Core components of social-emotional Learning through Play for adolescents

OK, we’re not going to bring together everything we’ve learned into an actual activity. I want you to think back a few weeks ago where you did the activity with Bo and Paul, where they asked you to build a model of a play experience using materials you found around the room. I’ve done a similar activity like that with adolescence, but instead of thinking about a play experience, I’ve asked them to think about a meaningful, joyful experience from their past and build that in a model. There are five main steps that you need to think about as you do activities with adolescence. Step one is to think about Why.

Why are you doing this activity and what does it actually mean for adolescence? When I’ve done this activity previously, the reason I’ve done it is because the adolescents that I was working, with had a hard time applying their previous experiences to where they are today. So that was the Why for doing this activity. Step two is really to think about what are the developmental tasks that you’re addressing through this activity. Because this activity is focused on where adolescents have been and how does that affect the identity today, it’s focused on standing out. On adolescence forming that sense of identity.

Step three is really to think about what are the social emotional skills and competencies that you’re actually addressing through the activity. Because this activity is focused on the past and reflection on the awareness of the past and how it applies to the future into the present, I would say it focuses on self awareness as the primary social-emotional skill or competency. Step four is to think about Learning through Play and the five characteristics of Learning through Play and how those actually fit in here. Inherently, this activity is meaningful and joyful. It asks adolescents to think about a meaningful or joyful past experience and run around the room, collect things and build a model.

That’s meaningful and joyful for a lot of adolescents. Now, what about the other three Learning through play characteristics? Well, you can make it socially interactive by asking adolescence to pair up and share their model, or to do a Gallery walk where adolescents put their models across the room. Or if you’re on a teleconferencing platform, you could also ask adolescents to take turns sharing. You could also make it iterative by asking adolescents to breakdown their model and maybe build it up, but this time with the materials that a friend has used instead of their own.

And you could also make it actively engaging by maybe extending the activity over multiple days and asking adolescents to do a skit or a movie or shoot a video about that experience that they had. Step five, and this is probably the most important when you’re working in facilitating sessions with adolescence, is to think about the reflection questions. The debrief questions that you work on with adolescence. The What - So what, and Now what questions. Great will you walk us through those? Yeah, so the What questions are really focused on adolescents reflecting on what they experienced while doing the activity. So these can be questions like “What did you find hard or easy?” “How did this activity make you feel?”

The So what questions are focused on adolescents thinking about how the experience in the activity relates to their life. So these could be questions like, “Why did you choose this specific activity to talk about?” Or “Are there other experiences that are similar to this one that you would like to share with the group?” The Now what questions are really focused on adolescents thinking about how they apply, what they’ve learned in different situations in the future. Really asking adolescents to think about when, how, why they would like to apply these skills that they are learning. So you could ask adolescents questions like “If you were to do this activity again, what would you do differently?”

or “Now that we focused on this skill, how would you apply it in the future?” So those are the What, So what? and Now what questions and they should really form the foundation for any reflection or debrief that we do in activities with adolescence. So I’d like you to go onto the next step and there you’ll find a couple of videos they’re not too long, but I’d like you to watch these videos and think about if you were to facilitate a reflection or debrief session with adolescence. What are the What?, So what? And now what? questions that you would ask adolescence about those activities.