The forelast trip – a teaching trip in Donevann – started monday noon when we came together at the Gapahuks at Donevann to prepare the 9 activities for the next three days. We had time until 6 pm to make everything ready for the students. Plan for the week was that there would be a group of 50-60 college students arriving every evening at 6. Then we would do 3-4 activities with them before they had dinner. The next morning they were supposed to do the rest of the activities.

As all students from the first group had arrived, we recognized that there were only around 40 people in the group, so we removed the chicken game from our list of activities. We matched the small groups of 4 to 6 students to the different activities and started teaching. Martin’s and my activity for the first group was canoeing. Initially, we taught them the basic paddling technique and safety rules on shore, before going out on the lake to exercise these techniques practically. After everybody knew how to steer and to paddle, they made a relay race three rounds on the track we had been preparing before they arrived. First, they had to go through a slalom, around the island and back to the shore where they had to turn 180° and paddle half the way backwards. Most of the groups did a very good job so we could stick to our plan. They worked well as a team and also helped each other if one of the boats had problems with steering or something else. With the groups that needed more time to learn the basic techiniques, we made the race shorter. With one of the groups with just three students, we decided to make a short trip around the lake instead of the relay since it was not possible with just one boat.

In the evening and in the morning as well no one capsized, even if most of them almost fell in while trying to get in or out of the boat with dry feet.

The canoeing was a really great activity. I could see the big progress all of the students achieved in this short period of time, what motivated me even more. Also the guys that were scared of the water went in the caonoes and had a great time and were very thankful for having it.

After the first group left at 1 pm, we had a long lunchbreak until 6, where we just enjoyed the sun and prepared the next activity.

For the next group, Martin and I were told off to the „minefield“ activity. The task at this activity was to blindfold one of the group while one of the others led him through a parkour Jill and Amy had rigged up the day before, including crawling, limbo and putting the laundry on a rope. Everyone had to pass the parkour at least three times. In the first round, the leader was allowed to lead one by taking him by the hand and talking to him. In the second round he was just allowed to talk to the guy who was blindfolded and in the third round it was the same as in round two, but two or three blindfolded students were competing against each other at the same time.

After the first groups we recognised that some were a little bit bored in round 1, so we decided to let two of them go through the parkour at the same time. After round 1 the fun started and we saw some harmless  crashs, what made all of the students enjoying the activity even more. Especially in round three many of them had problems to lead the blindfolded guys just by their voice because two or three people were screaming or laughing at the same time. There was just one group that used beside talking snipping to lead their teammates.

I am glad that all the crashes happened without any injuries. It was an activity where having fun had priority and that was definitely the case! In addition, this activity was a great possibility to socialise with the students and get to know them more closely due to the relaxed atmosphere and the groups not being busy with the task all the time.

With the last of the three groups Martin and I did the shelter building activity. At this activity we just explained them what the task was and judged their shelters afterwards (inductive learning). We had plenty of time to talk to the students and get to know if they liked their day in Donevann or not. They were all very happy spending the day and the night outdoors. In the last five minutes we talked with them about their shelter, what was good, what they should mind if they would do it again and what they would have to improve. Some groups made a very good job. They were organised and knew what they wanted to bulid, while other groups seemed helpless without any organisation and an idea what to do. Of course we gave those groups some advice so that every group in the end had a more or less good shelter. But all in all I was impressed what they were able to built in such short time and how good their group cohesion was.

As the third group left on thursday noon, we dismantled the activities and walked back to the parking lot together.

At our short briefing around the fire place, I heard that all of us were satisfied with the procedure. It was a great experience to work with students from 17-19 years where almost all of them were happy to spent the day with us. It was also nice to see that also all of our groups really enjoyed it to spend the time with the students outside in these perfect conditions. It was not always easy to satisfy the whole group because there were so many different individuals, but that is exactly one important point that makes it so interesting to work with big heterogeneous groups. You really get to work on yours skills to motivate different people in different situations. I would definitely like to do this kind of work more often – in university as well as in private.