I want to see this. And I just put a link in there to set open for everyone. I'm not sure if it was permissions, how that works?
I don't have it.
The link is that.
I mean, I really appreciate all that you've been saying. And I just have a few kind of practical things regarding session one, and I wondered if it's appropriate to discuss those now or the victim, let's go
for it. Yeah, this is kind of just open, we're just kind of exploring random.
I mean, one of the things and I know you're probably already wedded to it, but it's this idea of having two and a half hour sessions, for me two hours would be long enough. And to have the empathy circles is one hour, instead of an hour and a half. I just think there's a lot of research about attention spans. And I actually feel that two hours is online is more than enough. And a two and a half hour session, for a lot of people would just be too much. So that's one thing. Another thing is how to make it a bit more interactive, you know, the, your presentation, I'm a great believer, instead of giving the information actually want creating a situation where people want to know the information, obviously, they wouldn't have signed up for the course, if they, you know, didn't want to discuss the definition of empathy. But, for instance, when you introduce Rogers, you know, instead of just explaining it will be like, Well, what do you already know about Rogers right, in chat, you know, it's this kind of trying to make it more more ownership of the participants so that they are involved by writing things in chat. And there wouldn't be time to break into discussion groups about it. But yeah, I don't know if you've been realizing my internet is practice.
I'm hearing you. Well,
I don't know why it's doing this. But anyway, so yeah, I don't it's that idea of making it using more modalities, you know. Just a range. I love some of the things that you did, like, the letter said about the, you know, what's the pictures with the various, you know, what, what is this person feeling that kind of interactivity, I think is so important, and especially if it's two and a half hours? So, yeah.
So you just want more participation? And so engagement of participants,
when it's my view, and, you know, whenever you give information, it's really great to preload that by Well, what do you already know about this? No. Okay, so then they write in chat, you know, whether you're talking about Rogers or whoever, yeah. What do you Yeah, just that idea of engagement?
Yeah, well, that was the the session. One was that there was to give this to give this model guy, this is a model we're going to be exploring in the in the seven weeks. And then what is your definition of empathy? So it is 30 minutes of of sort of introduction, you know, kind of preparing everyone. And then it's an hour and a half of an empathy circle to hear from everyone. I mean, the first session, specifically for that, so
yes, yes. I appreciate that. And I think that's great. And my suggestion is, during the presentation, you also make it interactive, like this, you know,
would be that, that the testing, using the empathy in the eyes test. So that having some a few little exercises like that, during the presentation, like to give it the experience. So yeah, so if you have specifics, if you have specific exercise, I'm not a fan of the chat, because it's just too much to read. But something that's sort of more engaging, like here's a picture here's the empathy in the eyes test, let's go through a short test. You know, so and then you get everyone to maybe even do a poll. I think they either as polls or engagement. So yeah.
So how do you feel about having two hour sessions rather than two and a half hours?
We did two hour sessions and the first facilitator training and it just wasn't enough it was just to tie it and especially if we have large eventually have larger cohorts, when we, you know, we we've gotten up to about, you know, over 30 people In a cohort, and we just needed the two and a half hours. So I'm kind of a fan of two and a half hours, just have more space. And have very
one of the, one of the things that the math on the empathy circles, you know, if you if an hour long empathy circle and you have four people in it, that means each person gets to speak about 15 minutes, you know, they probably would get four turns, if you're taking five minute turns, but then half of that time is there being reflected. So, you know, they're really only speaking for about seven or eight minutes. And so the reason to have a longer circle, like an hour and a half is, is, first off, if you have five people that may, that math works out better. And even with four people, you know, the amount of speaking time you get is just a little bit more substantial. And, and my experience is that you don't really unless you get to third or fourth speaking turn, you don't it, the emphasis was a lot less satisfying, in terms of participation. So So that's, that's. And then, and then. So in a class, if there's an hour and a half empty circle, there's some time for before you go in, and sometimes reflecting after you come out. And so that, I suppose in theory that could be shorter in order to get it into a two hour time block. And maybe, you know, maybe if you had the videos that people were watching as preparation to go into the class, the time before going into an app, this could be shorter, maybe it could be 15 minutes, or 20 minutes, instead of a half an hour. But it's when you're trying to do a little bit of presentation, and also include like feedback from the previous session, people that had questions, and you have a chance to and take a few minutes to answer. It's hard to get into the empathy circles before before 30 minutes. That was that's been the challenge in the current course.
My experience was that the full group debrief, I did go to one session in this last cohort and just couldn't go back because it was three and a half hours. And I didn't see a lot of points that I've shared that with Edwin, there were a remember 40 people, and everybody shared just one sentence. But again, I am pretty happy with my focus. But by the fifth person, they were starting to blend together. I definitely did not want to hear 40 people how they they're leaving the circle right now. It didn't make sense to me, it took a lot of time. And we definitely didn't fit into those 30 minutes. There weren't too many. So the the full group debrief maybe could be shorter, maybe could be Edwin and I were saying, you know, you could play out the motion, you could express it and do that quicker, more live. I'm gonna be something along those lines. I definitely agree with Wendy two and a half hours. This is a bit pushing it.
So I guess that question of the debrief, some people have mentioned, you know, the debrief, you hear a lot of people, we only do the participants, we have 25 minutes for the debrief. So there, there is something about hearing, I mean, I always enjoy hearing, kind of what what people's feedback is, and it does create a group feel, it seems like to me, other people have, you know, said that to about that's just too many too repetitive. So,
I agree that the group debrief is the area where I think the most tweaking could happen that is potentially the least productive in the courses I've been in. And another way to do what I do think is valuable is I think it is valuable to reflect on your experience in the empathy circle. So that could be done in people could be sent into breakouts at three and you and and each person could have two minutes to talk about what their what their experience was. So in six minutes, you've got it done. And you go into you go into that with people that you are not in the empathy circle with so you know you're different people than you are in the opposite corner. Now logistically that's not easy to do to fit reconfigure the rooms and like figure out who was not with who that is not easy to do, but that would be a way to shorten the amount of time and still Have some reflection. Another way to do it, that I've seen happen in big groups is you just say you, we'd like to hear from half a dozen people, what their what their experience was like. So you're, you're hearing from some people, but not from everybody, you know. And then if you're really, really wanting everyone's feedback, there's also the feedback form so that in terms of the click getting feedback for the class, the management of the class, you can get that from the feedback form not from not from hearing each person say something.
Sorry, another practical question, I have it, will it be the case that people will be asked to do the empathy circle training first, and then this module to
it would be ideal, I had thought of opening it up, because some people, you know, some people do like the experiential, but other people are sort of more the cognitive and to give them the choice that they have a minimum of two empathy circles. But I think this is module two. So I, ideally, I see realista, shaking your head, you think it should be required the cylinder painter training first or
No, I'm just noting, again, the difference you see, between experiential and cognitive, it's, it's deep within you when, you know, as Continental, so I would say there's no difference where we're putting meaning into our experiences, and then coming to if it doesn't happen separately, but I think it will be easier to open it to everybody who has experienced the circle at least two times, and hopefully encourage them to become facilitators afterwards.
Because that's my inclination to just take module one and module two, it's up to you.
Yeah. Because I felt there was some overlap, you know, of the initial x, obviously, there's the whole overlap of the explanation of what how an empathy circle it functions, but then also overlap in, in the initial slides, you know, some are a part of the training, and then now some are part of module two. So in terms of the initial suggestions from the, the letters that think that it could be made a bit shorter, I'm just wondering if there could be less kind of overlap with the initial training.
Yeah, so the explanation of how the empathy circle works, you mean?
Well, that, yes. And then the detail on that, and, but then also, you know, some of the decimate some of the quotations.
Yeah, that's really about making it shorter, you're like, like
well, this is, this is a prototype, so it's good to hear the you know, how to kind of refine it. And, and it is always in terms of the length, for example, but you know, one thing about the length villetta, you said three and a half hours is because you were doing the facilitator training. And there's half an hour before and a half hour later. So that was why that that was so long. I don't know if some people like it shorter, some people like it lucky. So there's always you know, it's not like one thing or the other, there's, I guess it is to make it more sort of efficient, in terms of I just had another thought about the the the debrief at the end. One thing I've done in other circles, circles, is that someone expresses how they feel about it in a physical motion. And then that every the whole group reflects mirrors that motion, and then so everybody's kind of getting their energy, kind of, you know, kind of going because it's very physical. So that might be a way to make it kind of more entertaining. Plus, there's a mirroring that happens that sort of mirrors, you know, empathy as that sort of mirroring quality. So that then some people are like, Oh, they feel too self conscious about doing that. So you give them you know, a choice about it. So, I don't know if that does that. Are you familiar with I mean, Lou, just. Yeah. Okay. And the other point is, I see. Yeah, and that's, that's just the that was that link I put in there, just so you know about it. That's sort of the table in mural of, of the, of the model. So a model where you can kind of compare other people's models and you can see it's, there's actually a lit there's, it is, you know, after looking In all these different, you know, different model models that people are using, it's limited in terms of what people are saying, right? It's like, an A, you don't want to delete the whole thing, whatever. Yeah,
I tried to go in and I, it requires a login.
Oh, the link that you put in the chat, whoever just moved everything if you can back up, I think, Wendy, if you hit the back button, there's a button at the top. It says, me just busy just kind of moves the whole way. Just up here at the corner, it says undo if you're in that window, if you could just hit the undo. Are you seeing that?
You're muted, Wendy.
Sorry. Yeah, I was trying to get it sent. So I could read it. So I don't know what they've done. Sorry.
Yeah. If Are you seeing you see that? It says up here, there's a little button here it says just hit undo. And it'll move it all back the moment. Okay, well, okay, maybe I can do it. Oh, yeah, I'm gonna make this so that people can't I got it. Okay, anyway, so that I just threw that in there. It's not nothing has to do anything with it's just kind of a systematically reviewing how people are using the term. And you'll just see that the reason there's so much confusion is there's no people aren't consistently describing it, you know, the empathy? You know, and again, it's like you're saying glue? It's like, this is kind of what we mean. But no, is even the question is, isn't what we all mean? Because even the letter and I had some differences. And we did, like I said, we found that common starting point. And I think a lot of what we're understanding is still is similar, the letter, so? But, yeah. So those are just some of my thoughts. I guess there's a question of what to do next. I think that the next step would be to separate the videos to make two separate videos. And then next week, hopefully the others will be here and then do an empathy circle. The idea was, is that the first the first session is sort of an overview of the model. And then I'm hearing Lou, you're saying, like, I thought it was just like a simple, quick intro to the model. And then, you know, in each session, we would go into a bit more depth. So I guess it was a question I had is, do you have to have the model beforehand, are you just sort of slowly, you know, reveal the model with each session. So it does seem to be having the framework and the model to begin with? Let's go into depth.
So I think it makes sense to as an introduction, to present all of all seven elements of the model, at least named them and give a sentence or two about them, just so that you have an idea that these are the components, but then not go into much more detail until you get into the session for that component. Because I really only because there are seven elements. And if you go into all seven of them in any kind of depth, that's really overwhelming. It's a lot to take in. It's enough to understand they're there. And and a little bit about what each one means. That's enough to take in initially about it, I think.
Yeah, Violetta, you're shaking. Yeah, I
agree. I agree very much.
I've only been looking at this 14 years.
The something of expertise, the dilemma of expertise. That I've been told by psychologists, that's the problem with experienced people who teach something is they don't understand how much they understand. And when they start to unpack it for people. It's completely overwhelming. That's happened me when I've tried to teach video production to people and I think, oh, yeah, this is so simple. You know, you just set up the camera. And then and then as I'm getting into it, I'm realizing there's like 50 things I'm doing. When I'm setting up the camera, I'm looking at the light, I'm looking at the background, I'm looking at the height, I'm looking at that, you know, and like all of that is just something I know and I do intuitively, you know. So
to reinforce what Lou was saying about, maybe all that's needed is this that week, the naming of it and one sentence that I think is on your slide that you call the second week arch. And maybe it's an Americanism, but I've not in Europe, well, certainly in UK, I've never heard that use of the term arch. We would just say, you know, the seven week program, seven week arch what? What some, you know, my immediate question, what does art? So our Ark or arch and the Ark of the ark? Okay, sorry. Yeah, well, it's not a term that I've heard used in academia or in education generally. But, yeah.
Okay, so something more like just overview or something like, oh,
seven week program, or over week overview of the seven weeks, the fewer words the better. Especially on a written slide, and I'm verbally Yeah.
Okay, oh, this is great. Having you know, all these different points of views, I think that's going to help kind of refine it. So I'm hearing simplify, keep it simpler. Yeah. Introduce the pieces separately, in depth, keep it just a couple of a sentence or so. Yeah.
Is there going to be homework between sessions?
Yeah, there was that those homework the the, there was, in the outline, we had the closing, let me just show that. So that was the you know, the five minute closing kind of using the same process, the same outline that we have for the kind of keep the style similar to the facilitator training. So we have the last five minutes, we hear any final trainer comments, we review what we did in the session is just a quick outline, we review what we're going to do next week, we met mentioned that we're going to have assignments, and we do our final jazz hands. And then the assignments which are emailed out is fill out the session feedback form. You know, we asked for that feedback, we hold empathy buddy calls, so wanted to do empathy buddy calls again. And then it was to read two articles by Carl Rogers, the empathic, and unappreciated way of being and he has another one on active listings, I think that would be the assignment too. But there could also be like a little video that we we've create for this session. Yeah,
I suggest that you put a time on those things. Like if it's a video to five minutes, or the read into five minute read or a 10 minute reading, so that people have some idea of how much time it's going to take to do that. They'll be much more encouraged to do it. Like if it says, Read this article, and it says five minutes. Oh, okay, I'll do that. If it's an hour long, it's gonna take me an hour to read the article. I know, I need to set time aside for it or, you know, so I think that's a good idea to put a time thing next to assignments.
Okay, so something like this, for that session, and feedbacks five minutes. Yeah, well as your buddy called 30 minutes. And some Yeah. See how long that takes?
Will all the assignments be reading? Or will there be something sort of correct that? Or will it tie in with the type of empathy? So if it's imaginative empathy, you know, will it be a more kind of creative will they be asked to, you know, like, you use that beautiful picture of the woman and daughter, you know, to fight it, take a picture of something that reflects empathy to you or find an art piece of artwork or make a piece, you know, to, to actually help people be looking into their creativity actually, to do some artwork, you know, if they're so inclined.
And I love that.
That's a great idea. Yeah.
Those two articles, so session one is was the idea was the overview. And then to hear from everyone what, for them what empathy meant, and how it relates to the empathy circle. So it's kind of sort of a place for everyone to bring, you know where they are. And then the second one was, session two was basically Rogers, explanation of empathy. So we're kind of going into that then his empathy is as the listener and you're listening to the speaker, and that sensing into this to the speaker is kind of what he's calling empathy. It's direct, it's, you know, listening for sort of an accuracy to hear, hear the person be aware, you know, sensing into feeling into their inner world. And so that's, that's the session two aspect of empathy. So yeah, anything that kind of helps any kind of activities that kind of, so any readings, any videos that, that that one paper, empathic and appreciate way of being Rogers actually made a video of it. So you can actually just watch the video, you don't have to read the read the paper. And so he narrated it. So that was one of the exercises. So if you have more, you can just ingest them or write them up. Anything else.
Be letter thoughts? You're smiling?
Yeah, I'm, I'm trying to decide what what else do we need to do today? What or I don't have any, any more thoughts about the exercises at this point. But I usually get my inspiration when I dive deep into whatever I'm doing. I loved Wendy's idea about imagined of empathy. So this is my task. But obviously, I could help with Edwin on all the things that you're on your own I could. I could help however,
I wanted to talk to you about the mock the framework, you're a good person to use, you have that academic background of all those different concepts. So yeah, so that's, I guess, pretty much it unless there's anything else. So hopefully, next week, we'll have others will actually do an empathy circle.
One my main comment, Edwin is thank you so very, very much. I think what you know, you've done what you've produced. I mean, it's sounding like we're, you know, picking little holes here and there. And I really want you to know how grateful I am for what you're giving to the world. It's tremendous.
And thanks for being here, too, because I think it's all these contributions are going to, I'm seeing, you know, we're going to simplify it to kind of make it more accessible. So you bring that viewpoint. So I think it's going to really strengthen the whole course, I think this is going to be a really important course. Because it really lays out a view of empathy that's not well articulated and, and making it simple and accessible for everyone to take part in. I think it's going to be really helpful and of your own contribution.
It's really interesting when you if you just Google you know, empathy training and the kind of, you know, strange things that come up. A lot of it just so unrefined in comparison to what you're offering, you know, just Yeah. rubbish out there with all due respect.
Okay, well, let's all go I think feel that it's gonna stay back for a few minutes. And we'll see you next week. And then any comments, any feedback by email, and yeah,
thanks. Nice meeting Randy.
Yeah, nice meeting you both. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Hi Wendy by Lou.
