Exercise Criticism
Try to sit down and critique an exercise as soon after it as possible. If you are lucky to have access to the space after the exercise, stay in the space and do critique before anything else that is not immediately necessary. If there were other facilitators, do it with them. You can otherwise ask questions of yourself.
Good exercise critique requires noticing things as they happen which can be reflected on later. Salient and even compelling details that you notice are quickly forgotten like the details of vivid dreams, so critique the exercise as soon as possible and write things down.
All exercises teach us something, even when they have ‘failed’. In fact ‘failures’ can be especially educational. Try to avoid critiquing exercises with the assumption that you will be conducting them again and that they merely require critique for ‘improvement’.
The questions below are questions we find useful to ask ourselves. At the first round of critique, recall and record every detail you noticed. Don’t worry if it appears irrelevant - that kind of evaluation can be introduced at later rounds of critique once you have the full picture of everything you noticed in the exercise.
Describe what happened (how many people came, who, when, what did they say, what did they make, etc.)
What problems arose?
How well did you introduce the activity?
Do you think people were learning collectively?
How did people engage with the materials?
What did people learn? And what do you think they thought the exercise was for?
What did you learn?
What did your comrades do well?
What’s the time?
in Al-Quds -
in Panama and Chicago -
in Burkina Faso -
in Scotland -
in Al-Quds -
in Panama and Chicago -
in Burkina Faso -
in Scotland -