Appreciative Inquiry (AI) of a developing community of learning technologists - Rhona Sharpe & Patsy Clarke

Appreciative Inquiry (AI)of a developing community

of learning technologists-

Rhona Sharpe & Patsy Clarke

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development

Outline

• Background of the community• What and why Appreciative

Inquiry (AI)• What we did• Outcomes


Emerge project• Community-based model of support for the

JISC funded Users and Innovation Programme (U&I) UIDM/ User engagement model

• Emerge tasked to create a community of practice to support the U&I projects through their life cycle

• Initially supported 40 small teams from 28 UK higher education institutions through funding bid preparation (6 months)

• Ran for 28 months from January 2007 to April 2009


Community of practice• Included 22 funded projects

• More than 200 members ‘Community of communities’

• Face-to-face and online and used a broad range of social media tools Elgg, Second Life, Elluminate, Moodle, Twitter, Flickr

See: http://reports.jiscemerge.org.uk


Why Appreciative Inquiry? • Aim:

Research-led approach Promote an atmosphere of collective inquiry Ongoing and iterative monitoring and development of community Feedback to the support and management teams for design of

support processes and events • Aware:

The act of evaluation has a transforming effect on the subject of research

• AI: An approach to organisational change Suitable for educational development related to change in groups,

communities and organisations Holds that what you want more of already exists somewhere in the

organisation Used to determine strengths and excellence and create

conditions to nurture these


DISCOVERYAppreciating ‘the best of

what is’

DREAMEnvisioning

‘what could be’

DESIGNCo-constructing‘what should be’

DELIVER/DESTINYSustaining

‘what will be’

AI: 4-D model

Positive topic choice


What we did

• Ran AI alongside the Emerge support processes• Included varied purposeful AI activities at different stages• More than 25 data collection points over 28 months• Multiple formats of data collection:

AI workshops Visualisations of the future of Emerge and membership of

Emerge Digital postcards In depth interviews Story collecting and sharing Metaphors of Emerge membership Plus AI framed questions in the F2F & online event evaluation

surveys


Visualisations of Emerge

Emerge is Terry Pratchett’s Discworld turtle. It supports the structured Emerge activities (elephants). On top of the elephants are the products and outputs of projects.

UIDM butterflies, between the projects which are flying off in different directions


AI workshops at events

Included:

•network mapping

•speed networking

•cracker barrels

•‘unconferences’


Postcards


Metaphors for Emerge

Liquid learning space

A swam

p

Chaos

Buzzing busy swarm (stingless)

Great Auntie Gladys

A snail watching

the whizzing communi

ty

Orchestra…/Rock star…/Rock festival…

Jacob’s

join


3 rounds of interviews• 22 AI framed interviews from 11 projects• Focused on ‘What processes support the emergence of technology

supported communities?’ What was working well as members joined the community? What was working well as the projects progressed? What plans for benefits realisation of the project outcomes?

• Included highly engaged members to those less so• Problems and gaps presented as suggestions for action

Community generated

• Compiled storied versions of the interviews• Reported* back to community, support team and programme

management• Event and support planning was responsive to the feedback

*see Clarke, 2008; Clarke and Sharpe, 2008; Clarke, 2009


Spark sheets for feedback

It’s been helpful to share out multiple channels among project team members in order to participate fully

The amount of catching up that would be required on a fast moving communication and information provision becomes so overwhelming that it becomes a deterrent from engagement.

We have all been quite busy doing our own stuff so would not see all that much need to get involved with other (Emerge) people. Like Glastonbury, it’s a bit muddy, a lot of

cool stuff happening and I can’t get to it all.

I can’t say to JISC ‘sorry we didn’t deliver half our outputs - but I did turn up for an Emerge thing’.

I felt like a snail – I was crawling along at my own pace and when I dropped into the Emerge community online I felt that the world was whizzing past me but I struggled to relate to what people where saying in the blogs to my own practice really.

There’s a bit of a tension as to whether we need more events or more time to get on with things.

B: Programme participation

How do you experience participation in this programme?


Reported value of Emerge“There is definitely

a direct relationship between Emerge and the support I got from

that and my promotion to Principal Lecturer”

Professional development

Funding bids – improved confidence of first time bidders; Improved the quality of bids to JISC & other funders

Collaborative inter-institutionInter-discipline team formation

"We got together and the sparks were flying with excitement, we all thought, 'Wow this is really interesting!' and we were so enthused by it..."

‘..they're doing it to make you write a better bid & from 2 of the 3 we got funding - the other one we are still writing”.

Improved project work

‘We engaged with all 19 projects we could not have done the project

without the Emerge membership…’

Openness and sharing

Informal, social, (serious) fun

Collaborative altruistic behaviour


Our experience of AI

• Has been iterative and ongoing Multiple data collection methods and times

• Provided records of evidence to feed into event design and processes

Provided opportunities for participants to contribute solutions and improvements

• Enabled us to hear a range of participant voices and perspectives

• Accommodated the multiple levels of engagement within the Emerge community, rather than distilling to an aggregated ‘majority’ voice

• Proved a good evaluation fit with program aims• Enabled a growing understanding of the nature of

Emerge community building and engagement.


Issues

• Discovery and dreaming have proved the easier stages to implement than the later stages

• Changes and ongoing expansion of community membership resulted in gaps, fragmented or mis-understandings of the AI approach

• Expansion of the collective inquiry process has been limited

• However: The ideas and practices that have been piloted in the Emerge Project are continuing to be developed in the current 3-year JISC funded Institutional Innovation Programme.


Thank you

Documents

Appreciative Inquiry (AI) of a developing community of learning technologists - Rhona Sharpe & Patsy Clarke