#WorkingOutLoud on a Social Learning Design Workshop

In two weeks time i am facilitating a two day Virtual Workshop around Social Learning Design: i will be sharing my thoughts as i pull the session together as part of #WorkingOutLoud. The session is for a small group (8 explorers) and we will be mainly working on their real life projects, on three levels. First, full group to share the ideas, secondly in pairs to develop designs and perspectives, and finally through structured individual activity to curate external content and work on ‘sense making’.

As with the facilitation of any Social Learning experience, my role is less to bring knowledge, but more to choreograph between those three levels, and to support the sense making.

The four sessions will cover the theory and practice of Social Learning.

In part one we will look at the reality of learning in the Organisation: i’ve previously shared some of this through the learning map i created for the Learning Science book. Collectively we will discuss the burning issues, and individually will craft a version of the map.

In part two we will look at the ‘Three Foundations’: the new nature of knowledge, the mechanisms of ‘sense making’, and the ways that we support performance. Essentially that’s a proxy of how we design and support learning that delivers the greatest impact (where it is enacted).

Part three is about Social Learning experience design, and part four covers the Learning Communities within which learning and sense making takes place.

Clearly in two short days we can only cover some outlines, but i hope that two thirds of the time will be spent in conversation about application, challenge, and opportunity in the real projects that we explore.

There is always a gap between the theory, and practice, of learning design, but essentially we can design the most effective learning if we are collaborative (as designers), pragmatic (as theorists), and experimental (as learners).

I will share the design as it evolves.