Networking and learning
Learning forum methodologies
Healthlink Worldwide staff and partners facilitate learning forums in many of our projects. The facilitators use a number of techniques to draw out learning from the experiences of participants, which can then be used to evaluate and better plan new activities.
The techniques include:
- storytelling
- role plays
- self assessment tools
- peer assists
- marketplace
- observation
- reflection and analysis.
Storytelling is often based around an approach called Most Significant Change, which asks people to identify what was the most important change that occurred over a recent period of time, and why that was.
More on Most Significant Change
Role plays provide an opportunity for creative portrayals of common situations, enable participants to bring a lot of emotional understanding to the description and depiction of a situation, and help to identify familiar practices.
A peer assist is a process of asking an individual or a group of people for advice with experience of undertaking a particular task, process or approach how they did it. Through careful questioning, it is possible to identify the important steps and the pitfalls to avoid.
A marketplace is a process loosely based on an Open Space approach to dialogue. It is a lightly facilitated space where those with ideas and experiences they have found valuable can ‘set up a stall’ to share their knowledge while those with particular information needs can ask for support and advice.
Observation skills are a key component of a learning forum. For example, observation skills were practised during the field visits to resource centres as part of the SIPAA learning forum. A small sheet of prompt questions was given to participants, highlighting some things they might find and some questions they might want to ask. Participants then shared their observations and ideas.
Reflection and analysis is a continual theme throughout a learning forum. At the end of each day, a short reflection process helps to articulate some of the key points of the day. This can be reinforced by a feedback session at the beginning of each day, to highlight key learning points. For example, at the SIPAA learning forum many of the group sessions were focused around analysing why something worked the way it did. The role plays helped to surface a great deal of analysis about the contexts in which people were working. This was complemented by a knowledge management competence framework which provided an opportunity to reflect on each organisation’s progress.
More on the SIPPA project learning forum