Blindfolded with a rope – learning to be a leader

Walking through the school yard today, you might have noticed some unusual learning. Students were blindfolded and holding onto a rope.  They were students from the Leadership and Organization course – learning.

Their teacher, Sue Tennander, explained the task to me:

“The aim of the ROPE ACTIVITY is to give the students an opportunity to solve a problem as a group. The instructions are that they are to wear blindfolds and make a square using the “object” that they discover in the middle of the circle (which unknown to them from the beginning is a rope).

The activity is filmed and then afterwards we analyse what happened in this process.

The following questions are asked:

– what was your role in solving this activity?

– what other roles could you identify?

– how did you feel about doing this?  … eagerness to get ideas out/ frustration over not being involved etc.

Previous to this activity the students have learned common terminology associated with leadership styles which they are expected to use when describing roles. This activity also leads nicely into the topic of group dynamics which is also taken up on the course.”

Experiential learning at it’s best!