifts that are
imbedded in the transaction.
– Building the capacity to see, hear, and feel the
information being provided by clients.
Role of Facilitator
• Maintaining a create experience stance –
ready and able to offer gifts that create new
experience
– Change and cooperation is inevitable – nothing
stays the same.
– Resistance is not a useful concept
– You don ’ t need to know a great deal to offer gifts
back to the client.
The Gift Giving Process
• The way that the gift is given is as important as
the gift – but the process must include a gift.
• The process must include making the gift unique,
special, and tailored to the client. The
opportunity to experience boundaries or being
listened to are generic – how are they made
unique to this client.
• The way the gift is gift wrapped and presented to
the client is as important as the gift.
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Selecting the Gift/Goal
– "What do I want to communicate to the client or client group?"
– "What is my objective, what is the desired result for the client or client group?" – "What information is desired/needed by the client or client group?"
• Based on the goals of the client, the content of the program, the learning environment and previous experiences with the client the practitioner selects an appropriate
gift/goal. It is our skill that allows s to identify/receive the concern (gift) that the client is sharing. Our intervention (gift) is chosen for the client based on our interpretation of the concern (this does not mean the client is not involved in the process, rather we are focusing on the active stance of the practitioner). The setting of a goal is the beginning of the process, but it is essential to see this as an ongoing process. It is also possible to set goals at multiple levels (e.g. for the program, for the day, for the group, for an individual person).
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Tailoring the Gift
– "How do I individualize the intervention to the client and the client group?" – "What are the values, beliefs, position of the client and the client group?" – "How do I make this gift unique to this client and client group?"
• This is about making the gift (the goal) and the gift wrapping specific for the client. How do we make it a unique and meaningful present just for them? This is the
process of using specific and direct information for the clients experience. It is about drawing upon the client's own language and their world view. This again goes back to the ability of the practitioner to develop a good understanding of who their client is and what their motivations are. Tailoring allows us to make interventions isomorphic or having the same form as the clients experience. If the intervention is related to the client experience it will allow them to utilize it more easily.
Elements of Tailoring
• Culture
• Language
• Learning/processing Style
• Family History/Family Structure
• Motivation
• Personal/Group - Narrative/Metaphor
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Gift Wrapping
– "How do I want to communicate the goal to the client (how do I present the gift)?" – "What methods will I use to communicate the goal or subgoal?"
• The concern or the reason the client is in or program is the gift the client brings to the exchange. The way they present their gift is their gift wrapping and it is
recursive (it repeats itself in slightly varying forms). The client will present the material for intervention in many forms, using different gift wrapping. Similarly, we must be able to present the goal in different ways to increase the chances that the gift is explored. In the experiential context the gift wrapping includes both the choice of introduction and activities. Activities can be introduced in many ways from letting the experience speak for itself to the use of hypnotic language. Likewise, there are many activities that can be used to explore a specific goal. The practitioner must package the goal in a way that it is most likely to be received by the client.
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Key Elements of Gift Wrapping
• Choice of Activity or Experience - Creating the experience often includes some activity – the nature and type of activity are all important
• Set-up of Activity – the rules and consequences of an activity are all adaptable – playing with these and making them reflective of the gift are critical.
• The Facilitation Strategy – There are multiple approaches to
facilitation from the seven generations associated with adventure work to appreciative inquiry, Opening, Narrowing, Closing (ONC), guiding through the decision making process.
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Seven Generations of
Gift Wrapping
Adapted from Priest and Gass
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1st Generation -
Letting the Experience Speak for Itself
• Involves simply doing the activity or experience with minimal
introduction except for the logistics or safety information. There is little to no structured processing before or after the activity.
Participants will generally have fun with this level of facilitation and will learn lessons, though they may not be clear to the facilitator (or client). It is also the case that they may have fun, but learn little that is applicable to the reason they are engaging in a program. When the experience is an extremely powerful one (such as summating on a peak) it is often best to let the experience speak for itself (at least initially).
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2nd Generation -
Speaking for the Experience
• The activity is introduced in a similar manner to the 1st
generation, but it is debriefed differently. The facilitator tells the participants what they have or should have learned from the activity. This is a good approach to avoid "fishing trips" Where the facilitator goes looking for a specific response. It is also useful for pointing out safety or other negative actions that the facilitator wants participants to avoid in the future. It does
however prevent participants from doing their own reflection; it can be disempowering, and can alienate the facilitator from the client (especially if the facilitator's observations are very different from the participants’).
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3rd Generation -
Debriefing the Experience
• Generally the activity is introduced in much the same way as the first two generations, but the activity is consciously processed afterward. Debriefing asks the participants to reflect, make abstract
conceptualizations and apply them to future situations. In essence the facilitator guides the participants through the experiential
learning process. There are many resources on debriefing and facilitation of the learning process, but at the core of all of them understands the experiential learning process. Debriefing can be verbal, can use props (talking sticks, chi cards), use expressive arts (art, poetry, etc), and many other approaches.
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4th Generation -
Frontloading the Experience (direct)
• In this generation the facilitator may tell the participants before the experience how the activity should progress, or what they can use it for. The participants might also revisit what they have learned in previous activities, or the objectives they have set for themselves in the program, their own motivations, or what they would like to see happen in the activity. The focus is on encouraging the participant to make conscious decisions about how they are going to go into the activity and what they are going to do. The focus of the facilitator is to directly tell participants what they should attempt to pay attention to.
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5th Generation -
Framing the Experience (Metaphor)
• The activity is introduced isomorphically (mirroring) the participants' previous experience (in the program, in life, or other domains) with opportunities for the participants to make changes in the direction that they have stated. The more isomorphic the experience (the
more closely the metaphor matches the participants' experience) the less debriefing that will be necessary. The lessons learned will be available to the participants in their reflection.
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6th Generation -
Frontloading the Experience (Indirect/Paradoxical)
• The experience is introduced in such a way that the actual intent of the facilitator is unclear. Common techniques in this approach include
predicting client behavior that may not be consistent with their goal (e.g. I suspect that when things get hard you will sit down and give up). Another common technique is the prescription of a symptom (e.g. if someone has a tendency to be negative the facilitator my only allow them to be negative, or ask them to be negative for a certain period of time). These approaches often create a therapeutic double bind, in that if the participant sits down they have done what the facilitator predicted and if they don't they have
likely worked toward their goal. These approaches must be used cautiously and must come from a genuine understanding of the participant and desire for them to succeed.
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7th Generation -
Flagging the Experience
• In this generation the facilitator uses elements of hypnotic language to help participants mark a path for the unconscious mind to provide
resources for the resolution of an issue or address a goal. Participants are naturally absorbed in activities; hypnotic language helps clients use this natural absorption to access the untapped resources of the unconscious mind. For example absorbing someone in the natural trance state that often develops when dealing with height can be useful in helping clients find the internal resources to continue to move in a rock climb or high element.
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Processing the Exchange
– "How is the gift given to the client?" – "How is the gift received by the client?"
– "How does the therapy become a significant event?"
• We are not speaking of debriefing the experience but rather making the intervention a process. Processing is more about seeing the
experience as an ongoing process, and being ready to respond to this process. We are presented with a gift by the client, we receive the gift and then formulate a gift to give back in return. We customize the both the gift and the packaging so that it is best able to be received by the client. We will then be presented with a gift back from our client. This information cycles back into the processes.
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Value of Activity
• 1) Pleasure and Creativity - value of fun.
• 2) Assessment of needs & group interaction - direct assessment rather than what is said.
• 3) Communication of feelings, ideas, experiences - the value of non-verbal
communication and using activity to extend communication in the verbal domain.
• 4) Understanding selves in situation - contextual learning.
• 5) Development of Relationships & Cohesiveness - actual opportunity to work collaboratively.
• 6) Giving to Others - practicing mutual aid.
• 7) Competence and Self-esteem Development - experience of success, mastery, self-efficacy.
• 8) Competence in Decision Making - experience with the problem solving process.
• 9) Opportunity to make change in the environment - empowerment
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Types of Programming and
Associated Change
Program Type Type of Change
Recreation Change in feelings – particularly aimed at increasing pleasurable feelings
Education Change in thinking – in cludes generating new awareness, exposure to new skills and ideas.
Prevention, Developmental & Therapeutic*
Change in behavior – both increasing functional beh aviors and positive actions and reducing dysfunctional and negative actions Therapy Change in meta-process – beh aviors, cognition’s, and
unconscious processes that impede or support therapeutic change.
* Prevention, Developmental and Therapeutic programs are all directed at changing behaviors. However the nature of the clientele and often the system level are different. Developmental programs are often ai med at employment situations and youth while therapeutic programs are aimed at internalized elements of social problems. Many developmental & therapeutic p rograms are increasingly looked as prevention.
Adapted from Priest and Gass
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Example:
Recreation - Therapeutic
• A person working with addiction joins a gym that has a climbing
wall and takes lessons to learn to climb and discovers the capacity
to move through obstacles in his/her life. (Recreational Program –
Therapeutic Impact for Client)• A person working with addiction is in an outpatient treatment
group that uses the organizations climbing wall to explore how they
approach obstacles in their recovery. Clients are invited to explore
how they seek out support, use sponsorship, and ask for help to
address these obstacles in recovery through climbing. (Therapeutic
Program – Therapeutic Impact for the Client)• A person with an addiction is in an outpatient treatment program,
the group uses the climbing wall as one of the therapeutic groups –
however addiction or recovery are never explored – the focus is to
get to the top of the climbing wall, to have fun, (Therapeutic
Program – Recreational Impact for the Client)
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Lewin’s Change Model
Unfreeze
Refreeze Change
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Use of Activity
• Change Agent/Catalyst for Change – The activity
produces change or the unfreezing/refreezing
process.
• Initiator of Discussion – The activity serves as
something to talk about and/or learn from.
• Context for Group Work - Group work is seen as
happening in and around the activity, not necessarily
through the activity.
Adapted from Hoyer (personal communication 10/27/06)
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Group Process - Beginning Stages
of Group (Forming)
• Major Tasks - Orientation; Making it a safe place (trust); Establish ground rules; Gaining familiarity.
• Major Questions - Who is this group and who am I in this group? Do I want to be a member of this group? Will this group accept me? Can I accept this group?
• Major Challenges - Going to deep too fast; Focusing too much on
difference not focusing enough on similarities; Not enough direction from the leader; Major trust issues.
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Group Process - Early Middle Stages
of Group (Norming/Storming)
• Major Tasks - Internal leadership; Decision making; Conflict resolution, Norms; Culture; Trust; Role acquisition
• Major Questions - Will I lead? Who will I follow? Who will lead? What are the norms of this group?
• Major Challenges - Approach/Avoidance; Unresolved conflict; Incompatible norms/values
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Group Process - Late Middle Stages of
Group (Performing)
• Major Tasks - Resolution to early middle work; Accomplishing
meaningful work in both the task and process domains, Balancing task and process, Accomplishing mutual aid; Achieving intimacy; Achieving autonomy as a group.
• Major Questions - How can we become even better, more efficient and more effective? How can we be the best we can be? How can we help each other grow?
• Major Concerns - New challenges beyond the scope of what the group has accomplished; Changes in group membership.
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Group Process - Ending Stages of
Group
• Major Tasks - Saying good bye; Making meaning of the experience; Transfer of learning; Celebration
• Major Questions - What did I really do/accomplish in this group? Was my participation meaningful and beneficial? How will I remember/use the experience form this group?
• Major Challenges - Grief and loss issues (anger, denial, sadness); Insufficient attention to ending
