Hello again! We return with a tale of failure, the learning that ensues, and how this can breed greater overall success. Revisiting our concluding quote from our last update, “the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” (Lao Tsu n.d.), we now face the difficult task of stopping, taking a few steps back, and assessing the direction in which we were walking. This process of scope change can be frustrating, especially when you may have taken a considerable amount of steps off the desired path. However, as you will soon read happened to the Food Hubbers, this process has great rewards despite the tensions that must be worked through.
Weekly Objective
- To begin developing the infographic and start writing the draft for our final project report.
As the end of the semester is fast approaching us, all of us have other deadlines from our other courses to contend with as well. Therefore, it is important to not let everything pile up to the very end and begin working on our project assignments this week. This will also give us time to ask questions and obtain feedback as we move along. However, our objectives for this week may feel a bit daunting because as a group, we do not have a lot of experience, if any, in creating infographics. Therefore, we are hoping that this week’s lecture and tutorial will help alleviate our anxiety and resolve some uncertainties that we have about this portion of our project. The infographic will serve as an important tool in our final public presentation in helping us communicate our project to the community.
The final project paper is also an important aspect to our community project as a whole because it is the piece that will remain available for both our community partners and future students long after we have completed this course. Because of this, beginning early will give us a better chance at producing a better end product than starting at the last possible minute. The most challenging portion of the final report will be to analyze the data that we have collected from our workshops and incorporating results into our final paper as that will play a huge role in how coherent our paper will be.
Achievements
- Successfully completed our second and final workshop which involved enhancing food literacy skills through a food storage workshop.
- Gathered data through feedback forms as well as through verbal communication with the participants
- Strengthened connections between community members and our team by engaging in personal conversations. Thus allowing us to get a better understanding of what type of future workshops they’re looking in order to help future groups developing workshops.
- Each of our members have continued to pick up volunteer shifts during community hub hours. This has helped deepen our understanding of how the community food hub operates as well as see first hand the positive impacts it has on community members.
Our achievements are not without hurdles.
- Our second workshop was actually scheduled to be much later in the semester which would not have allowed us sufficient time to analyze the data for our paper. However, we worked with our community partner to reschedule and was able to move up our second workshop date.
- With the due dates of assignments from this course other courses occurring around this time of the semester and unforeseen illnesses amongst our group members, we had to juggle our time and reschedule our previously committed volunteer shifts.
Despite of these hurdles, our team was able to overcome them through effectively communicating with one another. These hurdles and the anxiety that it had created within us has allowed us to broaden our learning by pushing our boundaries (Shulman, 2005). In addition, it has helped us to be better prepared for our future assignments. As we get to know more about one another, we learn more about each other’s strengths and weaknesses allowing for us to effectively divide and assign roles that would maximize each of our potentials for upcoming assignments. With every hurdle that comes our way, if we don’t give up and find ways to overcome them, adds to our repertoire of skills that will serve us well in the future.
Moment of Significant Change Workshop Reflection
This week we had an opportunity to experience our ‘moment of significant change’. We created two types of charts for the our team’s moments, highlighting unexpected changes in our skills/ knowledge (Image 1) and emotions (Image 2) that were derived from our experiences throughout the lectures and Community Food Hub Helpers Project. The activity has given us an insight into the ‘What, So What, Now What’ framework and encouraged us to map out a definite course toward our remaining projects assignments.
WHAT
These images, shown below, are graphical depictions of the Moments of Significant Change for our skills/knowledge and emotions for the past 9 weeks. Each member used a different color to plot the levels of skills/knowledge and emotions, and revealed our moods and moment accordingly.
Image 1: Moments of Significant Change for our skills/knowledge for the past 9 weeks
Image 2: Moments of Significant Change for our emotions for the past 9 weeks
WHAT
During Week 1-3, the objectives and tasks for our project were not clear – in terms of how we could address community food security issues and promote community health. Thus, it resulted in low skills and knowledge levels about the food related discourse. After we met our community partner in Gordon Neighborhood House and discussed objectives and expectations for our activity to be conducted, the levels gradually increased. The two graphs (Image 1 and 2) did not correspond to each other, as the degree of our emotions would not match up the levels of skills and knowledge we have gained. As we attended the lectures and proceeded with our workshops, we have been able to clarify the objective and goal that we were expected to achieve. As a result, during our second workshop, we were much better prepared in our delivery:
Details about our second workshop:
- The food storage workshop was set up next to the produce market where community members first entered.
- As members lined up for the produce market, they received a handout highlighting food storage recommendations.
- A display was also present to help illustrate where to store produce without the need for refrigeration.
- Workshop attendants summarized the display for participants and answered any questions that arose.
- At the end of the workshop, participants were able to take the produce home and asked to fill out a feedback form.
By making small changes such as situating our display table by the produce market, we had an increase in traffic. Hence, our confidence toward the contribution to the community increased, and we tended to have positive emotions. There were different emotional levels among group members as we showed differences in emotional complexity throughout our course load. In particular, during the season in which we had midterms and tons of assignments, our emotional levels were down. Aside from this aspect, we all agreed on the fact that we faced similar difficulties and experiences in our projects.
SO WHAT
This activity gave us an opportunity to share each moment of significance for the past 9 weeks and made us view our experiences in a different perspective. This is important as we could move forward to strengthen community actions by taking a step back and identifying common challenges in the projects. After reflecting on our moments of significance, we felt that we are now on the same page and felt more connected as a group. Completing this activity have allowed us to appreciated a our increased sense of inner-group cohesion and more confidently say that we are collectively dedicated to the common goal of promoting community health through our project. Collaboration, including partnerships among members of the local community, is essential to facilitate community development as sharing our ideas and perceptions would contribute to strengthening communities (Ontario Health Communities Coalition, 2009). By doing so, we would get a better understanding of the impressions of the community needs in light of food security and food literacy.
NOW WHAT
The finish line in each chart represents an optimistic view on of how we can be satisfied with our project upon completion. Our engagement should continue to provide us with more confidence and make our project useful for the community. In a collaborative learning environment, we keep an eye on how our actions have an impact on community and continue being eager to improve the community in the most efficient and logical ways possible. Now it is time to think of filling the gap between what is and what should be done for our actions. Building a plan for recognizing local needs can help us gain a deeper understanding of what should be done for the community (Community Tool Box, 2016). Comparing one’s experiences with others among the group encourages us to revisit and reexamine community expectations and values. Through our learning experiences, this critical reflection has helped us work more collaboratively towards the common goal.
Group Strategy for Successful Project Completion
In order to achieve a successful dismount from the journey that has been the Community Food Hub program, our group must think ahead and assess whether or not we have truly completed what we intended to, as well as where we would like to be at the end – both emotionally, and project-wise. Before we were able to answer this question, our group discussed what exactly would entail a successful project in our own terms. Our consensus was that we want our food preservation and storage workshops at Gordon Neighbourhood House to help low-income individuals in the West End to develop long-lasting skills. This is with the goal of increasing food literacy and therefore taking one of many small steps towards achieving pertaining to food justice. The way we decided on measuring this impact, was through the use of our feedback forms that we would ask workshop attendees to fill out. The questions we asked gave us further insight into our workshop’s effectiveness and possible ways we could improve. The most important aspect to our successful project completion, however, is teamwork. By demonstrating that each member of the team is making an equal contribution to our overall workload, as well as remaining on task in a timely fashion, our efficiency and productivity will be a significant contribution to our success and proper dismount. If we do encounter a slight bump in the road, our team must be open to constructive feedback that is implemented to improve the situation and ensure cohesiveness throughout the teamwork process.
In conclusion, the Moments of Significant Change activity at the tutorial session gave us an opportunity to share our experience and knowledge that we have gained in our project so far, and evaluate our performance as a team. The assess of our performance helped us to recognize where we are as a group, and how we can improve our teamwork by the end of our project. During our second workshop, we helped the community at Gordon Neighbourhood House to learn more about the preservation and storage methods. Learning about these methods can improve food literacy in the community at West End area. Providing culturally appropriate, affordable, healthy and locally grown food, and improving food literacy via educational workshops at Gordon Neighbourhood House can lead to food security and food justice in the community.
We hope that you’ll continue to follow us on our journey as we approach the final stretch of our project. You have already read our project proposal with well over a thousand words. So in our next blog, we will unveil our project infographic where a picture is worth a thousand words and bid you farewell with our last group reflection.
References
Community Tool Box. (2016). Section 1. Developing a Plan for Assessing Local Needs and Resources. Retrieved from http://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/assessment/assessing-community-needs-and-resources/develop-a-plan/main
Ontario Health Communities Coalition. (2009). Community development strategies. Retrieved from http://www.ohcc-ccso.ca/en/book/export/html/380
Shulman, L. S. (2005). Pedagogies of uncertainty. Liberal Education, 91(2), 18–25. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ697350.pdf