Be Specific! (Snowflake)

Subgroup Size

Entire group

Duration

30 minutes

External Cost

No

Lesson Plan

Source

Stringer, D. M., & Cassiday, P. A. (2009). Be specific! In 52 Activities for improving cross-cultural communication (pp. 145-146). Intercultural Press. 

This activity was led virtually by Dr. Horane Holgate in 2021. His slides are included in Downloads.

When sharing snowflakes, Dr. Holgate suggests that participants place their paper in camera view so that others can see them. Where camera view is unavailable, the facilitator can ask participants to share the number of holes in chat or speak the numbers out loud (1-2-3, etc.) and have participants give a thumbs up or use an emoji to indicate their number of holes. 

Dr. Holgate also suggests the following debriefing questions designed specifically for teaching this activity to facilitators: 

  1. How did you feel as you completed the activity?
  2. When you opened your eyes and looked at the holes on other participants paper what thoughts came to your mind? What was your initial reaction?
  3. How is it possible that despite everyone getting the same instructions we see different results?
  4. What individual characteristics contributed to how you completed the activity?
  5. How could the facilitator improve their communication to get more consistent results?
  6. Reflect on your experiences or situations in different contexts, e.g., workplace and/or classroom. How does this activity help you understand aspects of diversity, equity and inclusion in those contexts?
  7. How would you modify the activity?
  8. How do you see yourself using this activity in your practice?
  9. What are some direct applications of this activity in your daily activities?
  10. How can you improve your communication skills when it becomes obvious that others are seeing things differently than you intended?

Finally, he adds these facilitator notes: 

  1. Supplement debriefing questions with visual illustrations (images or videos) that encourage participants to critically reflect on their own perspective on an issue or topic compared to other viewpoints.
  2. Encourage educators to think about students'/participants' perspectives when developing and implementing course/training.
  3. Assign participants to groups or instruct participants to form groups to discuss questions 5-10 listed above. 
  4. Engage students in thinking about activities that involve working in a diverse team
  5. Consider making direct connections with specific components of the AAC&U VALUE Rubrics and/or the Intercultural Development Continuum.