Dr Joe Whittaker from the Criminology department recently took a group of second-year students to Llandysul for an away day with Llandysul Paddlers.
The students were presented with a number of activities to promote team building, such as solving puzzles and building a raft which they then took to the water and raced once another. Dr Whittaker gives further detail and explains the benefits of the day:
“On November 23rd, the Criminology undergraduate module Leadership and Management in Social Justice left the classroom for an away day at Llandysul Paddlers and Canoe club.
The aims of the module are for students to learn the fundamentals of leading a team and apply this knowledge to social justice work. The away day offered the students a range of activities in which they could work as a team and solve problems.
Reflecting on the day, the students seemed to take a lot from the experience and really enjoy themselves. They conducted a range of challenges in the morning, for which they were given tokens, which they then used to build a raft in the afternoon to race against each other.
The students’ assessment for this module is a reflective portfolio, which includes components on leadership style, project planning, and situational judgement. The day provided several practical examples for them to apply and reflect their classroom knowledge.”
We also spoke with second-year student Maria who said “I got to bond a lot with my classmates. I don’t really talk to a lot of people on my course, so it was nice to learn some names and some faces as I’m not very good with big groups of people especially, but this was nice, I enjoyed it.”
Dr Whittaker plans to offer this fieldtrip to all future years taking the Leadership and Management in Social Justice.