Spring 2007 Workshop, "Collaborative generation of environmental knowledge and inquiry"
Program
(after modification & elaboration as participants shared their interests and developed activities)
with indented ideas and comments from advisory committee and other participants (to be added)
See workshop website for links to activities & additional details.
Specific objectives of NewSSC
1. Promote Social Contextualization of Science
(To promote the social contextualization of science in education and other activities beyond the participants' current disciplinary and academic boundaries.)
2. Innovative workshop processes
(To facilitate participants connecting theoretical, pedagogical, practical, political, and personal aspects of the issue at hand in constructive ways.)
Working on 2 levels--the topic of the workshop and learning new ways to participate/interact/facilitate--can be difficult. This 2-level character needs to be introduced at the start of the workshop (dl)
Address the tension between sticking to a pre-define schedule and allowing good things to happen that take more time (dl)
3. Training and capacity-building
(To train novice and experienced scholars in process / participation skills valuable in activity-centered teaching, workshops, and collaboration.)
Coaching skills is central to the workshop outcome (pjt)
4. Repeatable, evolving workshops
(To provide a workshop model that can be repeated, evolve in response to evaluations, and adapted by participants.)
See the suggestions below (pjt)
Wednesday, April 18: Arrivals
5-6:30
Rendezvous at Logan Airport and/or in Campus Center, UMass-Boston
6:30-7.00
Dinner at UMass Boston
Food at UMB was limited (in choice & quality) -- think of alternative (pt)
7-8:30
Travel to Woods Hole
Time for initial conversations
~8:30 pm
Arrive at Woods Hole, Swope Hall
Check in
need to check in by 9pm at latest
Early arrivals ask for directions to dinner places, Captain Kidd, etc.
8:30 -
Social (Captain Kidd)
Time for conversation for those who want to participate
Thursday, April 19: Exposing Diverse Points of Potential Interaction
Breakfast (freelance in Woods Hole)
9:00
Lillie 103
Welcome and initial activity (guided free writing and hopes for workshop)
Denise Lach & Peter Taylor
Welcome people to workshop, explain details that need to be covered, talk about what your hopes for workshop
provide a map of the sequence of days (dl)
review the nature of the agenda/schedule (dl)
Autobiographical Introductions – 15 minutes each
Denise Lach facilitates
Peter Taylor will go first to model
15 minutes maximum -- strict timekeeping is needed -- so the activity in the afternoon is not rushed (pjt)
Some people gave biographical background; others reviewed their current work (pjt)
Everyone encouraged to take notes on points of intersection, interest, curiousity
Give participants an opportunity to
1. introduce themselves in narrative depth, their current and emerging work, and
2. learn more about each other
Take a break at some point in which we begin to fill in a matrix of cross-connections? (pjt)
12:45
Lunch
1:45
Autobiographical Introductions – con’t
allow some time at end for additions? (es)
Followed by “Sense of Place” mapping and “Songlines” connections
Sense of place = where am I? where am I coming from? Where am I going?
Denise Lach facilitates
explore the meaning of the term "songlines" or drop it (pjt)
allow time so this isn't rushed (thus 15 mins. max for intros) (pjt)
3:30
Break
3:50
Participant-generated Activity I: What principles can inform good practice in collaborating in the generation of environmental knowledge?
Peter Taylor
Introduce a practice for collaborating to generate new knowledge
The activity about principles needed a final collective product (beyond standing around and trying to digest them together), e.g., pair up to prepare a "musuem guide" to the exhibit (pt)
A better activity might have been to introduce scenario-writing & coaching (see day 3), then circulate these cases to everyone & develop them further through the remaining days (dl/pjt)
5:30
Reflection and debrief
Denise Lach
Taking stock of what happened today, exploring ideas generated by autobiographies, getting ready for tomorrow
5:40
Break
Recover
6:30
Dinner
(Brought in from restaurant)
Friday, April 20: Focus on Detailed Case Study and Excursion for Informal Conversations
Alternative description: "Drilling down in specific instances
9:00
Check –in
Feedback on evaluation of activity 1 (e.g., critical incident questionnaire) now rather than at a later time. This will help model the process of making use of evaluations (pjt/dl)
9:15
Discussion of Case study/Key article
Wild Science and GIS
Sally Duncan
Exploring commonalities and differences around a specific case
1. Presentation by the author, followed by 2. Workshop participants taking turns to identify points of connection with their own work/thinking, and ending with 3. Response by the author.
Organizer/facilitator reviews with author in advance ideas about how to tease out the dimensions of the workshop theme that are introduced by the key article
10:45
Break
11:15
Continued discussion
~1:00
Picnic Lunch and Excursion: a walk on the beach
Conversation among participants, reflecting on emerging ideas, enjoy the day
consider ordering lunches from the swope (jc)
find beach whre all can walk
3.30
Return
4:15
Formation of work groups to develop activities and signup for “office hours” (one-on-one consulting)
Peter Taylor & Denise Lach facilitate
Move to participants taking initiative to make things happen, including planning activities for day three and morning of day four
Refine office hours instructions to focus on key steps and to avoid reciprocals (A consults with B consults with A)
5:00
Preparation for Participant-generated Activities
Lots of energy was evident even at this late stage in the day
5:30
Debrief on the day
Keep "I didn't expect to be thinking about..." for morning check in
7:00
Dinner (brought in from restaurant)
Try to bring back to 6.30
~8:00
Bedtime reading
Participants read passages, poems
1. Identify ways that collaboration (in general and in science) is depicted in cultural artifacts
2. Identify other ways of describing and thinking about collaboration
Try to bring back to 7.30
Arrange for someone to collect & type up references
Saturday, April 21: Activities to Engage each Other in our Projects
Breakfast (freelance in Woods Hole)
9:00
Check-in: I didn’t expect to be thinking about…
Denise Lach
9:15
Preparation for Participant-generated Activities
Create prior expectation that groups can pass on running an activity for the whole group. It's OK to use the group to coach each other in devoping the individual educational/outreach projects (dl/pjt)
10:15
Break
10:30
Participant-generated Activity II – explore the role of environmental scientists in policy-making
12:30
Lunch and Break
Long break for conversation, catching up, walking, reflecting
Protect the long break (3.5 hours)
2:30
Office Hours
3:40
Break
4:00
Participant-generated Activity III – Scenario/case writing for teaching
6:00
End
6:30
Dinner (brought in from restaurant)
Ration the alcohol for this dinner to help people keep attentive during dialogue process (pjt)
8:00
Dialogue Process
Exploring other ways of knowing and/or working together, experience understandings emerging in a group listening/speaking process
Bring start back to 7.30 and go until 9.30 (with extra tired people leaving quietly if needed) (dl/pjt)
Think about whether this dialogue needs to be strictly confidential. Consider taping it to refer back to? (pjt)
Sunday, April 22: Further Activities to Engage each Other in our Projects & Outreach Units and Taking Stock of the Experience
Breakfast (freelance in Woods Hole)
Check out of room and bring bags to Lillie 103
9:00 Check in
Start earlier on Sunday, 8.30? (pjt)
9:15 Activity IV: Explore collaboration
Led by participants
10:45 Break
11:00 Activity V: Whose knowledge? Organization of wastepickers in Belo Horizonte, Brazil
12.00 Written evaluation
Articulate and review what people found innovative, important, helpful; what they would like to change
No need for extensive discussion given that dialogue process does this the previous evening
12.30 Closing circle: What we are taking away to chew on & Appreciation & Something to be developed
New England Workshop on Science and Social Change
Spring 2007 Workshop, "Collaborative generation of environmental knowledge and inquiry"
Program
(after modification & elaboration as participants shared their interests and developed activities)with indented ideas and comments from advisory committee and other participants (to be added)
See workshop website for links to activities & additional details.
Specific objectives of NewSSC
1. Promote Social Contextualization of Science(To promote the social contextualization of science in education and other activities beyond the participants' current disciplinary and academic boundaries.)
2. Innovative workshop processes
(To facilitate participants connecting theoretical, pedagogical, practical, political, and personal aspects of the issue at hand in constructive ways.)
3. Training and capacity-building
(To train novice and experienced scholars in process / participation skills valuable in activity-centered teaching, workshops, and collaboration.)
4. Repeatable, evolving workshops
(To provide a workshop model that can be repeated, evolve in response to evaluations, and adapted by participants.)
Wednesday, April 18: Arrivals
5-6:30
Rendezvous at Logan Airport and/or in Campus Center, UMass-Boston
6:30-7.00
Dinner at UMass Boston
7-8:30
Travel to Woods Hole
Time for initial conversations
~8:30 pm
Arrive at Woods Hole, Swope Hall
Check in
- need to check in by 9pm at latest
Early arrivals ask for directions to dinner places, Captain Kidd, etc.8:30 -
Social (Captain Kidd)
Time for conversation for those who want to participate
Thursday, April 19: Exposing Diverse Points of Potential Interaction
Breakfast (freelance in Woods Hole)
9:00
Lillie 103
Welcome and initial activity (guided free writing and hopes for workshop)
Denise Lach & Peter Taylor
Welcome people to workshop, explain details that need to be covered, talk about what your hopes for workshop
Autobiographical Introductions – 15 minutes each
Denise Lach facilitates
Peter Taylor will go first to model
Everyone encouraged to take notes on points of intersection, interest, curiousity
Give participants an opportunity to
1. introduce themselves in narrative depth, their current and emerging work, and
2. learn more about each other
12:45
Lunch
1:45
Autobiographical Introductions – con’t
Followed by “Sense of Place” mapping and “Songlines” connections
Sense of place = where am I? where am I coming from? Where am I going?
Denise Lach facilitates
3:30
Break
3:50
Participant-generated Activity I: What principles can inform good practice in collaborating in the generation of environmental knowledge?
Peter Taylor
Introduce a practice for collaborating to generate new knowledge
5:30
Reflection and debrief
Denise Lach
Taking stock of what happened today, exploring ideas generated by autobiographies, getting ready for tomorrow
5:40
Break
Recover
6:30
Dinner
(Brought in from restaurant)
Friday, April 20: Focus on Detailed Case Study and Excursion for Informal Conversations
9:00
Check –in
9:15
Discussion of Case study/Key article
Wild Science and GIS
Sally Duncan
Exploring commonalities and differences around a specific case
10:45
Break
11:15
Continued discussion
~1:00
Picnic Lunch and Excursion: a walk on the beach
Conversation among participants, reflecting on emerging ideas, enjoy the day
3.30
Return
4:15
Formation of work groups to develop activities and signup for “office hours” (one-on-one consulting)
Peter Taylor & Denise Lach facilitate
Move to participants taking initiative to make things happen, including planning activities for day three and morning of day four
5:00
Preparation for Participant-generated Activities
5:30
Debrief on the day
7:00
Dinner (brought in from restaurant)
~8:00
Bedtime reading
Participants read passages, poems
1. Identify ways that collaboration (in general and in science) is depicted in cultural artifacts
2. Identify other ways of describing and thinking about collaboration
Saturday, April 21: Activities to Engage each Other in our Projects
Breakfast (freelance in Woods Hole)
9:00
Check-in: I didn’t expect to be thinking about…
Denise Lach
9:15
Preparation for Participant-generated Activities
10:15
Break
10:30
Participant-generated Activity II – explore the role of environmental scientists in policy-making
12:30
Lunch and Break
Long break for conversation, catching up, walking, reflecting
2:30
Office Hours
3:40
Break
4:00
Participant-generated Activity III – Scenario/case writing for teaching
6:00
End
6:30
Dinner (brought in from restaurant)
8:00
Dialogue Process
Exploring other ways of knowing and/or working together, experience understandings emerging in a group listening/speaking process
Sunday, April 22: Further Activities to Engage each Other in our Projects & Outreach Units and Taking Stock of the Experience
Breakfast (freelance in Woods Hole)
Check out of room and bring bags to Lillie 103
9:00 Check in
9:15 Activity IV: Explore collaboration
Led by participants
10:45 Break
11:00 Activity V: Whose knowledge? Organization of wastepickers in Belo Horizonte, Brazil
12.00 Written evaluation
Articulate and review what people found innovative, important, helpful; what they would like to change
12.30 Closing circle: What we are taking away to chew on & Appreciation & Something to be developed
1.00 Lunch & clean up & farewells
2:00 Departure