Renee Duijzer
Chapter 2.2 was the second part of the lecture.
First I explained the theoretical background about this chapter. This contained the technocratic pitfall, populist pitfall and the emotional deliberation. At the end I gave my own opinion on the matter. Personally I think I did this not good nor bad. The information was clear, I however was not happy about my English. Since this subject is normally not my part of my discipline I did not knew the right words to express myself when an question was asked.
After this short introduction I introduced the roleplay to the students. At the beginning of the lecture I had already made sure the groups were equal in number and assigned my fellow chapter 2 members one group. Since not all the students were present we ended up with four groups, three of which had coffee cups and one which had only markers to design the park. It was interesting to see how the dynamics within the groups differed.
Group one did not take the roleplay serious at the begin. They laughed and putted the coffee cups randomly on the paper. At some point some felt subordinated and saw that in this way they would not reach their goal. This resulted in negotiations.
The second group played it very diplomatically, ‘if you give me this, than I can make sure you get that’. In the end, because they wanted an consensus, they ran out of time. They however succeeded to create an consensus and were surprisingly very proud of their park.
The third group consisted of designers. I think that for them it was most clear how to start the designing process. It was interesting to see that they all used an similar approach. There was an consensus on how to design, but there was no consensus over the end result of the park.
The fourth group had only markers. It was extremely interesting to see that the dynamic within this group was completely different than within the other groups. Where all the others had immediately put their cups on the paper, this group first discussed their approach and negotiated. When already half the time had passed the first line was put onto the paper. Furthermore, because they were not bound to the size of the coffee cups their park looked very different. It was the most symmetric and they had more realistic proportions of the buildings.
After the designing I asked two people of every group to share their park with the group.
Over all I think it was an successful exercise. However I think next time it would be better to explain the four layer model first. Some of the students had an hard time to relate this model on their group process. This was mainly the result of not being aware that they had to focus on the process. They thought it was about their emotion, roll and the end design.
Caroline commented that my presentation skills were good. The lack of an joke, normally I am known for this, was unfortunately due to the lack of English skills.