get in touch
start free trial
Activity
Introductory activities

Introductions: Story of Your Name

Patrice Prusko

Patrice Prusko

The purpose of this activity is to get to know people’s name on a more personal level through storytelling.

Share:

Share on facebook
Share on twitter
Share on linkedin

ACTIVITY PURPOSE

The purpose of this activity is to get to know people’s name on a more personal level through storytelling.

USEFUL FOR

  • An icebreaker activity on the first day of class or group meeting.
  • Learning about people’s lived experience and culture.
  • Helping people remember each other’s name by attaching a story to it.
  • Building relationships of trust in a new group.
  • Creating a safe space for people to share about their background.
  • Humanizing

PREPARATION

  • No preparation needed by participants.
  • Facilitator could create a slide with name of activity and questions.

INSTRUCTIONS

  • Describe activity and why doing it: namely, invite each participant in turn to tell a story about any part of their name (first name, last name, middle name, nickname)
  • Tell people why you find it interesting and helpful to hear the story of someone’s name
  • Explain they can share as much or little as they are comfortable
  • Pose some questions to spark what story they want to share
    • How was your name chosen?
    • Were you named after someone?
    • Does it have any cultural or historical meaning?
    • Is there a story or experience related to your name you would like to share?
  • Let them know it can be first name, and/or last name
  • Let them know they have 2 minutes to share. If using Zoom you can set a timer.
  • If people are going into a breakout room ask that someone be assigned as timer, note taker, and person who will share back.
  • Set up a collaborative document such as a Google doc or OneDrive so that the small groups can write down their stories. Then add in a shared space so that others can read everyone’s story at a later time.

DURATION

  • If less than 10 people you can facilitate as whole group.
  • If more than 10 people, suggest putting people into groups of 3-4.
  • 3-5 minutes explaining the activity, why you are doing it, and putting people into groups if needed.
  • 2 minutes per person to share story.
  • If people shared in small groups 1-2 minutes for each group to share something back that they learned.
  • 5 minutes to wrap-up and highlight importance of what they learned, how connects to the community and ways they will be working together.

ADAPTATIONS AND EXAMPLES

  • Alternative tools could be an asynchronous discussion tool such as Voicethread, Flipgrid, Yellowdig or LMS discussion.
  • An adaptation could be sharing the story of a nick-name.

TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

  • If a large group suggest using breakout rooms.
  • Google docs or other collaborative tools can be used as a way for small groups to share their stories in their small group, and then they can be shared so the whole class can see them.

USEFUL RESOURCES

N/A

Watch Video

ABOUT

  • Educator prep: None
  • Student prep: None
  • Breakout rooms, Shared online space
  • Duration: 5-30 mins

This activity is one of a series of activities from Equity Unbound, focused on equitable online community building. 

Find out more

Do you have an activity that you would like to suggest?

Submit An Activity

Do you have feedback or suggestions?

More activities

Learning path

Community Building Online

by Maha Bali

Curated Activities

Reflective Activities

by

Curated Activities

Guidance and help

by

Curated Activities

Ongoing engagement

by

Curated Activities

Liberating Structures

by

Curated Activities

Setting the tone activities

by

Curated Activities

Warm up activities

by

Curated Activities

Introductory activities

by

Activity

Fast Friends

by Maha Bali

Activity

Two-minute paper

by Maha Bali

Activity

Creativity Booster: 16 Squares

by Diana Varma

Activity

Creativity Booster: An Ode to the Other Hand

by Diana Varma

Activity

Creativity Booster: 5 Senses

by Diana Varma

Activity

Creativity Booster: Yes, Let’s!

by Diana Varma

Activity

Create a Fake Photo Group Assignment

by Maha Bali

Activity

What We Don’t Know About Each Other

by Noha El-Rawy

Activity

Share Music and Create a Class Playlist

by Maha Bali

Activity

Would You Rather?

by Frank Tontala

Activity

Creating Escape Room Experience For Students

by Karina Alonso

Activity

I Wish My Students/Teacher Knew…

by Amena Magdy

Activity

Using Metaphors to Express Thoughts

by Sayyed Daifallah

Activity

Using Dominoes in Teaching

by Ahmed Gebaly

Activity

Desert Island Songs

by Isabel Rodriguez

Activity

The Shape of You

by Sarah Neuwirth

Activity

Words From Your Names

by Ahmed Shalaby

Activity

What Can You Do With A…?

by Noha El-Sebai

Activity

Choose a Plant

by Jen Alexander

Activity

Which Picture Best?

by Flower Darby

Activity

Imaginary Buffet (or Potluck)

by Maya Hey

Activity

PowerPoint Karaoke

by Maha Bali

Activity

Office Hour Scheduling via Google Calendar

by Fikry Boutros

Activity

Tiny Tales

by Laura Gibbs

Activity

Cognitive/exam Wrappers for Metacognition

by Maha Bali

Activity

Self-assessment Tool (of social justice in your teaching) from DISCs (Disciplines Inquiring into Societal Challenges)

by Maha Bali

Activity

Language Portrait

by Francesca Helm

Activity

Lost in Translation

by Francesca Helm

Activity

Wheel of Life for Student Self-help

by Maha Bali

Activity

Alternative Approaches to Grading

by Maha Bali

Activity

Thick Greetings

by Maha Bali

Activity

Estimate workload

by Maha Bali

Activity

Simple Metacognitive Activities

by Maha Bali

Activity

Tiny Demons/Drawing Monsters

by Lyse Edwards

Activity

Start/Stop/Continue

by Maha Bali

Activity

Survey students early in the semester: Pre-Course Survey

by Maha Bali

Activity

Pass the Paper

by Sarah Silverman

Activity

Gratitude Journal

by Maha Bali

Activity

15% solutions

by Maha Bali

Checklist / tool

Karen Ray Costa’s Trauma-Aware Teaching Checklist

by

Article

Getting Feedback From Students Mid-Semester

by

Resource

Loglines

by

Activity

Appreciative Interviews

by Maha Bali

Activity

Pop-up Psychogeography Journey Journal

by Sarah-Jane Crowson

Guide

Some Safety Considerations for Online Community Building

by Kate Bowles

Activity

While We Wait

by Jasmina Najjar

Activity

What kind of animal are you?

by Irene Maweu

Activity

Two by Three by Bradford

by Sarita Shukla

Activity

Troika Consulting – Adaptation for Class Community Building

by Maha Bali

Activity

TRIZ

by Maha Bali

Video discussion

Trauma-Informed Pedagogy & How is Your Heart?

by Mays Imad

Activity

Tour of Where You Are

by Patrice Prusko

Activity

Third Places for Ongoing Community Building

by Maha Bali

Activity

Theater of the Oppressed: Opposites

by Tina Pippin

Activity

Theatre of the Oppressed: Image Theatre

by Maha Bali

Activity

Teaching Ethics with Theatre of the Oppressed and Liberating Structures

by Maha Bali

Activity

Surrealist Free Drawing Introductions

by Autumm Caines

Activity

Studio visits

by Mia Zamora

Activity

Structured Dialogues

by Sherri Spelic

Activity

Share an object from home

by Maha Bali

Activity

Room 101

by Jasmina Najjar

Activity

Purpose to Practice

by Maha Bali

Activity

Pass the Ball & How Do You Make Rice?

by Autumm Caines

Activity

Meditation

by Nadine Aboulmagd

Activity

Wild Tea / Mad Tea

by Maha Bali

Activity

Human Scavenger Hunt

by Susan D. Blum

Activity

Four Ideas for Checking In

by Maha Bali

Activity

Daily Creates

by Mia Zamora

Activity

Critical Uncertainties

by Autumm Caines

Activity

Conversation Cafe

by Maha Bali

Activity

Collaborative Storytelling

by Jasmina Najjar

Activity

Collaborative Literature Review Matrix

by Jasmina Najjar

Activity

Authentic Open Letter/Video Addressing Students

by

Activity

Asynchronous & Synchronous Introductions

by Mia Zamora

Activity

9 Whys of Liberating Structures

by Michael Weinraub

Activity

Spiral Journal

by Maha Bali

Activity

Annotate the Syllabus

by Remi Kalir

Report

Harassment or bullying behavior
Contains mature or sensitive content
Contains misleading or false information
Contains abusive or derogatory content
Contains spam, fake content or potential malware

Block Member?

Please confirm you want to block this member.

You will no longer be able to:

  • See blocked member's posts
  • Mention this member in posts
  • Invite this member to groups
  • Message this member
  • Add this member as a connection

Please note: This action will also remove this member from your connections and send a report to the site admin. Please allow a few minutes for this process to complete.

Report

You have already reported this

We would like to hear your feedback!

Maha Bali is undertaking research to discover how educators are using these open resources from Equity Unbound/OneHE. Click the button to find out more and to participate.    

find out more