There is a subgroup of the LS community of practice dedicated to LS online, but so far mostly synchronously. You can join the community here: https://join.slack.com/t/liberatingstructures/shared_invite/enQtNTQ1MTQwODY1NjA1LTMxZTI2Y2U3NjU0YzcyNmRlMGFiNmUzMzhkNDAxOTU3OWM3NGQ3ODAzOTQzMGQyY2QxOWQ5MjYyZmE5ODljZTI
And then join the #virtual channel
(Edited by Beth Cougler Blom - original submission Wednesday, 5 June 2019, 1:50 PM - to make link active)
Holler if you want to "talk" more -- I'm worried that I'm posting too much in here! LOL!
Re expertless... I have to add a "yes... and" there can be great results doing an LS as a new practitioner. AND, some of the structures aren't that easy at first. AND, many of the structures have subtleties that come out with experience. I've grown more skeptical at some of our claims of "easy" and "expertless" in terms of implementation.
I think there is also an additional interpretation of "expertless" -- meaning the knowledge is in the group around the work they are doing, not in the person at the front of the room. This I fully, fully, fully experience. As teachers or facilitators, LS gives us ways to unleash and engage everyone, not lead them. Does that distinction make sense?
A hard lesson I still seem to need to learn and relearn is to not try and "sell" an LS, but to just do it. People can and will reject any offer. So my job is to make the invitation relevant and irresistible. Then if at any point I screw up the process, we can still recover and focus on that invitation. And I will need to practice and improve my invitations, I think, until the day I stop interacting with other humans!!! I have this huge impulse to EXPLAIN everything. I need to tamp that down. ;-)
Sue, thanks for getting us started. I'm always more motivated when I see someone has jumped in. Now, I'm going to pretend you have turned your back and I'm going to "talk/write" as if you were not here and hopefully soon with Bettina! (I'm super curious about this dynamic in an asynchronous text environment.)
I love that Sue is starting her class immediately with an LS because I think when we do this, it changes everyone's assumptions about their relationship with each other from the get-go. A friend observed that the most significant thing LS did in his teaching practice was create meaningful relationships with his students immediately, and relationships that were full of trust, curiosity and mutual learning. For me, if relationship is going from the start, versus a power dynamic of me/teacher/power, you learning/recipient, I'm super happy.
Another LS that would also work well here is Appreciative Interviews. They can be done simply in dyads, or 2-4 with the foursome being harvesting. The difference for me between AI and 1-2-4-All is the emphasis on listening, which is also a great practice to cultivate from the start, but takes a little more set up. So maybe starting simply is simply perfect!
Is there a moodle tool for shared editing (wiki, googledoc like thing) - I love when a group shares the capture/harvest work versus one person doing it. Keith McCandless, one of the LS founders, also often adds a bit of emphasis on the harvest to have people identify the most significant things on the list, not everything. What are the top 2-3 elements of success? What is the biggest challenge. In getting people to do their own sensemaking, I think we learn more than if we harvest EVERYTHING.