Conversation for Learning
This page has been kept for reference.
It will no longer be updated by ICVET.
The importance of conversation to learning often appears to be overlooked in the continually changing workplace, lack of time and space in our busy lives.
WHY Have a Conversation Space?
Research, as well as the experience of TAFE NSW Northern Sydney Institute, shows that structured, professional conversations enable practitioners to:
- collaborate, reflect and clarify
- analyse challenges and identify solutions
- share successes and examine lessons learnt, and
- create the conditions for change and transform practice
The simplest and most powerful investment any member of a community or an organisation may make in renewal is to begin talking with other people as though the answers mattered.’
Adapted from Who Will Tell the People
by William Greider
HOW? – You need
- a conversation enabler (different to a facilitator)
- a conversation spark (usually something critical to work)
- a space
- to advertise the space
- to conduct the conversation
- to record any comments or insights
People of action often say, ‘Don't just talk, get out there and do something.’ Perhaps better advice is, ‘Don't just do something, get out there and talk.’
Willis Harman
TAFE NSW examples
Conversation Spaces
‘Conversation spaces’ have been an initiative created and implemented in TAFE NSW Northern Sydney Institute by Manager of Staff Learning and Development (SL&D), Margaret Dix. Structured professional conversations are held around the Institute's campuses at lunchtime, and are facilitated by members of SL&D.
Conversation ‘sparks’ are used to focus the conversation around current and sometimes challenging topics on VET delivery and assessment, such as holistic assessment, key competencies, the competitive VET market, funding, new qualifications and adult learning theory.
Equity Café Conversations
Two to three times per year Equity Café Conversations provide forums for TAFE staff to listen to engaging speakers and have stimulating conversation and debate around equity issues in TAFE. These are hosted by TAFE Equity and Outreach Unit in partnership with Sydney Institute, Petersham. Light refreshments in a courtyard provide an informal setting for networking and sharing with other staff and the speakers. Up to 60 staff have attended each of these events. They include teachers, managers and specialist equity staff. Topics have included Equity and Social Capital in VET, The Aboriginal Education Review and its implications, Community Capacity Building and the role of TAFE in building resilient communities.
Websites
The World Café
This
covers a range of processes which promote inclusiveness and creativity.
They focus on:
- questions worth asking
- hospitable places and shared spaces to explore them
- care-full listening
- a spirit of discovery.
Participants sit at small tables and engage passionately with each other in exploring the questions that are at the core of the issue they have gathered to address.
4th International Conference on Researching Work and Learning (RWL4)
The conference was run in 2005 by UTS (OVAL) and the main conference theme was Challenges for Integrating Work and Learning
Open Space World
Again, a comprehensive site for everything you want to know about Open Space Technology. There is a blog, podcasts, events list, list of current projects, photo album, resources, a practitioner’s community and even a workspace. It can also be accessed in several languages.
Publications
BILLETT, Stephen 2004, Learning Through Work: Workplace Participatory Practices, London: Routledge
A
good critique of the current discourse and on workplace learning that proposes
an alternative view of workplace learning environments as participatory
practices.
BILLET, Stephen & Clemans, Allie 2004-2006, Assessing new learning spaces: Learning, governance and outcomes, Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Grant
Supporting learning among 'at risk' individuals is an urgent global challenge, given changes in work and society. In response, new learning spaces are emerging outside traditional education and training. These learning spaces are based in social partnerships with scope for localised governance and decision-making. Community-organised learning locations offer distinctive learning relationships and outcomes. They promise enhanced life chances for individuals and scope for community-building. This project will:
- build theory to understand these new learning spaces
- document how they reshape learning relations and practices, and
- assess claims that they improve learning, governance and learning outcomes
BROWN, J, Isaacs, D & the World Café Community 2005, The World Café: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter, Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco
This easy-to-read and practical ‘how to’ book introduces seven integrated design principles for facilitating conversation cafes around questions that matter. These include setting the context, creating a hospitable space, exploring questions that matter, encouraging contribution, cross-pollinating and connecting diverse perspectives, listening together, and harvesting and sharing collective discoveries.
MITCHELL, JG 2005, The Power of Conversation, Campus Review No15
With change agency funding from Reframing the Future and support from her Unit, Margaret Dix invented and implemented a strategy called a ‘conversation space’, where members of the Unit regularly facilitate structured professional conversations at lunch time, around the Institute's campuses.
OWEN, H 1997, Expanding Our Now: The Story of Open Space Technology, Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco
Harrison Owen is the creator of Open Space Technology (OST). He describes how it developed, why it works all over the world and how groups of all sizes use OTS to deal with a diverse range of issues. He provides many examples of OTS in practice.
OWEN, H 1997, Open Space Technology: A User's Guide, Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco
This is a comprehensive ‘how to’ guide for facilitating an Open Space event including specifics about time, place, logistics, invitation and follow-up. The book pays special attention to the preparation of the facilitator.
SARAH, Rod & Haslett, Tim 2003, A Feedback Model of Knowledge Creation Using Conversation-Based Learning, (Working paper), Monash University, Faculty of Business and Economics
Provides a research context for supporting a conversational-based learning system within Monash University. This is supported by the thinking about organisational learning as the process of learning about learning (Argyris, Senge et al). It also suggests that a conversational-based learning approach can bring about change in attitudes and behaviour to ‘learn forward.’
Conversations – creating a space for learning and innovation FEATURE | Ezine November 2006