Jane Maxwell

I like the idea of using LS in this environment where the format and power structures are normally quite fixed.  I think it will bring some good energy to the group and make this piece of the agenda really stand out in people's minds.

Celebrity interview seems like a great choice for involving everyone in a situation where there are specific experts (the celebrities) who are better equipped to answer questions than other participants.  I think it's also a good fit for the tight timeline for this activity.  At the end of your description, you mentioned that you're open to other ideas for LS that could work here.  If you had more time, one other possibility could be to use a variation of the user experience fishbowl (have a look at Faith's activity for an example).

I wonder where the first 3 questions will come from - is there an opportunity to solicit questions from the group in advance, or are there core topics that you know you want to address with the group?  

I agree that having a sharing of individual questions adds a lot.  Perhaps you could ask each small group to choose a single question to move forward to the next (live) round, and then all questions could be collected and answered off-line afterwards?

Thanks for sharing these plans - I'm going to keep this in mind for next time this type of "presentation" is requested!

Hi Ross,

This sounds like a fun way to engage instructors who have limited time to connect with support/PD!

I have a clarifying question for you (feel free to respond as soon as you have time, if this isn't breaking the rules of the activity):  What is your most important goal for the session?  I can see this activity offering benefits in many areas (building community, exploring new technologies, generating solutions, ....), but I'm not clear on your top priority.

More feedback to follow,

Jane

Hi Russ and Michelle (and anyone else browsing here),

Going into this activity I knew that I wanted to apply LS to one one of our team's professional development offerings for instructors here at Yukon college.  After swimming around a bit among the LS resources, I decided to develop an activity for our course design intensive (CDI) workshop that applies the LS principle of creative destruction ?.  

What is the group scenario you are considering for Liberating Structures? 

The CDI workshop usually includes 6-8 participants and 2-3 facilitators.  The group meets for four full days, spread out over 2-4 weeks depending on the time of year.  Each participant brings a course that they're working on, and the sessions combine group activities to explore/generate ideas, individual application, and peer feedback.

What is the key purpose for the group gathering?

The key purpose of this activity is to evaluate a course that is under revision and identify which parts should be removed or revised.  Each instructor will be working on their own course and context, so they will have different answers to these questions.

Liberating Structure and Draft Invitation:

TRIZ (Stop Counterproductive Activities and Behaviors to Make Space for Innovation) is a Liberating Structure with creative destruction at its core.  I would modify it slightly to reflect the fact that each participant is working on a unique course/context.

In this three-step process, we would ask:

1. “Make a list of all you can do in the design of your course (content, learning outcomes, assessments, activities, ....) to make sure that students experience as little meaningful learning as possible.”
2. “Go down this list item by item and ask yourselves, ‘Is there anything in the current version of the course that in any way, shape, or form resembles this item?’ Be brutally honest to make a second list of all your counterproductive elements.”
3. “Go through the items on your second list and decide what first steps you can take to address the elements that you've identified as creating an undesirable results?”

TRIZ normally includes cycles of 1-2-4-All for each of the three questions, where participants pool their ideas.  In this case, the participants will each be working on different courses and therefore generating distinct answers.  Given this diversity and the small size of the group, I think a more appropriate means of sharing would be pair discussions followed by whole-group sharing where each person shares something that their partner came up with (sort of like an appreciative interview). Participants could add to their list if they agree with something they heard, but don't need to combine their lists into one. 

Please let me know if you have any questions - I look forward to your feedback!

Reading through the discussion thread on Doug's big question (Ah ah - and Cultural Backgrounds?) has helped me to clarify a bit further what I'm struggling with.

When I look at the Principles behind liberating structures, I agree that they're all important for the type of liberating work/discussion that we want to achieve.

1. Include and Unleash Everyone
   
2. Practice Deep Respect for People and Local Solutions
3. Build Trust As You Go
4. Learn by Failing Forward
5. Practice Self-Discovery Within a Group
6. Amplify Freedom AND Responsibility
7. Emphasize Possibilities: Believe Before You See
8. Invite Creative Destruction To Enable Innovation
9. Engage In Seriously-Playful Curiosity
10. Never Start Without a Clear Purpose

Where I struggle is: How do the structures themselves help us to achieve these principles?  For example, I've seen 1-2-4-All employed in a way that fails to really meet most (if any) of these principles. 

If our goal is create (or help others to create) teaching and learning activities that meet these principles, does LS simply provide a set of example structures that should be used with these principles in mind, or is there a more fundamental relationship between principles and structure that I'm still missing?   

Hi Erin,

Thanks for sharing your context, and for the laugh.  :)  I can relate!  

Jane