learning history workshop guide. what’s included in the slide pack? slides to assist your...
TRANSCRIPT
Learning History
workshop guide
What’s included in the slide pack?
Slides to assist your preparation
Thinking about what you want to achieve
Phases of a workshop
A sample half day workshop
Using quotes to provoke discussion
Sample points for discussion
Slides as a resource for the workshop
Aims
Principles of Total Place work
Starting where you are
Sections of the report explained
What is a learning history?
How its laid out
Elements of the story
Kolb’s learning cycle
Action learning cycle
Pre Work
This slide pack with accompanying facilitators’ notes has been created to assist the use of the learning history as a tool and forms the basis of a four hour workshop. The workshop’s purpose is to introduce the learning history, understand the experiences and lessons learnt and to consider how to apply this to the future of working in a holistic way.
The following slides are designed to assist you in your preparation
for the workshop
Thinking about what you want to achieve
The workshop will enable the group to use the learning history document: ‘Places, People & Politics: Learning to do things differently’*
Having read the learning history and identified those parts that resonate (or irritate) it enables workshop participants to relate their own experience of Total Place
The exploration will stimulate ideas for what learning might be taken forward
Actions to take forward may emerge and are the tangible outcomes the workshop seeks to promote* copies available online from www.localleadership.gov.uk/current/publications/
The phases of a workshop
Setting the sceneInvite someone from senior management, a champion or a key player to kick the workshop off. This gives value to the dialogue about to take place (and the validity of the report on which it is based)
Phase one‘What happened and why?’
Phase two‘So what?’ and ‘What next?’
SummarisingWhat will happen next?
A sample half-day workshop
Setting the scene
9.30 Introduction by a senior leader / local champion
Introduction to the Learning History, the session and the group
Phase 1
First reactions (small groups)
What stood out for you when you read the report and why? (Surprise, joy, anger,
sadness, frustration etc.)
Working on extracts/ quotes/questions – (see samples, gather some from the group or
Select some in advance relevant for the group)
Phase 2
‘So what?’ In small groups participants share reactions and thinking about possibilities
for change within their area of responsibility
Insight into action ‘What next?’• What can be developed and at what points in the system? • Who, how and when these will be taken forward
Summarising
12.45 Summary of next steps and what will happen next
13.00 Close
Sample quotes to provoke conversation
“The good ideas still have to be done regardless really and when the dust
settles, an election’s held, whatever we do we’re going to keep coming back
to this area?”
“Oh I could do it every day of the week; I just find it fascinating because it’s
inspiring isn’t it looking at how you change things. I find that the concept of
Total Place is a really liberating one in terms of freeing you up to think about
things in a different way.”
(Select other quotes more carefully or gather some from
participants to be the focus for discussion)
Sample points for discussion
What did you notice from the quotes that you recognised or that connected powerfully with your own experience?
From your perspective, what is new and what isn’t? (Things that you have thought and how you have behaved for a long time?)
What inspires, reawakens old values?
What are the blocks which you recognise where you work?
What are the doubts and difficulties that have not been spoken about?
The following slides can be used or adapted for use on the workshop
Title of your workshop:
Name of the facilitator:
How we aim to use ‘Places, People & Politics: Learning to do things differently’
To identify whether your reflections are personal and which are shared by others
To value, evaluate and hear different voices and perspectives from different levels and roles in the local and central government system
To learn and become conscious of lessons so we don’t repeat them
To challenge what you are all thinking
To notice what are ‘old’ ideas and what is ‘new’
To focus on the challenges and opportunities
Aims of the workshop
The overall purpose of this workshop is to …….
The more specific aims of the workshop are:
xxx
xxx
xxx
xxx
Principles of Total Place
Locally led
Holistic
Customer-needs driven
Relationships are more critical than are the rules
Try it and experiment
It is better to ask forgiveness than permission
Respect people in authority and seek conversations and ask for them to open doors
Don’t make assumptions - find out, explore
Starting where you are
Identify the most significant time for your locality during your involvement in Total Place
Identify what your questions are now about Total Place
What affected or inspired you most personally?
What was most difficult or challenging for you personally?
If it all left you cold why do you think that was?
Sections of the report explained
Contents:
• Section 0 Arguments for a new approach to public sector working in places
• Section 1 The origins of Total Place
• Section 2 Project inception to the Pre-Budget Report (PBR)
• Section 3 From the PBR to the final reports
• Section 4 Was it worth it? Yes it was
• Afterword
What is the Learning History?
It’s a collection of stories, learning and reflection from a large number of people involved in Total Place
Over 100 people were interviewed from different Places and parts of the system
The interviews were recorded and analysed with the themes and data drawn from people’s concrete experiencesThe process produces a ‘jointly told tale’
The next stage is for readers to join the story, react, identify and learn themselves from it.
Learning history structure
People’s real experience expressed in quotes:The quotes are the data and evidence upon which the history
is written
Signposts of left hand side of the page:These are to guide the reader and captures the essence of what the quotes are saying
First paragraphat the beginning of each sectionThis sets the scene and tells you what was happening at the time and what’s included in the section
Questions to consider These are at the end of each section and are designed to provoke discussion and reflection for the reader
The quotes
The quotes
The questions
The elements of the story / history
There’s nothing new-
we are already doing
this
There’s nothing new-
we are already doing
this
Insights – new thoughts and new
actions
Another dimension
The
customers
The unspoken doubts and difficulties
The unspoken doubts and difficulties
The systemic view – how the parts fit and work together or don’t
You may notice that some difficulties have may not have been talked about
Is the voice of the customer coming through enough? What do you think they would be saying?
to consider that may not be so explicit
Kolb’s Learning Cycle
Transfer of learning Into action
Concluding:Abstract conceptualisation
or theory
Reflective observation:Relating to self and own
experience
Experiencing:Concrete experience
PlanningAction and experimentation
Kolb’s Learning Cycle Concrete
experience - Activist
Reflective observation - Reflection
Active experimentation -
Pragmatism
Abstract conceptualisation -
Theory
First hand experience + finding ways
to use experience
First hand experience + reflection on experience
Being told or reading about
it + finding new ways to use experience
Being told or reading about it + reflection on experience
The Learning Cycle
This is based on a cycle of action and reflection - the outer circle aims to create increasingly effective
leadership action, the inner triangle indicates the value of the ability to reflect and review in the
midst of action
2. Inquiring questions• to explore the issue• to deepen the inquiry
1. Description of experience and dilemmas talking about the
issue
3. Feedback what you were:• noticing• feeling• thinking• hypothesising
4. Reflection reaction and reflection ’
+ discussion to consider how the feedback loop fits with a
new understanding of the issue
5. Action• what actions should we consider taking?• what will be needed to move forwards?
Pre-work for participants
Pre-work:
Read the learning history in advance of the workshop.
As you read the report notice what experience and emotions it triggers in you either by identification or by a reaction that says ‘this is nothing like how it was for me’.
Mark the areas in the text that are most powerful for you and identify one or two of the quotes or questions that stand out most powerfully for you
Also suspend your judgement – wonder why people said what they said even if you don’t agree – keep an open mind
Come to the workshop being prepared to learn and explore with others the implications of what others have said and how you feel now
We will use your reflections during the workshop so please make notes
Instructions to send out in advance
Starting where you are
Identify the most significant time for your locality during your involvement in Total Place
Identify what your questions are now about Total Place
What affected or inspired you most personally?
What was most difficult or challenging for you personally?
If it all left you ‘cold’ why do you think that was?
Further information
Questions and more information?
• Website: www.localleadership.gov.uk/totalplace
• CoP: www.communities.idea.gov.uk/c/1564537/home.do
• Email: [email protected] or [email protected]