A possible process to distill and to apply knowledge captured from experience at Constellation learning events.
The challenge
In the course of a year, the Constellation Support Teams deliver many learning events around the world. The learning events will usually involve the facilitation of one or more stages in the Community Life Competence process. The challenge for the Constellation is to learn from these experiences so that it can evolve the Community Life Competence process on the basis of the experiences.
There are 4 particular challenges that we have considered in developing this process:
We have designed this process to address each of these challenges.
The process
Step 1: reflect, learn and document at the Constellation event
During and at the end of a Constellation event, the facilitation team reflects and documents its reflections on the facilitation of the CLCP at AERs (After Experience Reflections). This is an integral part of the work of the facilitation and forms part of the written agreement between the facilitator and the Constellation. The facilitation team decides on the scope of the AER(s) but as a minimum it will cover these areas:
What went well?
Where did problems occur?
Step 2: collect and organise the output of the AERs
The facilitation team will ensure that the results of the AERs are added to the Inspiration Box. In broad terms, the Inspiration Box organises its content according to process steps within CLCP. (This organisation reflects the organisation of the modules in the second version of Blended Learning.) If reflection and learning does not fall neatly into a process step, there will be an additional container for ‘the missing module’.
Members of the CSTs will review each entry into the Inspiration Box. They will organise a conversation with the facilitation team if further expansion or explanation of the contribution is required. The entry in the Inspiration Box will be in a form that can be understood and used by all other members of the Constellation.
Step 2 will also form part of the contractual agreement between the facilitator and the relevant Constellation Support Team.
Step 3: Distillation of content in ‘The Inspiration Box’ and selection of material for inclusion in ‘The experience of coaches’ in Blended Learning.
Learn teams will be responsible for the organisation of the collections of knowledge in the Inspiration Box according to common principles. Since the knowledge will be organised according to steps in the CLCP and its management of key functions, the common principles will also be organised in the same structure.
This collection of common principles with associated experiences that are placed in the Inspiration Box will evolve into Knowledge Assets for the Constellation.
The Learn Teams will also be responsible for selecting those common principles (with associated experience) that will be ‘promoted’ to the section of Blended Learning entitled experiences of Constellation facilitation teams. A section with this title will appear in each of the 6 modules.
These ‘promoted’ common principles will be widely ‘advertised’ by the Constellation Learn Teams with the intention of collecting further experiences or ‘tests’ that will appear in the Inspiration Box
Step 4: Inclusion of a particular common principle in the collective Constellation experience
When a particular common principle finds widespread support with the community of Constellation facilitators, it will be included in the description of the process step in Blended Learning that is described as the collective learning of the Constellation.
It is not clear at the moment just what the criteria for this final step in the process, but the objective is clear.
This is a summary of the process.