Cueing and Tuning In

This week, I attempted to utilize a new teaching tool to more effectively communicate instructions to my field group. These tools are primacy, recency and cueing or novelty; each of these relate to an increased probability of retention on behalf of the listener. We tend to remember the first and last parts of instructions, primacy being the first bit and recency being the last. Using cueing or novelty within instructions means using body movements, a different voice or simply emphasizing parts in a manner that is starkly different from the rest of instructions and therefore more readily remembered by the listener. In using these techniques I hoped to more effectively communicate with my team by increasing their enthusiasm for our activities as well as their understanding of what was expected.

For our outdoor evening program, I integrated primacy with my hook; telling my team that I was going to teach them the secrets of being a nocturnal animal and that the night would never be quite the same after our lessons. While this did create some enthusiasm for our adventure, the overall group energy was still too high, probably from the sugary dessert they had just ingested. Despite the initial buy-in and intrigue, the group energy remained high throughout the evening and resulted in a less than stellar evening together. In hindsight, I should have set the mood with a calming activity on main campus before we ventured out into the darkness. That probably would have created a better group dynamic before I took the group outside of their comfort zones.

During the daylight hours, I regularly used primacy and recency for a variety of team building activities. With gutters and the teams course, I first reminded them that this week we were learning and working together as Team Thunder. Right before we began those activities I used recency to ask them to keep in mind the Community Agreement we had created together, I also brought out the physical Agreement and spread it on the floor in front of the team. The results from gutters was impressive, they accomplished their task on the first try! The communication remained positive and multiple ideas were shared and kindly received. When we moved to the teams course later that day, I repeated my usage of primacy and recency but did not bring out the physical Agreement this time. This team activity was a bit less successful, the communication was not as balanced and emotions ran high. To increase likelihood of success, I could have shifted this activity to earlier in the day, when the students were less tired as not everyone was super excited for the teams course and instead wanted an early return to their lodge. I wonder if talking more specifically about the Community Agreement could have created more enthusiasm and smoothed out the communication? Since we were running short on time, I could have had the team talk about the Agreement as we walked towards the teams course and then wrapped up with a quick group share of what was discussed.

These experiences show me that even if I have a fantastic roll out of instructions with optimum usage of tools like primacy, that means little if the activity is out of sync with the energy level of my students. A perfect delivery is a mute point if my audience isn’t on the same page. This week highlighted this for me; it was a week filled with challenges including strong winds and rains plus power outages. While I struggled to develop well-crafted activities to maximize their time on campus, I should have known that their energy would be off given the wacky weather. With this in mind, in the future I would try to match the activities to their energy level so that when I am utilizing primacy, recency and novelty it remains relevant.