GSmart - IO2 FRAMEWORK - WORKSHOP
Liberating Structures - Innovative Pedagogy Social Learning
Liberating Structures
Liberating Structures (LS) are simple rules that make it possible to include and engage every voice from each generation in shaping the future. The LS repertoire consists of practical methods versatile enough for anyone to use for a wide array of activities and challenges. None require expert training. Seeing them in action once is enough for many novices to get results and adapt them in other settings.
Since the book — The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures — was published in 2013, people have spread Liberating Structures over all continents and in every professional domain. LS helps educators change the way people interact and collaborate to achieve better results than with presentations, reports and other traditional methods. In the cross-generational collaboration context, LS provides simple and concrete tools to improve collective performance. They organize participants into different spatial arrangements and intergenerational group configurations and distribute participation and order.
Liberating Structures are so-called because they are designed to engage and involve everyone in a cross-generational work environment. In a way, they "liberate" everyone's contribution to the group's success (Lipmanowicz & McCandless, 2013). Interaction and collaboration with others often determine your success at work and in other areas of your life. You will find that each Liberating Structure has its specific advantages. Your new language will be infinitely adaptable and applicable if you create various combinations suitable for every situation in your life, whether it is a challenge or an opportunity, big or small, complex or straightforward.
[1] H. Lipmanowicz & K. McCandless, The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures: Simple Rules to Unleash A Culture of Innovation (Black and White Version), Paperback- Kindle Unlimited, 2014
GSmart competencies can arise from the LS's educational work on cross-generational collaboration. Our research results clearly show some stereotypes about X, Y, Z, BB, and their perceived lower trainability in the workspace. For older workers, lack of flexibility and poor cost-effectiveness is an issue compared to younger workers. These are often used as arguments for not investing money in their training and development (van Vianen, 1997).
There is an ambiguity in employers' attitudes towards senior workers. While senior workers' skills and knowledge are regarded as obsolete, they are also viewed as loyal and reliable: even more so than younger workers (Walker, 1997). However, studies on age and skill obsolescence are inconsistent, suggesting either a positive, neutral, or negative relationship between age and performance (Sterns et al., 1994).
In terms of social learning Multiple social learning channels, such as online discussion, audio-video interactions, peer-coaching, or Slack /Discord collaborative environment, will foster a mutual understanding by cross-generational social competences. Multi-channel communication through the cloud-based systemssuch as Google Workspace for Education and the Slack collaborative mobile environment will facilitate the integration of the GSmart's teaching and learning forms of the project. This procedure will enable us to constitute a bridge on cross-generational collaboration by education on and expansion of social competences. Through Slack platform the educators can ask questions directly about the parts they don’t understand about the workshop. Slack can be a helpful way to contain FAQ to help the trainers. Slack can accumulate FAQs you can take the opportunity to recognize that it is the preferred support channel and optimize it for this use-case.
Erasmus+ GSmart Project Ref. No. 2020-1-PL01-KA204-081415
Legal Disclaimer
The GSmart project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
Information included in the Report reflects only the authors' views, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
GSmart © 2020 by GSmart Consortium is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/