What I learned in ‘Learning Village’ about facilitation and hosting learning events
- Open Space Technology (OST) → “no planning mindset”
- Harvesting → systemizing knowledge production / collection
- “Letting it be” and not applying structure → enables emergence
- Applying beginner’s mind mindset, openness and mutual encouraging
- Take care of **basic facilities **(important for comfortable feeling) e.g. food
- People don’t want training but want to be active practitioners
- Clarity is required on the calling question (included in the invitation)
- Facilitation is about building an inclusive learning culture (a village)
- There are to be** no apprentices or masters** in the village
- Non-contributing participation (lurking) is acceptable and respected
- There are different modes of participation e.g. butterfly vs. busy bee
- Inclusion and embracing diversity is necessary for a flourishing village
- The process is often careful, unhurried and veeeeryyyyy slooooow
Some questions about implementation
- What is the socialization process to the method like?
- What kind of trajectory does becoming part of a learning culture entail?
- How long does it take until beginners are comfortable with the process?
- How to suspend hierarchical structures and rigid roles for the process?
Some materials
**Learning Village 2015 was a meeting of practitioners using participatory tools in Helsinki. **https://learningvillagesveaborg.wordpress.com/
Art of Hosting workbook. How to host, design and harvest meaningful conversations? https://aohsuomi.wordpress.com/what-is-the-art-of-hosting-training-course/the-art-of-hosting-workbook/
**Story of the boy: How can I give room for self-expression, creativity, autonomy and activism?**https://learningvillagesveaborg.wordpress.com/2015/04/06/little-boy/
**What happens when you bring a conference mindset to an unconference? **https://rationalmadness.wordpress.com/2015/04/01/what-happens-when-you-bring-a-conference-mindset-to-a-unconference/
What is a learning village? What did we learn? A little story about my findings https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/findings-learning-village-sveaborg-2015-vilma-mutka