Category: facilitation

It Is Here! Group Pattern Language Deck

I’m thrilled to learn that the Group Pattern Language Project has released the Group Pattern Language deck  ….and happy to add the deck as an an update to this post from 2010: Facilitation Card Decks.

I was part of the initial team, but honestly, I struggled with the discipline of writing patterns. My brain kept on spotting exceptions so I fell off the wagon after the first meeting. But I kept supporting from the side because I sensed this team really got something I simply could not grasp. Now their hard work has borne fruit. Here are a few snippets from the web page.

Welcome to groupworksdeck.org, the website about the Group Pattern Language Project’s exciting new deck of 91 full-colour cards to help facilitators and participants make their group process work more effective. The deck is accompanied by a 5-panel explanatory legend card and a booklet describing the purpose of the deck, how it evolved, and some ideas for games and other activities using the deck.

The cards, besides being quite lovely to look at, are a great way to stimulate our thinking about how we interact with others, how we design gatherings and how we work together. Look at a few of their suggestions on the about page.

Suggested Uses:

1.  For group learning or teaching of facilitation skills
Deal out the cards randomly, so that each person is holding a portion of the deck.  Have someone read, tell, or invent a story about an event:
(a) that was well-facilitated,
(b) that was poorly facilitated, or
(c) that they will be facilitating in the near future.
Have participants call out when the cards in their hands correspond to patterns that:
(a) were used in the well-facilitated event,
(b) could have been used to improve the poorly-facilitated event, or
(c) might be used in the upcoming event.

2.  For post-event reflection and debriefing
Lay out all the cards so everyone can see them.
Tell the story of the recent event.  As you do, identify which patterns were invoked and which might have been more effectively invoked.

3.  For a team preparing for a facilitated event
Place a large display board at the front of the room.  In the rows, list the nine categories; in the columns, list time stages:  “pre-event planning,” “beginning of the event,” “middle of the event,” “ending of the event,” “follow-up.”
Sort the cards by category.  Hand out the category stacks to individuals or groups on the team.
Have someone describe the upcoming event:  the objective, background, possible obstacles to success, etc.
Invite team members to select patterns in their category that could be used at each stage, and post the corresponding card in the appropriate row or column of the board (using a non-permanent adhesive).
Once complete, review the full arrangement on the board and discuss as a group whether it presents an appropriate strategy for the upcoming event.

4.  For intuitive guidance—using the cards as an oracle or fortune-teller
Can be done as part of preparing for an event or a during a break.
Focus on the situation you are seeking guidance for, turning it over in your mind.  Draw one card to give you inspiration for how to proceed.  Or choose a tableau to apply.  For example, five cards might represent, in sequence:  (a) the context/past situation, (b) current influences, (c) the current challenge you face, (d) unexpected future influences, and (e) outcome/resolution.
Use the cards personally or as a group to divine your current situation, future fortune, or what to do next.  Let your minds and imaginations and the group conversation guide you to what it all means, and have fun with it!

5.  For creating a case study to present in a class or workshop
On a board or flipchart, create a blank Storyboard with dates and/or times shown across the top.
In time sequence, tell the story of what happened, writing key events and facts on the Storyboard.  As you do, post the card for the pattern that was used at that key point onto the Storyboard (using a non-permanent adhesive).

6.  Assignments during a group session
As people walk in the door, or once everyone has assembled, give each person one random card and ask them to take responsibility for bringing that pattern into the group session as needed.

7.  For self-assessment and self-directed learning
Lay out all the cards.  Identify which patterns you feel most competent using, and which you would like to become better at.
A.  Personal Development Activity
Each week, select one pattern from the second list, and think about how you have used it in the past, could have used it, and might use it in future.  Keep it in a place where it’s visible and refer back to it at various points during the week.  Research situations where it has been used in an exemplary way.  Make a point of observing when it gets used in an event or activity you participate in, and how the facilitator effectively invoked it (or not).  (NB: If you are a facilitation teacher, you might similarly assign certain patterns to your students to study and research.)
B.  Group Development Activity
Sit in a circle around the cards laid out.  Give each person one or two sets of tokens (coins, paperclips, etc.).  Invite each person to lay tokens on: (a) the patterns they feel strong in already, and (b) the patterns they would like to get better at.  Take turns sharing about why you chose the patterns you did.  Teach each other by having the more competent group members tell stories and suggest approaches and exercises, and go to this website for further resources.

8.  Methodology Mapping
If you are an experienced practitioner of a particular process method (e.g.  Open Space Technology, Appreciative Inquiry, Future Search, etc.), you can use the cards to map that method.  Choose 5-12 cards that you think are most important or that tell the story of how that method works.  Then from that set, choose 1-3 cards to put at the very centre, the patterns that express the vital core of that method.  Use this to explain the method to others, from among your colleagues or on our website.

9.  In the middle of an event when the group is stuck
The deck can be used for “getting unstuck” in a variety of ways—by having the group reflect and talk about patterns that might be invoked (perhaps handing out the cards and/or displaying the full list of patterns), by guerrilla facilitation of someone in the group describing an “escape pattern” and then leading the group to invoke it, or by drawing an “oracle” card as in use (4) above.

I immediately wanted to start trying some of these ideas and will use the deck in some upcoming work.

Because I love the people who made these cards, I went out and bought 10 sets … some to use, some to give to clients and some to set free. I want to give four sets away to readers of this blog who help get the word out about the deck.

If you would like a set, please post a blog post about the deck and how you might use it, then leave a link in the comments. Make sure you include a valid email address when you submit your comment (only I will see it) as I’ll use that to contact you to get your address/mail you the deck. First four, folks! Starting NOW!

 Edit: January 12th. The Decks have arrived (THEY ARE BEAUTIFUL) so I’m going to put a deadline of noon PST, January 18th on my offer so I can then send the decks along!)

Tips for Facilitating a Week in Change11 MOOC

A friend asked me to share any tips I had after facilitating week 8 of the massively open online course (MOOC) Change11. In the interest of openness, here is a copy of my response! I clarified my hasty email a bit and added a few more things in [brackets].

At 01:44 PM 12/22/2011, you wrote:

Nancy —

Last summer I agreed to facilitate a week of the change11 MOOC — I don’t know how to say no, I’m afraid. I’ve been so caught up in other responsibilities that I really haven’t followed it much so far. I know you facilitated a week. I have a presentation ready and some texts. Any tips on what I should expect/do during the week?

Hiya Friend

Haha, I don’t know how to say no either and I did week 8 in the midst of a massive Autumn of travel. I should have my head examined. But it turned out really great because I deeply connected with a few people… we resonated! (See theseprevious posts for more background.)

I, unlike most of the other week facilitators so far, did NOT prepare anything. I was aiming for experience and reflection and, besides, no time to prepare. Ha! What is important is to decide on your live events and get them on the calendar. [meaning days and times — remember this is global so consider time zones].One of the biggest complaints so far is these things are very last minute and people can’t get them on their calendars.

Then kick of the week with a live event (which seems to focus energy in this very diverse group) and then follow the hash tag. [My event was focused on a few key questions I put on slides in the synchronous meeting room white board. You can see the before and after versions here. I also did an DLT one on Tuesday and the wrap up event on Friday.  ]

What I did to see who was writing or tweeting was to add a #Change11 tag to my Tweetdeck and to read the #Change11 daily  that Stephen sends out with a pretty good collection of links. Then I followed the links and left comments on as many blogs that I found relating to my week. That took a bit of time, but the feedback was that this was really meaningful to people — particularly since we talked a lot about connection in week 8. Then I did a wrap up live event on Friday where Stephen and George peppered me with academic questions which I, frankly, didn’t relate to very well. But we had fun and that was ok. Then I wrote a wrap up blog post and included as many links as I could find to give everyone a little link love and recognition of their inputs for the week.

I followed up a bit more the week after, then returned to Change11 lurk mode. 😉 (see here, here  and here)

The reason I did the follow ups was because I was also talking about something that was a learning edge for me. It wasn’t “complete” and thus learning from everyone’s input was of value to me. Some may find this onerous work (and time consuming.) YMMV.

…deleted personal message…

Waving with lots of warm holiday choco-thoughts. Happy Solstice!

N

Reflecting on my TAFE Workshop Approach

Phew! I’ve run workshops in 7 Australian TAFEs in Victoria and Tasmania states in the past three weeks – 3 hours of “intro” in the morning and 3 hours for “advanced” practitioners in the afternoon. Time to debrief!

I had a couple of underlying principles: provide the participants options and agency in the workshops, and to “walk the talk” of engagement rather than simply presenting.  At dinner one night just past the mid-point, my host Brad Beach and I were debriefing and he wondered if this approach was recognized or “seen” by the participants (between 20-35 people per session. It led me to wonder about those who also saw me for a keynote, an advanced online facilitation workshop, and 30 or so at KMLF and another 10 in a medical practitioners community of practice workshop. Wow, more than 650 people in 10 days! Reflect, reflect, reflect.

I have been thinking about this and have two somewhat contrary thoughts. One is really a question:  does it matter if they explicitly understood my approach? The other is, if we can’t walk our talk, then we can’t keep moving our teaching and learning practices forward.

First, a bit about my approach – I welcome your feedback. Based on some preparation with the workshop sponsors (all TAFEs (Technical and Further Education, sort of like our community colleges in the US but not really…) in Victoria and Tasmania states), we identified 7 “clumps” or areas related to teaching and learning online including:

  • using a communities of practice lens to help make the social aspects of learning more visible/usable
  • critically looking if “community” is useful in any particular context
  • purpose
  • relationship
  • engagement and support
  • activities
  • monitoring and evaluation

To back this up I prepared a huge slide deck of back up material we could select from depending on what people wanted to hear about. Of course as a whole this heaps too much.  In retrospect, too much even for choosing, especially with the diverse groups I had. And it requires spending quite a bit of time “explaining” to even begin to select. So I realized I had to structure some activities to surface what issues people were interested in.

For the morning sessions I used the paired face drawing  (for details, see  here and here) to both make space for paired introductions and as a metaphor for how we work online with others… being open, trusting, not-knowing, and the power of open turn taking. Plus its unexpected and fun. Then I was going to do the “35” exercise (which I did not know by this name until a weekend last week with Viv McWaters and Geoff Brown.. credit to Thiagi) but the rooms I was in didn’t have enough space for the circulating needed.

In the smaller groups, we went around the circle sharing names and “what brought you here today.” In most cases, each person’s reason prompted a comment from me which sometimes turned into mini conversations so this took up to an hour.  I kept a flip chart of these ideas and referred back to it throughout the workshop. But the concept was that even just sharing what we were interested in brought us deep into domain conversations without a presentation or “content” delivered by me.

At this point I asked if people were interested in a short presentation on the communities of practice perspective and some reflections on how it might be useful in designing, doing and evaluating teaching and learning online. (By the way, these few slides were the ONLY slides I ended up using, but you can find the whole, annotated deck at the end of this post.)  As the week proceeded, I realized that this design approach was a nice way “in” on these conversations and I built on it, combining with a “design for at LEAST three perspectives” of institution/administration, teacher/facilitator/leader and learner/student. All week long as I heard people’s stories I heard, I felt, a lot of pressure to design for compliance and administrative needs, even while there is a ton of emphasis on the learners. I kept feeling that if we were able to look across these three audiences and across the “community-domain-practice” of the CoP lens, that we’d see a fuller perspective of the online learning offerings and find a fuller way to evaluate the whole, instead of just on completion rates, compliance to government vocational training requirements and student satisfaction surveys. But I’ll write more about that in a future blog post.

After that, we needed to mix things up with a break. In some of the workshops we did Dave Gray’s “empathy map” exercise to expand what we consider about ourselves and the learners. It is a useful, visual way to test if we ARE designing for students.

Other times — both in the morning and afternoon sessions — we did case clinics using various “fishbowl” formats. I think the Samoan Circle variation worked best because we did not fall into the challenging whole circle – everyone wanting to talk problem. The bottom line with these case clinics was that one person with a real problem or opportunity benefited from the experience of the group, everyone saw more clearly that each other was a resource and that this online learning offering is not a solo practice. I could have just thrown up a few slides and said that in 5 minutes, but I think the conversations in the fishbowl were some of the most engaging in all the workshops.

The afternoon workshops were intended for teachers who have been teaching online for some time. To surface both their context and what they wanted to talk about, we first brainstormed some of their major challenges. We picked one and ran a reverse brainstorm in teams of 5.  Some of the challenges they picked to design for “100% failure” ranged from the generic “all online learning” to “focusing student engagement.” As usual, this activity generates laughter, then good reflective conversations about real issues in their institutions. Sometimes I probed with the “four why’s” approach as it can be easy to sit at the symptom level, rather than get to the underlying or systemic issue.  Again, through a conversational format using small and large group issues were surfaced. I like the reverse brainstorm better than a straight up brainstorm as I think it is easy to get stuck both in our ruts and our “that’s the way it always is” attitude. By designing for failure rather than success, we shift our frame far enough that new perceptions can emerge.

The afternoon then also had some sort of fishbowl case clinic. The clinics seem to tap into the knowledge and experience in the room and most people mentioned in the debrief how useful this was. We did a modified fishbowl “Samoan Circle” style where we started with three people in the middle, with one of the people being the person with a challenge or case, one colleague they picked and me. We started by hearing the case person’s story and then asked clarifying questions. Those questions alone can trigger a great deal of insight. Then we’d segue into ideas, followed by the case person reviewing what they heard/learned and planned to do. People said they planned to use this method back at work!

In some of the workshops people had technology questions and we were able to successfully play using Twitter as both a note taking and “tapping into the outside world” experiment. I need to write this up separately as there were many insights. (Ah more time, eh?)

Finally, in all the workshops I asked people to “Pay it forward” by suggesting what they heard in the workshop I should make sure to share with the next group. This was a twist on “what did you learn.” You can see what they said in the early slides in the deck annotated below.  Sometimes we finished with a round of “just three words” on “your experience of the last three hours.” I always love the words – predictable and unpredictable – which come out.

Here is the PDF file of the annotated resources slides…NOT a presentation!  FacilitatingOnlineInteractionforLearningAU11

 

conVerge11 Keynote, Workshop and Reflections

I’ve been home just over a week after three great weeks in Australia, which started off with a keynote and workshop at ConVerge11 in Melbourne. (You can access all the session notes here.) The keynote was at 4pm on the first, packed day and I was asked to help encourage people to come to the cocktail reception afterwards. So I took my charge as “drive them to drink!”

Keynote

My goal was to provoke some thought about how we step beyond this idea of “creating communities for learning online” and instead think about connecting for learning — across cohorts, with the outside world, with our sponsoring institutions and with ourselves. After all, we can’t simply keep joining more groups. That does not scale. When we do utilize community approaches, we also need to think about how we make them the best they can be.  So I wove in the idea of the social artist (borrowing from Wenger and Houston). I confess, I dumped a LOT on people in an hour. If they didn’t need a drink when we started, I’m sure they did when I finished!

Below are my annotated slides because, as usual, my slides make no sense on their own. First is the Slideshare deck, and below is the PDF handout which is actually easier for reading the annotations.

conVerge 11: Connecting for Learning: Left and right, up and down (annotated)

View more presentations from Nancy White
Workshop: Advanced Online Facilitation Practices
Friday afternoon we had a great group for the workshop. Since I dumped a million ideas on everyone the day before, my approach to the workshop was full on participatory. At the last minute I decided to run an online experiment with Google+ at the same time to both capture what we did and to bring in any outside voices from my network who happened to be awake. (Not many… it was Thanksgiving weekend in the US.) 55 comments later… Do read the comments. There is a lot of insight that people contributed and a big thanks to Evan for scribing! (most of the comments under my name are Evan capturing conversation from the room.)
I started by asking people to write their teaching and learning strengths via key words on paper, then share and talk about them with others around them — especially to move away from the people they know. Sort of unmasking the superpowers in the room.
We then went with Dave Gray’s Empathy Mapping exercise to help surface different perspectives. That generated some fantastic insights about our own teaching approaches and what we know or assume about our learners. Somehow someone asked about how to get people in a comfortable place to talk about what they think and I mentioned the Human Spectrogram. Instead of telling, we DID it!  By the time we did both of these activities the 50 minutes had disappeared, we were running five minutes late and everyone was coming in for the closing session. Poof! And ConVerge11 was history.
I also have a Tweetdoc of the Tweets I was able to capture Nancy-White-at-Converge11
All in all, it was a great re-entry into my network of teachers and learners in Australia, a well run conference and …as always, when I present, I present from my own edge to deepen my own learning.

Valerie’s Amazing Thinking About Social Artists

(Note: this is a re-do of a post from this week lost due to hardware crash of my host. Sorry for the bad link at http://fullcirc.com/wp/2011/12/13/valeries-amazing-thinking-about-social-artists/)

As a followup from my week facilitating Change11, the amazing Valerie blew my mind with her video summary and synthesis of the week. No, it was much more than that. WOW. Take a look if you are interested in this idea of the social artist. Valerie, you ROCK!