Questioning

Replies to This Conversation

Permalink Reply by Vicenç on February 2, 2015 at 4:03am

Hi Maria Amélia,

I am glad you asked about the group :)

The initial idea of the group was the use of WC in education in a wide sense (in different settings and with different participants). For example, last June I used it with all the teaching staff of one school, in order to assess the school year and generate suggestions for improvement.

The group can be whatever we want it to be. Would you be interested in continuing the conversation and maybe bringing some other people to the table?

Regards from Spain

Vicenç

Permalink Reply by Maria Amélia Martins-Loução on February 2, 2015 at 8:49am

Hi Vicenç

Nice to read from you. Yes I am definitely interested to use this Café in education but in my case directed to the students. I still have only one experience when I tried to use this method to rise awareness about nitrogen income due to agricultural practices.

Regards from Lisbon

Maria Amélia

Permalink Reply by Marie Wilson Nelson on Wednesday

Hi Maria Amelia and Vincenc,

I'm interested in this discussion as well. I think it will be very interesting to learn from each other and perhaps support each other in developing our skills. I had not thought about using world cafe for assessment purposes, for example. I would like to hear more about that. How did it go? Were you pleased with the results? How did the learners respond?

I've been using a range of "rotating small group" approaches in my teaching for over 35 years. That is what I called them since I didn't now about World Cafe per se. The exact WC model would not have worked for what I was doing anywayI don't think the World Cafe model existed then. I would ask advanced writers and later advanced researchers to talk about their work with less advanced learners. Both are subjects students often fear.

I used it with undergraduates and graduate students in research courses, in literature course, and in writing courses. Oh, and in oral communication. In teaching multicultural education. It works for any content if you adapt it to a particular goal. It is great for people who are shy to work in very small groups instead of in a large class. It is great for international students who might be shy using an additional language at first. And it motivates learning by giving learners more control of their work.

Sometimes I used rotating groups as a get-to-know you activity on the first night of class with the goal of building community and learning each others interests, and World Cafe can work every well for this. It is also particularly useful in writing courses where people need to get to know each other well in order to feel safe enough to take the substantial risks that significant writing requires.

I call using rotating small groups (including World Cafe) "multi-purpose" activities because they can accomplish so many goals at once. They are great when learners are struggling to understand particularly difficult articles or chapters and when the skills or intellectual levels of students diverge. The core process can be adapted to the needs of many teaching goals, many kinds of students and many kinds of content or processes that need to be learned.

Once I learned about the World Cafe format at an Art of Hosting weekend, I supported a friend who started a World Cafe group that ran weekly for about 3 years in Tampa Bay, Florida (though I did not attend every time). I continued to go even during periods when the group floundered because a lot of my research has been on the development of learning groups over time and I wanted to observe/analyze/test my theories about how the group was working, even when it was not functioning very well. I also facilitated from time to time when asked.

Depending on the context, I also use a modified WC format for informal (community) education, particularly when hosting orientations to time banking, in which I am involved.

Though there are conditions under which on-going groups are more appropriate, the general format of World Cafe/rotating small groups can be used for many classroom purposes.

So, that's my experience. I hope you'll share more about what you are doing. About what's working and what's not, and about what you plan to try next and what you hope to achieve using this approach. What has drawn you to it? I would like to know that as well.

Marie

Permalink Reply by Vicenç on Thursday

Hi Marie,

I agree: asking students to break in groups of four in ordr to discuss something which requires generating ideas and after a while remixing the groups and doing the same task clearly makes students much more creative. It is like the first group served as warm-up and when the students meet the second group ther are ready to find many more ideas.

I have done this with students at a sort of communite college level

Vicenç

Permalink Reply by Vicenç on Thursday

Hi Maria Amélia,

I am glad you like the idea. The group has been very quiet, so far :)

I have used WC with teachers, in order to plan the future of a school.

Maybe we can plan something more ambitious

Vicenç