Method 4: Reciprocally (Reciprocal activity, trust)

(State of mind for engaging in dialogue, Reciprocal activity, dialogue scene 5, in English 4)

The goal is to learn how to act in a reciprocal manner when engaged in dialogue and collaborative knowledge creation. The objective is to awaken oneself to reciprocity and to be able to act in a way that demonstrates reciprocity.

Instructions

• The participants form groups of 3-4 persons (the groups must be different from the ones in the previous exercises).
• By drawing and writing on a flip chart, each group describes a group where the participants' activities are reciprocal.
• Each participant gets a turn to continue the drawing. They add one aspect to the picture while explaining what they are drawing and talking about it with the others.
• One by one, the participants add to the picture a small action that demonstrates reciprocity in dialogue and collaborative knowledge creation.
• These actions can be either verbal or non-verbal communication.
• These actions include the content of one's speech, the facial expressions, gestures, body lan-guage as a whole, the tone of voice, its volume and how the speaker stresses their words.
• When the picture is finished, each participant evaluates their activity in relation to the reciprocal activities displayed in the picture on scale from 4 (very little) to 10 (very much).
• The groups develop means that will help the participants increase their reciprocal activities.

Reflection in the learning community: The whole group jointly reflects upon their experiences of the task and thinking that it caused. One useful question for this reflection is ”What did you become aware of during this task?” Another, more demanding question, is ”What did you learn from this task?” The purpose of the reflection is that several participants, not only some, share their thinking and experiences. When the reflection part is completed, every participant has gained an understanding of reciprocity in dialogue and knowledge creation, which enables them to continue practising in real life situations.