Described as the worldwide home of Open Space practitioners:
http://www.openspaceworld.org/
Direct link to the writings of Harrison Owen, father of OS:
http://www.openspaceworld.org/news/world-story
What Wikipedia has to say:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Space_Technology
Please reply to add your favourite link, or come back to see other links from Liz.
SFU is popularly known as the radical campus. Its first 40 years are documented in a book of that name written by professor emeritus, Hugh Johnston:
Johnston, H. (2005). Radical campus: Making Simon Fraser University. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre Ltd.
The fly leaf of that book uses many words and phrases to describe SFU in the early days, including:
ferment, flux, exhilerating, confusing, political fireworks...
Obviously, radical as applied to SFU was used in the sense of revolutionary, however, a different definition was used in announcing the Radical Teaching Open Space. According to the definition in the Oxford English Dictionary, radical can also mean:
Going to the root or origin, touching or acting upon what is essential and fundamental.
What then is radical teaching?
What is Open Space? There are a number of useful sources for answering that question.
Probably the most authoratative text is the book published by Harrison Owen. He is credited with having created and popularized the use of Open Space, beginning in the 1980s. He wrote this book as a guide to convening OS and states on p. 153:
Open Space is now a global phenomenon. What began as the special preserve of a select few is now a broadly held property. At the moment, the vast majority of Open Space events are facilitated by people I don't know, have never seen, and that is just wonderful.
Reference:
Owen, H. (1997). Open space technology: A user's guide, 2nd Ed. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.
Call number at SFU Harbour Centre library: HD 30.23 O927
STLHE is the Canadian association for educators who are interested in approaches to teaching and learning in universities, colleges and other post-secondary institutions. There are 60 institutional memberships from all across Canada, and the website states:
"Since 1981, STLHE has shown leadership in higher education, advocating for teaching excellence and to advancing the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning." http://www.mcmaster.ca/stlhe/
The 2007 STLHE Conference will be taking place June 12 - 16 in Edmonton, at the University of Alberta. The majority of attendees at the conference will be staff and academics from member institutions who are actively involved in promoting excellence in teaching, either in their own classrooms or through programs they run in teaching and learning centres.
For further information on the conference, visit:
http://www.ualberta.ca/~uts/STLHE/
This discussion forum has been set up for the conference, and participants are welcome to join in. The topic to be explored here is related to knowledges exchange, and the evidence of that at STLHE.
Welcome to the discussion forum on the text for the readers' group gathering of April 26th, 2007, in the Halpern Centre at Simon Fraser University.
Huber surfaces the problem that faculty members in every research university face: the challenge of juggling the demands of research and teaching. She provides insights into how those demands are managed, by introducing four case studies. The stories tell of professors who have made a scholarly study of their own teaching in psychology, chemistry, engineering and literature.
As you read the case studies, and Huber's interlaced chapters on the nature of the scholarship of teaching and learning, which of the comments and experiences resonate for you as you think about your own teaching? Do the strategies used by the four professors parallel any of your own approaches to studying your own teaching? What ideas are you taking away from the text?