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Assembly Design / Diseño de asemblea

JR Jose Ramos Public Seen by 411

This thread is to discuss and figure out the detailed design of the global assembly.

In this thread I would like us all to "put on the table" any issue or complexity that needs to be considered in the design. now is the time!

Put forward any ideas you have that have the potential to solve any of the challenges thrown up.

We have a few weeks to make this happen, so we really need to have a "whole system" conversation to come to a robust design that has the best chance of relevance and effectiveness for participants.

JR

Jose Ramos Sun 7 May 2017 10:57PM

Hi everyone,

I just got off a Skype with Cesar Eduardo Osorio, to discuss his ideas about the the design of the assembly.

Several important issues came up.

First he felt the assembly needs to respond to particular practical themes / issues to be relevant to the Latin American context. He will lay these out in detail following this post.

The other consideration is that we are expecting most of the participants to be primarily spanish speakers. However we need more clarity on this, perhaps @lonnierowell we have some registration information that can help?

Connected to this was the issue of translation - to what extent will the University of Baja California support? How many translators? Will this only be for the keynotes or for the breakout sessions as well?

Overall he felt the design that Wray and I put together was a bit abstract, and work needed to done to design the assembly in the context of the practical situation, concerns and issues in Cartagena / Colombia / Latin America.

Several ideas for ways forward emerged.

1 - (I suggested) to run the assembly similar to open space. this would allow groups autonomy to focus on particular themes. but while open space is good for autonomy, it is not so good with coherence across the whole system (hence criticism against this method in the world social forum and other spheres).

2 - given this, (Cesar proposed) and we discussed the idea of a "directed" open space where we are focusing on the topics that we feel are most strategic, and where people could follow break out groups to join to discuss and work on particular topics.

3 - we considered the idea that, in the case that we did not have enough translators, that we source volunteer translators from the group, who can sit in groups and help translate into the non dominant languages.

4 - finally that could would build in coherence building processes that lead to strategic initiatives / projects that people can do together following the assembly.

these are just some thoughts.

In this thread I would like us all to "put on the table" any issue or complexity that needs to be considered in the design. now is the time!

Put forward any ideas you have that have the potential to solve any of the challenges thrown up.

We have a few weeks to make this happen, so we really need to have a "whole system" conversation to come to a robust design that has the best chance of relevance and effectiveness for participants.

Thanks!

Jose

JW

Jack Whitehead Sun 7 May 2017 11:18PM

I'm wondering if our design for the Global Assembly on the 16th June should be recognisable as a form of action research? As a minimum requirement should we be able to see a form of inquiry in which participants share their concerns about improving their practice, imagining possible ways forward, choosing one possibility in an action plan and providing details of the data that will need collecting to be able to make an evidence-based judgement on the influences of the actions ?

PET

Professor Emmanuel Tetteh, PhD Thu 11 May 2017 5:10PM

Jack I appreciate your viewpoints and support such reflective learning process.

KR

Karin Rönnerman Sun 14 May 2017 1:15PM

This is a good way of tinking of how to otganise it. It should be a familiar way and it will also add to knnowledge already there about action research to bring back after being part of it

PG

Peter Grootenboer Mon 8 May 2017 2:51AM

Thank you for initiating this discussion Jose, and your thoughtful response Jack.
I agree that working across languages is a major concern, both in the immediacy of the Assembly events, but also as we seek to maintain ongoing communication, where concepts and terms can be misconstrued and misinterpreted 'across languages'. No easy solution from me other than good grace and patience!
I agree that some sort of 'directed' open space so we can get stuck into these key issues perhaps more quickly. We will need to modify and add as we progress, but I think some direction will allow us to start. I am sure that we can identify some key issues early, and perhaps a forum such as this could be used to add/develop.

JR

Jose Ramos Mon 8 May 2017 11:19PM

Thank you Peter, I look forward to how the design conversation will proceed.

COS

César Osorio Sánchez Mon 8 May 2017 8:08PM

Estimad@s colegas, reciban un calido saludo esperando que sus proyectos marchen por buen camino. El dia de ayer pudimos compartir algunas ideas con Jose con el animo de contribuir a la construccion colectiva de la propuesta metodologica de la asamblea global. Algunas de las ideas que compartimos fueron las siguientes:

  1. Una lectura del contexto y de los retos. Dado que este espacio nos servira para entrar en dialogo entre diversas experiencias educativas -institucionales y comunitarias-, seria muy interesante conversar acerca de los retos que enfrentamos los educadores para promover apuestas academicas mas cercanas a las comunidades. Algunos de estos retos tienen que ver con las reformas educativas globales en el ambito educativo, otras problematicas con las realidades mismas de las comunidades. Creo que un buen balance del contexto nos puede ayudar posteriormente a definir lineas de accion conjuntas, estrategias y acciones que resulten pertinentes respecto a las necesidades que nos presenta la realidad. Una lectura de contexto tambien nos podria permitir ubicar objetivos y prioridades para el trabajo en red.

  2. Aprendizajes, buenas practicas y lecciones aprendidas. En este orden de ideas, seria importante que las conversaciones nos permitiesen identificar cuales son los aprendizajes en la promocion de apuestas educativas e investigativas participativas o colaborativas. Realmente es un buen indicador que pese a las reformas tan duras en el ambito educativo global, en muchas instituciones -tal como lo demuestra el interes en la asamblea- los docentes y comunidades sigan trabajando de forma tan comprometida con el animo de promover procesos de educacion e investigacion alternativa. En este punto, seria pertinente reconocer cuales son esas lecciones que nos llenan de esperanza y nos impulsan a seguir avanzando. Ademas, esto permitiria circulas aprendizajes, aprender de las otras experiencias para mejorar nuestras practicas.

  3. Plan de accion para el trabajo en red. En el mismo sentido, la asamblea global es un espacio interesante para ubicar puntos de trabajo en los que podemos trazar proyectos de colaboracion. En el contexto actual, es muy importante visisbilizar estas experiencias para demostrar que se trata de una corriente de accio que sigue viva. Seria muy interesante, por ejemplo, avanzar en la construccion de un mapa de experiencias internacionales significativas, reconocer proyectos en los que podamos avanzar en el trabajo conjunto -publicaciones, investigaciones, eventos- y de igual forma, espacios para el intercambio de experiencias. Estoy de acuerdo con lo que plantean los colegas, la asamblea global puede permitir reconocer afinidades. Si estamos juntos y trabajamos colaborativamente seremos mas fuertes.

Espero que estas reflexiones contribuyan el diseño y animen el dialogo.

Reitero mis saludos fraternales,

Cesar Osorio Sanchez.

JR

Jose Ramos Mon 8 May 2017 11:18PM

Hi everyone

I'm just posting a translation of Cesar's post, based on google translate with a bit of tidying up from me. Apologies for any inconsistencies.

=====================

Dear colleagues,

a warm greeting to you all, and hoping that your projects are on track. Yesterday we were able to share some ideas with Jose with the spirit of contributing to the collective construction of the methodological proposal of the global assembly. Some of the ideas that we shared were the following:

  1. A reading of context and challenges. Given that this space will serve to enter into a dialogue between various educational experiences -institutional and community-, it would be very interesting to talk about the challenges we face as educators to promote academic engagement with communities. Some of these challenges have to do with the global educational reforms in the educational field (neo-liberalisation of education), and other problems with the realities of the communities themselves. I believe that a good balance of the context can help us later to define joint lines of action, strategies and actions that are relevant to the needs presented by these lived realities. A contextual reading would also allow us to locate goals and priorities for networking.

  2. Learning, good practices and lessons learned. In this context, it would be important that the conversations allow us to identify the learning in the promotion of participatory and collaborative educational and research - action research. It is a good indicator that despite the harsh reforms in the global educational field, in many institutions - as shown by the interest in the assembly - teachers and communities continue to work in a way so committed to the promotion of educational processes and alternative / transformative / emancipatory approaches and research. At this point, it would be pertinent to recognize which are those lessons that fill us with hope and impel us to continue advancing. In addition, this would allow learning, learn from other experiences to improve our practices.

  3. Plan of action for the work in the emerging network. In the same sense, the global assembly is an interesting space to locate points of work in which we can draw up collaborative projects. In the current context, it is very important to show these experiences to demonstrate that these are currents of action that are alive. It would be very interesting, for example, to advance in the construction of a map of significant international experiences, to recognize projects in which we can advance in the joint work - publications, research, events - and also, spaces for the exchange of experiences. I agree with what the colleagues say, the global assembly can allow us to recognize affinities. If we are together and work collaboratively we will be stronger.

I hope that these reflections contribute to the design and encourage the dialogue.

I reiterate my solidarity and support

Cesar Osorio Sanchez

WI

wray irwin Tue 9 May 2017 6:20PM

Dear Colleagues

Jose, Lonnie and myself connected today and distil all the very helpful feedback in this thread related to the design of the Global Assembly. There have been many points raised, too many to consider in full in the time we had, so this post will focus only on the development of the format of the day, its proposed objectives and outcomes.

We covered a lot of ground, so apologies for the length of this post, and I hope I’ve captured the key points sufficiently.

Building on the original paper we have taken onboard colleagues' suggestions and are looking for a format that encompasses several principles. Firstly, we want to create a space where dialogue can be created that focusses on addressing real life challenges around thematic areas of concern that emerge from the participatory workshops, the conference, and that may be put forward by individual attendees in advance. We envisage that these could encompass topics such as the role of knowledge democracy in addressing structural issues related to themes such as Education in a neo liberal context, Enterprise, Government Policy and the role of KD in shaping and delivery policy; but could be anything that has emerged as being of relevance to the attendees. These topics will be explored in breakout rooms utilising a form of Open Space which will be guided to ensure that actions are identified and that each thematic group achieve some level of internal and structural coherence. We also felt that there should be no overarching method applied to the thematic spaces, but that the participants should 'manage' their space on a journey that leads to a number of step off points through out the day and creating a big tent approach and a space for epistemological pluralism to strengthen communities to collaborate and connect.

We also felt that is approach could overcome the criticism that open space does not provide a coherence by enabling attendees to explore issues and topics within each theme through their own lens and using tools they find most helpful. Most importantly each group would end up creating calls to action; commitments to act upon agreed strategic scenarios to create change.

A key element of ensuring we develop transformative actions will be the ability of each thematic group to create visionary futures that act as the horizon to which we will be moving forward. This process of defining a theory of change will identify how innovative ways of working beyond the assembly can be developed as well as creating a strong narrative for the assembly.

So, the format begins to look as follows

1/ ideas for structural themes harvested from participatory workshops and other events and calls
2/ Key note speaker to act as a provocation for the day

3/ breakout rooms to act as open spaces to explore the theme and create those visionary futures/theories of change
4/ Lunch
5/ create concrete project proposals that can articulate priorities for action, articulate knowledge democracy in practice, and define the theory (or multiple theories) of change that underpin each action.
6/ a plenary that pulls together the strands and identifies coherent practice, topics and cross cutting actions as a grand narrative for the assembly to refer back to.

This represents an ambitious day... but much of the preparatory work will be in place by the time of the assembly. it offers a space to define the futures in which the practice of knowledge democracy can be applied to real life problems and change, and that multi-disciplinary insight can lead to new collaborations and a lasting legacy from the assembly.

Please provide your comments

KR

Karin Rönnerman Sun 14 May 2017 1:18PM

This can work but might need a bit of more structure to be workable. As Gustavsen (2001) says the 'ruels' are needed for the dialogues to flourish. The Dialogue conference is such a fora that work for many people

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