Reflection Suggestions Return       > > > Triple Prizes < < <

After an activity or game or at the end of a campout, a group reflection is a good way to review what was done and how things went. A reflection should take no more than 5 minutes after a game or 10-15 minutes at the end of a campout or event.
Before the reflection begins, some groundrules are required:

• One person is the leader - usually the Senior Patrol Leader
• All participants sit in a circle at the same level - no one is over the others, all are peers.
• No interruptions, making fun of someone, or other disrespectful behavior is allowed.
• You can be silent if you wish.

As the leader, some suggestions for facilitating the discussion:

• Do not talk about your own experiences - let others express themselves.
• Do not judge what others share - that will shut down the sharing.
• Make positive comments and give positive encouragement to those that share.
• Allow random participation rather than going around the circle.
• Prompt the discussion with thought-provoking, open-ended questions such as these or others specific for the activity:
  • What was the purpose of the activity?
  • In what ways did things go as you expected? Or, what surprises occurred?
  • How was the leadership distributed?
  • How were decisions made?
  • What was good about the way decisions were made?
  • How could the decision making be improved?
  • Who had specific skills that were useful in this task?
  • Were all ideas considered and evaluated?
  • How many ideas were tried before success was achieved?
  • Was there one particular thing that happened so you succeeded?
  • What did you like about this activity?
  • What did you learn?
  • What was difficult about this?
  • Were you tempted to cheat and did you give in to that temptation?
  • What was required to solve the challenge?
  • How did this activity promote teamwork?
  • Did you do your best in this activity or did you give up?
• After discussion, generalize the experience to other Scouting situations:
  • How can you use this experience to improve your patrol?
  • Did you discover skills that need additional work?
• Set goals for the group:
  • What should we work on to improve as a group?
  • Are there skills from this activity that you will work on?
  • Would we benefit from doing this activity again?