Thanks Michael, This inspires me to to more with this in the classes that I teach.
Thanks for sharing! Koos de Heer Brendan McKeague <[email protected]>schreef: >G'day Neighbour Michael > >Great story - great learnings - great facilitation! > >Thanks for posting on List. I'm so delighted that these young'uns are having >an early exposure to this way of working with wisdom! > >AND - the additional riches from intentionally expanding and embracing >diversity. > >AND - here in Western Australia > >Cheers >Brendan > > >On 19/04/2013, at 9:32 AM, Michael Wood wrote: > >> Had a lovely experience yesterday setting up a little ‘taster’ of ‘self >> organisation and Open Space principles’ with a bunch of Engineering >> Students. The unit is focussed on Engineering and Social Justice. >> >> The focus for the students this week was ‘Community Engagement in >> Engineering Projects’ so we set up a 2.5 hour session of self-organised >> conversations on this theme and asked each student to invite a community >> member to come along. We kicked off with 33 students and about 10 guests >> including experienced Engineers from industry and some fellow students from >> other (non engineering) faculties. >> >> In opening the circle I briefly explained that we were inviting the group >> into some self-organised conversations based on Open Space principles, and >> that Open Space would typically be over a 1-2 day period, but that we were >> really there to get a feel for how self-organisation works in a relatively >> short period of time. I continued with classic Open Space intro (four >> principles and one law), structured 2 x 45 minute conversations and a 15 >> minute closing circle. In the closing circle I invited participants to >> reflect on ‘what did I notice and/or what did I learn from the conversations >> I participated in’. >> >> In opening the circle I was carrying a bit of background anxiety because the >> ideal condition for OS of voluntary participation was compromised by the >> fact that students were ‘expected’ to be there as part of the course, >> combined with the fact they were mainly teenagers (18-20) and well…they were >> teenagers. So when I walked out of the circle there was a longer than usual >> period of stunned silence (probably only 1-2 minutes but felt much longer to >> me). I breathed my way through it, and over a period of 15 minutes the >> topics slowly went up on the wall. They then got to work and had 2 hours of >> rich, deeply engaged conversation. Really smart, highly reflective, students >> engaged in creating a co-learning engagement with each other and, most >> significantly, with the guests. >> >> After the closing circle we had a 30 minute small group/large group debrief >> of ‘self organising process and potential application in engineering >> projects contexts’. The overall comments were extremely positive. One >> student commented how the ‘organic flow’ of the conversations seemed to >> enable greater learning that sitting in a classroom listening to a lecture. >> >> The key learning for me was the extremely high value, to learning, of >> diversifying the group through inclusion of ‘outsiders’ (e.g. in this case, >> the community guests). I don’t think we would have had anywhere near the >> same learning value if we’d just had the students talking about ‘Community >> Engagement in Engineering Projects’ if we hadn’t actually included community >> members! In other words, we tried to model what we were talking about. >> >> And another happy outcome is that we introduced 33 engineering students to a >> new experience of self organisation and Open Space. >> >> Michael Wood >> Perth, Western Australia >> _______________________________________________ >> OSList mailing list >> To post send emails to [email protected] >> To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] >> To subscribe or manage your subscription click below: >> http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org > > >_______________________________________________ >OSList mailing list >To post send emails to [email protected] >To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] >To subscribe or manage your subscription click below: >http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org
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