The topic of career planning might be new for some participants, especially the younger ones. In many educational institutions, career planning is not mentioned, and as such, participants might have a challenging time reflecting on how their professional development and career plans are connected to workcamps. However, workcamps hold a lot of valuable learning moments to prepare participants for the job market and future workplaces. This session is framed in a way that it deepens the reflection on learning and development that has happened during the workcamp, and as such, we recommend doing this session when participants already got to know each other and already had some time to share their experiences in a less structured, more informal way.

Pre-session CHECKLIST

materials and handouts are prepared

room is organised with chairs

Step-by-step IMPLEMENTATION

Warming up - “Career for us” (10-15 minutes)

In order to introduce the topic of career to participants, a collection of pictures, cards or objects is placed in the center of the room. Each person takes one object/picture that represents for them the definition of career, and shares it in a big circle.

🎩 Pro tip: Depending on the number of participants and willingness to share in front of the whole group, it can be adapted to smaller groups sharing within themselves (max. 5 people / group).

💻Virtual version: A set of pictures or cards is placed in an online whiteboard application (e.g. Miro, Mural, Jamboard).

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Gingerbread Workcamp

‘15 Introduction of the Gingerbread Person

This is a simple model to explain the three main parts of competences, namely knowledge, skills and attitudes. A simple profession can be used as an example, e.g. a teacher. The intro can be done in a shared, brainstorming, interactive manner for the participants.

In the first part, in the brain of the gingerbread person, we add all the knowledge the gingerbread needs to have. (E.g. knowledge on education theory, knowledge of the specific topic, knowledge about the students, etc.)

In the second part, the hands of the gingerbread person, we add all the skills the gingerbread needs to have (E.g. presentation skills, clear communication skills to explain the topic to students, interpersonal skills to manage the students, their parents, other teachers, IT skills to create digital materials, etc.)

In the third part, the heart of the gingerbread person, we add all the attitudes. (E.g. empathy towards students, encouragement, creativity, acceptance, etc.)

‘15 Baking our own gingerbread

Participants create their own drawing, and reflect on what they have learnt during their workcamps. Supporting questions: What theoretical things have you learnt? What practical skills did you gain or practiced a lot? What new mindsets and attitudes have you gained while working with others in the workcamp?

‘30 Discussion

In groups of maximum 6, participants sit in circles and share with each other their own gingerbreads.

‘30 Market of gingerbreads

Each person in the group receives 7 tokens. They look at their own gingerbread person and give a value to each of the knowledge, skills and attitudes they have written down, from 1 to 3, based on how valuable they think it is for them in their future professions.

After everyone has created the prices, participants walk around freely and use their own tokens to purchase from each other the knowledge, skills and attitudes they think would be still important for them to have for their future professions.

💻Virtual version: Each person receives a gingerbread person template in an online whiteboard app (eg. Miro, Mural, Jamboard), with their name and virtual post-its to use for the reflection part. Small discussions happen in breakout rooms. Instead of the market, participants can do a dot-voting as an alternative (they have 7 virtual dots to distribute amongst others’ gingerbreads).

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Good times journal

‘15 Introduction of the activity

Participants will each receive a template for the “Good Time Journal” (see resources), and have to write down 10 activities from the workcamp to it - out of which 5 should be very liked and 5 should be very disliked activities.

After they finish writing the activities, they rate them with the provided observation points.

How much were they engaged in the activity? Were they paying attention and enjoying, or already thinking about something else?

How much energy did it give or take away from them to do this activity? Was it energizing or draining for them?

Was there any flow in the activity?

‘15 Sharing in pairs - reflecting in future careers

Participants take their “Good Time Journal” and have a short discussion with their partners about their activities, how these activities might be related to their future career.

💻Virtual version: Participants receive the document template in a downloadable format, so they can edit it for themselves. For the sharing part, they are placed in breakout rooms in pairs.

REVIEW & DEBRIEFING

How does doing a workcamp connect to your professional plans? What kind of new insight, new experiences did it bring to you? How can you sell your competences to other people? Are workcamps well-known and recognised in your direct environment? (Why?/Why not?) How can you use your workcamp experience in your future goals? Will they have to do similar activities in their planned profession? Do they want to include these activities in some way in their career?

TARGET GROUP size & specifics

10-30 participants workcamp participants, leaders

DURATION

min. 90 minutes

TO DO List

& Deadlines

There are no rows in this table

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