A technique for encouraging participants to support each other in applying what they learn, that I got from Kaisu Tuominiemi, a coach at Mondragon Team Academy.
The flow:
At the end of a learning event, a course, a workshop, a class, the joker asks participants to write down one (or two) specific actions they want to take in the next two weeks, as a way to apply what they have learned.
A fast-moving concentration game in which mistakes are celebrated. I learned this from Kaisu Tuominiemi, a coach at Mondragon Team Academy.
In a circle, five to maybe ten people.
Phase One
The joker starts the game by putting her left hand on her right shoulder and saying, "one!"
The person to her right repeats the motion, saying, "two!"
This continues four more times.
This morning in a meeting with Professor Imamura Hajime from Toyo University and Jon Ander Musatadi from GLOW cooperative and Mondragon Team Academy, Jon explained the need to help people unleash their creativity using an equation.
Instead of 1+2=3, rote learning, or 1+ X = 3, where "finding the unknown" is just a matter of filling in the answer dictated by the problem, think of learning as X + Y = 3, that is, an infinity of different possible combinations, different ways to reach a given goal. As cooperative entrepreneurs, the students and coaches at MTA value innovative solutions.
I learned about this tool from Shimpei Ogawa.
In addition to being very useful for scheduling a meeting, or people's work schedules, it can be used for accountability in group work -- making a list of tasks and having the group members identify which ones they will do. You can easily visualize how well the group is distributing tasks.
One of the many interesting sources I have read in the Masters in Social Economy and Cooperative Management at Mondragon University. In these slides you see a frank critique of the evolution of cooperative ideology in the Mondragon Cooperative Experience. The practice of critical self-reflection within Mondragon is a real strength, even as they lament the failure to maintain cooperative values and strategies for social transformation.
http://www.slideshare.net/audaondo/evolucin-del-sentido-de-la-ecm-39801812
This looks interesting -- I will definitely be checking it out.
This game, loosely based on "Philipps 66" in Técnicas Participativas Para la Educación Popular, is a way to introduce background information from Wikipedia (and such) through engaged reading and summarizing.
The Flow:
Richard Hering, from http://visionon.tv/ introduced this technique for making and uploading short videos in our English for Activists class in Tokyo.
They call it "Video Citizen Journalism," but, since not all of us are citizens of the countries in which we find ourselves, I prefer grassroots journalism or just smartphone journalism.
In any case, they have a handy leaflet that explains the most simple method, the One Shot News Report: http://streetreporter.org/en/tools
I learned this technique for "video citizen journalism" from Richard Hering in a workshop he did for our English for Activists class in Tokyo. Seems like a great tool for activists that can also be a great tool for learners. The key factors are immediacy, a clear simple structure, and low technical barriers: you use the video camera on your phone, a simple formula for organizing content, and no editing or effects. (See remoscope for a similarly direct approach.)
In this activity, the joker uses drawings to tell a story without speaking.
The flow:
Joker deals playing cards to participants, two or three cards each. (To equalize participation but maintain some freedom to choose when to participate use playing cards as talking chits.)