An introduction to learning stewardship

Link: https://links.fractals.coop/learningstewards

Who are we?

We are fractals co-op, a worker’s co-op who supports organisations making social change. A lot of our work is as a learning partner.

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This means we are helping organisations and teams to think about how to understand the impact of the work they are doing and learn from what is happening as it develops.

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The three main roles of a learning partner is guiding monitoring, evaluation, and learning.

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Monitoring is about how we know what’s going on as the project happens. It’s important that we always have a rough picture of what’s happening in the project, so that we can understand if anything needs changing and so we can celebrate things that are going well.

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Evaluation is about understanding how well the project is working, and getting a sense of whether our approach is effective and something that other people might want to use.

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Learning is about understanding how we use all of that information to improve what we’re already doing.

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Our approach

We like to develop theories of change for project which describes the outcomes the project is working towards creating, and how it hopes to create those outcomes. We support teams to get on the same page about how they’re working as we make these.

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To understand outcomes progress, we tend to use session-based evaluation forms that workers can confidently use, alongside facilitating learning groups.

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Learning groups are thematic areas, convened or facilitated by someone—maybe us, maybe one of the group—composed of learning stewards.

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What a learning steward does

Learning stewards have three main roles:

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1. Listening to signals
2. Refining strategies
3. Collecting and telling stories

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Listening to signals is about understanding how the strategies you are using work, and if they are effective for creating progress towards the kinds of outcomes you’re trying to create.

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Refining strategies is about understanding if you need to change strategies or develop new strategies to help reach the outcomes that you’re trying to create.

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Collecting stories is about paying attention to your team’s work, sharing stories about people’s experiences and your work, and creating a shared history of what’s actually happening in the project.

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To help you get a better idea of what learning sessions might actually look like and what kind of things you might want to pay attention to, we’re going to run a short learning session with you now. We’re going to ask you five questions as a group and hear from anyone who wants to share in response to these questions.

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• Over the past month, what activities have you been delivering? How have you been doing that?
• How do you and the rest of your team feel about what you’ve been delivering over the past month?
• From the past month, what good things do you think you should keep doing? Is there anything you should change or stop doing?
• Over the past month, have you and your team seen anything new or surprising?
• What have people been saying about activities you’ve been delivering over the past month? What conversations and comments stand out?

An example learning session

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Over the past month, what activities have you been delivering? How have you been doing that?

Think about the actual work you and your colleagues do. Do you deliver sessions? What kind of sessions? What do you do in them? Are there any repeated elements or common themes?

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How do you and the rest of your team feel about what you’ve been delivering over the past month?

Think about how you and the other members of your team feel about the way you’ve been working. Is there anything that feels really good to you? Anything that you’re struggling with?

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From the past month, what good things do you think you should keep doing? Is there anything you should change or stop doing?

Think about the good parts and the bad parts of what you’re doing. Is there anything that you think needs to change? Why do you think that?

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Over the past month, have you and your team seen anything new or surprising?

Think about what has been happening that you might not have initially expected. Is there something new, strange, or unexpected emerging?

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What have people been saying about activities you’ve been delivering over the past month? What conversations and comments stand out?

Think about how people actually respond to the work you’re doing. Is there anything in particular that’s resonating with them?

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What are some ways you might pay attention to your three roles of listening to signals, refining strategies, and collecting and telling stories?

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How are you going to log / document / record the things that you are learning? How are you going to make sure you remember it and that we hear about it?

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• Use people’s actual words where possible.
• When you think you know something, ask yourself how. Did someone say it? Did you feel it? Do you think it?
• Ask yourself whether you’re giving your interpretation of events, or someone else’s. How might those interpretations be different?
• Ensure you’re asking questions of other team members and not just reflecting on your own experiences.
• Context is really useful for you and us. When you note something down, you might want to write down what was happening at the time, or what happened before or after.
• Being a learning steward shouldn’t just be about logging complaints or making compliments. It’s about genuinely reflecting on how the work is going, what we might learn about that, and if anything might need to change because of that learning.

Some basic tips

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Questions?

or email us: hello@fractals.coop

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