 |
The Guide Beside is developed and delivered through the VAEE with funding from the Department of Sustainability & Environment |
|
|
||
| -Home -About the Guide -Casestudies -2007-Stage 3 -Draft Modules -Using the Guide -Key Documents -Workshops, Forums -Links -FAQ's | |||
|
|
Using the Guide This page is currently under under development. The Guide Beside (GB) approach is based on a set of Principles, which in turn require a certain type of practice. The key purpose of the GB project is to become clearer about the Principles and Practices of collaborative, transformative learning and change, and to foster understanding and skill development of these principles and practices within the learning community of sustainability facilitators. Principles of Collaborative Transformative Learning & Change |
|
|||||||||||
KEY PRINCIPLES FOR EFFECTIVE COLLABORATIVE & TRANSFORMATIVE STYLE SUSTAINABILITY FACILITATION WHICH UNDERPIN THE GUIDE BESIDE PROJECT |
|||||||||||||
Professional Learning for Sustainability Facilitators: Note: These principles are primarily based around facilitating for sustainability, rather than for developing the program of professional learning – in many instances these will be the same, or fully consistent. However there are principles that can be identified for Professional Learning (PL) for sustainability facilitation that are distinct from those for facilitation itself (see PART 2 below). The frameworks and processes (pedagogies) for the PL project (learning how to enhance / improve sustainability facilitation) need to be consistent with the processes and frameworks for fostering change towards sustainability – that is, we affirm transformative learning for change at each level (Group 1 Principles). There are additional principles that are also important for effective change towards sustainability (Group 2) which also apply to broad scale change towards sustainability, as well as to professional learning specifically. Finally, there are also specific principles that are important for those undertaking professional learning to assist their capacity and effectiveness to facilitate change (Group 3 Principles). The frameworks and processes for using transformative learning for change in facilitation include: Group 1. Transformative Learning Principles Reflective practice: Critically and supportively reflecting on our own and each other's practice, as an ongoing process; implies facilitation and leadership for collaborative learning and commitment to contextually relevant outcomes. Valuing and testing prior experience: Testing in our practice what we consider of value from others' experience, both directly from colleagues & from more consolidated sources (eg. written). Collaboration: Collaborating together to both foster learning and to facilitate change, and co-learning through the exchange of ideas and experiences, to develop common understandings & actions. High Level Learning: Recognising and building on the linkages between different levels and types of understanding – through knowledge and understanding, skills & capabilities, attitudes and values, action and participation. Valuing prior knowledge and diverse ways of knowing: Beginning with the existing knowledge & understanding of participants, wherever that is, and finding ways to connect learning & change to the social and cultural experience of participants, and to the preferred ways that participants learn & work together, so the have ownership of the change process, and are empowered to take action. Valuing both content and process: Fostering learning of ways to reflectively and collaborative work together for change, and fostering understanding of basic ecoliteracy concepts in ways that are meaningful to the experiences and preferred learning modes of participants. Learning through doing: Trying out new ways of acting, as well as reflecting on the outcomes of this new behaviour, and adapting or changing this, is central to effective practical learning for change. In implementing this transformative learning approach for change towards sustainability we recognise the importance of: Group 2: Other Related Principles Behaviour change is primary goal: Irrespective of how people change, change towards more sustainable actions is the primary goal, and ultimately the behaviour of all people needs to be consistent with environmental sustainability. Values and ethics : These are the values and ethics which underpin that which we want to sustain and enhance into the future, across positive environmental, social and economic attributes, locally and globally. Advocacy as well as implementation : Recognising that both the setting and achieving of specific shorter-term achievable sustainability goals (kicking goals), and fostering change towards longer term sustainability goals (shifting the goal posts) are important aspects of change and facilitation; these longer term goals include:
Using practical examples: Exemplars, stories, case studies and uses of technologies which at once capture key principles of learning and changing, and the richness of the contexts within which learning and change take place. Regulation and Opportunity : Regulation is an important component of change for sustainability, but must be developed in conjunction with opportunities for transformative learning, as well as encouragement, commitment and incentives for action. The principles in Group 1 and Group 2 apply to both facilitation of change towards sustainability, in the wider community, as well as to the implementation of programs of PL for sustainability facilitators. There are additional principles that are specifically relevant to PL for sustainability facilitators, as follows (Note: ultimately many of these principles will apply at all levels of change for sustainability, not just PL for sustainability facilitators): Group 3: Additional Principles for Professional Learning Sustaining Ourselves: Because facilitating change for sustainability involves personal as well as professional commitment, and deals with changing peoples' values, and advocating for change as well as achieving pre-set sustainability goals, those undertaking this work meet significant challenges, both personal and institutional. The work entails a level of personal/emotional risk, which requires recognition of this risk, and ways to maintain one's inner integrity and sense of self and values in the face of these risks – developing these are a legitimate part of PL. Fostering a community of experienced sustainability facilitators: as one of the key ways to promote reflective and collaborative learning, including exchange of ideas, information and approaches, as well as supporting one another through major change and challenges, personal and professional. Being able to facilitate learning and change for sustainability is a necessary but insufficient condition for being able to foster learning (PL): the project needs to identify not only the key elements for successful facilitation, but the conditions and inputs required for people to learn to facilitate better and with more flexibility (in a combination of direct learning from others, background sources and reflective, collaborative practice). Everyone is a learner: this requires facilitators of PL to balance the need to draw on and consolidate the knowledge and expertise already existing within the community of experienced sustainability facilitators (including for example, written material such as manuals, toolboxes and research papers), with the need to maintain flexibility and adaptability in the implementation of this knowledge and expertise in particular contexts. Also to allow for adaptability with changing circumstances, opportunities for new approaches and perspectives to arise, and for the frameworks and processes (pedagogies) of all participants, including experienced facilitators, to be drawn on in grounded and reflective and transformative ways. Practices of Collaborative Transformative Learning and Change  The outcomes of Stage 1 of the Guide Beside project confirmed the views at both national and international levels of the best and most effective approaches to sustainability education: that the current dominant approaches of awareness raising and information delivered in transmissive ways are not fulfilling the need for deep and lasting change (or even first level change). Current approaches assume a top-down, one size fits all model. But if we are, as the State Government Environmental Sustainability Framework says , to encourage ‘every Victorian … to take action', then we need to learn how to facilitate learning and change on the ground to the diversity of communities, organisations, businesses, etc. who want and need to take action: in ways that are positive, meaningful and productive to them. The problem is, we have not had a lot of shared experience or developed understanding of this approach. Through the GB project we have found that many sustainability facilitators, in pockets of activity and practice, have invented their own versions of the collaborative transformative approach with the participants and constituencies they are working with on the ground. However, these facilitators have had limited opportunities to share these ideas, and learn from one another, or from research and consolidated experience. And they have had even less opportunity to sort through and practice what works for them, using the same collaborative transformative processes they are wanting to use with their participants. The GB approach is committed to building a networked learning community of sustainability facilitators that will provide the collaboration and support needed to learn from one anothers' experience, and to practice and explore new and effective techniques for fostering collaborative learning and change. Knowing how to do it is not the same as developing this capability others Knowing how to facilitate collaborative transformative learning is different to being able to teach or foster in others the capacities needed for this work. There is a tendency, in professional development for sustainability education, to hold ‘run through' demonstrations with fellow professionals, of what you would do with base level participants, and assume that they will follow suit. But knowing what might best to do is only half the picture. The other half is knowing how to take these suggestions and adapt them to your own circumstances, in a way that fits with:
 In many instances, the ‘running through what to do' style of PD leaves sustainability educators struggling with questions about how to use the valuable insights they gain from these exercises, but without the time or assistance to make effective use of these. It also sends an incorrect buried message: that telling others what to do will somehow result in learning and change. Knowing what others have found to be useful with participants, although helpful in limited ways, is not the same as knowing and exploring how you personally will facilitate and foster collaborative transformative learning. And listening, or in other ways learning, from an expert facilitator, will also not necessarily be sufficient: an expert who knows how to facilitate in this way will not necessarily have thought through ways to best foster this capability in other facilitators. Often expert facilitators act from their own intuition and years of experience, and find it difficult to identify just what they do that makes it work. Getting to the bottom of what does work for others is part of the GB approach (collaborative learning) as is transforming this understanding into ways of knowing and acting that are personally useful for you. The real learning and change for effective facilitation will happen in planned, appropriately facilitated sessions that bring together collaboration, reflection on experience, theory and consolidated experience, as well as opportunities for transformative shifts in understanding – these are the characteristics of deep, effective and long lasting learning and change that we also want for participants in our programs. The core of collaborative transformative professional learning It is clear from Stage 2 piloting and evaluation, that the nature of collaborative transformative processes are not as well understood in practice as they are in theory. Even though most practitioners identify with what is called for, through transformative approaches, it appears that we are not sufficiently practiced in either the design or running of these approaches to have them integrated as part of our day-to-day activities. They still require more effort to plan and do than the more commonplace transmissive approaches, and they often feel uncomfortable to implement. For these reasons, it is common for facilitators to ‘default to the transmissive' – see below. ![Text Box: As one of our very experienced and honest sustainability facilitators concluded: “I started out with the idea that I could train others to be just like me. I do have a great deal of experience. But now I realise it is not like that– and this change was quite a revelation. I now approach [training] by working with others so that they still benefit from my experience, but being careful always that my input is relevant to them. It means letting go of starting with what I know, and instead starting with what they know, and finding out what they want to know, and how they want to know it.” (Note: Honesty with ones self, and network of support of peers within which to share this honesty, would also appear to be an important element of two-way, transformative learning & change).](usingtheguide_clip_image001_0003.gif) One consistent outcome of Stage 2 piloting is that most collaborative transformative PD programs need significant facilitation, of both design and implementation, to build sufficient capacity for these initiatives to be self sustaining. There remains widespread and significant levels of uncertainty about how to creatively integrate information with process, to achieve collaborative transformative actions and outcomes. It is clear that collaborative transformative learning depends on establishing positive connections and flow of ideas between the participants. What happens in this process appears to be more complex than in transmissive style learning. But equally out of this complexity can arise more extensive learning and change. At its best, in the type of interaction that we describe as transformative, many participants and facilitators describe a kind of ‘letting go' that needs to happen – facilitating for and creating the space (or holding the intention) for active learning and change. This involves thoughtful planning for the process, but not necessarily knowing the details of the outcome in advance. To do so would not allow the adaptive and creative to occur – and result in a reversion to the transmissive ‘download'. Some of this process of ‘letting go' and ‘letting come' is described in more detail in the section on Personal Dimensions of Transformative Learning and Change in the report on Stage 2 – see Key Documents >>. At its core, collaborative transformative learning and action needs to pay attention building trust and connectivity between people, and building on these connections, as well as sharing knowledge and expertise in the group. Getting the balance right between content, group process and personalised experience takes time to learn, but can produce high level learning and change when it is achieved. |
|||||||||||||
| - Privacy Policy - Disclaimer | |||||||||||||