Post-group Facilitation Reflection #1

This morning, I co-facilitated a group session on the topic “relating to others in a group.” Overall, I feel like the session and activity were successful, and that the members enjoyed it. I even overheard one member say, “I wish we could do this with our whole class!” I think that the introduction of our session was good, but I was nervous. Although I have been with these same people since starting OT school, I still get nervous when talking in front of people. My co-facilitator, Meghan and I, introduced ourselves, let our members introduce themselves, and facilitated a warm-up activity before our actual activity. I feel like I could have outlined the way that the group was going to go more explicitly in this introduction.

I think that Meghan explained the activity well, provided an example of what would happen, and used appropriate timing/materials. We set up in advance, and I felt that we were prepared for the session. The sharing step in the group process was involved in our activity, and Meghan mentioned that members were allowed to pass if they did not want to share during the activity. I think that we encouraged group interaction in our activity, but made the members feel like they did not have to if they did not want to. Every member participated in our activity, and no one chose to pass. In addition, I think that we inspired confidence in our group because we also participated in the activity. We did not simply watch them complete the activity, but we also read statements and explained how we related to them as well.

For me, I think the most important part of our activity was the processing and generalizing part. We allowed the group members to examine their similarities and differences, and we provided questions to get our members to critically think about why relating to others is an important skill. It surprised me how long it would take for each person to read a statement, and share how/why they agree. When Meghan and I were planning it, we thought that our members would go through it quicker. This could be because of the fact that our members already knew each other and were more willing to share their experiences and thoughts with the group. We were presently surprised that all of the members participated and discussed their experiences with each statement!

One part of our group facilitation that I think we could have improved is our summary. We could have reiterated the goals of the activity better, and summarized what was learned in the activity. Some of the strengths that I believe the session had were that our activity was creative, the members had a good time, and I think that the activity was well laid-out. I feel like I could have improved my confidence and explained more in the introduction about the goals for the activity. Overall, I think our group session was successful. Having experienced myself in this leadership position, I feel like I am better equipped for when I have to lead a group session as an OT in the future. Going forward, for the next presentation, I will make sure that I clearly state the outline of the session up front, work on improving my public speaking skills, and close with a summary of the goals and material gained.