Virtual or In-person banquet: Which the better learning experience?

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Screenshot from Smells & Bells S'20 virtual banquet


FYS F '17 Cooking Together



As I was reading Rosie's reflection, especially after reading almost all of the class's reflections, I saw that nearly all  of you noted  the one thing the would change would be to have the banquet in person,. But then  a strange thought occurred to me.  Of all the times I've had classes do this "ritual scorecard" after a banquet, including our FYS, your reflections on this virtual banquet seemed to come closest to expressing the "educational goals" I had in mind by having us make a ritual banquet together.  For one thing, more people agreed that we achieved the right balance between scriptedness and improvisation, more people felt it was inclusive, and people seemed to have a clearer sense of the closure it provided.  Which suggests that just as there were costs of not being able to cook and eat together, so there may also have been costs from the messy, real-life logistics of doing the banquet in person. Some people did feel left out, or that I over-scripted things, or that they weren't aware of sharing deeper things about themselves as they did in our virtual show-and-tells.  So while the sensory sharing of cooking, decorating, eating, talking, and celebrating together in person was much more powerful affectively, the sharing in our virtual banquet seemed more powerful and deeper on a reflective level. I wonder how to integrate the best of both in the next in person banquet we get to make together.

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