Tim Murphey on appreciative inquiry

Tim Murphey began what was a very feelgood session by recommending an action log at the start of each lesson. You put up on the board a list of all the activities you're going to be doing, and as the lesson progresses, the learners write how they felt about each activity. The teacher may go further by collecting and 'publishing' these logs so students can see each other's comments. Naturally, this will encourage the teacher to give them more of what they like and less of what they don't, and the opportunity of actively shaping their own lessons works wonders for motivation. This, then, is my activity log for Tim's session.

1. Speed dictation. Dictogloss with rhythm. Tim's example was a bunch of very positive adjectives constructed to the rhythm of a well-known tune. After we'd all got it down, we were then told to recite it in response to the question 'How are you feeling?' at regular intervals throughout the whole session. Funny, and good for memorising the words in the ditty.

2. Story telling. Tim told us a kind of moral tale about optimism and pessimism. We then had to retell the story bit-by-bit in relay with a partner - again, a kind of dictogloss, but just for the meaning, not the exact wording.

3. Juggling. A group of audience members had been doing a juggling game as we came in before the start of the session, creating a pre-emptive positive atmosphere. Tim didn't refer back to this, but now took out the balls again, did a 5-ball juggle and talked about the kind of dopamine hit getting the learners to try this physical challenge can inject into a lesson.

4. Tim recommended that the class should generate a collection of class artefacts, eg scrap-books, that learners can have and hold. And now, as an aside, he explained what 'Appreciative Inquiry' is, namely a kind of positively oriented feedback used in some American business contexts. Rather than asking folks to complain, ask them to say what was good. Giving negative feedback generates negative feelings.

5. We were asked to share with a partner one intensely positive experience. This may also be done in writing, and helps to orient the content of a lesson in the direction of what the learners want to say.

6. Finally, we watched a TED talk on improvisation by Dave Morris. Strangely (or perhaps not), when the TED speaker elicited audience participation to the audience in the room, Tim's APAC audience also did the participation. Watch the TED talk here to find out how improvisation can be a healthy way of life: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUO-pWJ0riQ

On the map, I'd locate this in the South West, near the town of Humanistic.