EMPIRICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE 'ROUNDTABLE,' AN ACTIVITY FOR SYSTEMIC RENEWAL IN EDUCATIONAL AND HUMAN ACTIVITY SYSTEMS

摘要

This paper presents and describes the "Roundtable," a co-operated whole group learning activity proposed for the systemic renewal of educational activity systems (EAS) and other human activity systems (HAS). The appeal of the Roundtable is that it is an easy and engaging activity allowing all community members equal voice, including the underappreciated or underrepresented (women, children and other minorities). First, a brief review of the construction and rationale of the Roundtable is provided, drawing from knowledge bases in EAS systems methods, EAS systems design, and group learning models. Second, the Roundtable is described. The description focuses on empirical aspects of the Roundtable, that is, aspects which can be observed with the senses and simple quantitative measures. Third, the paper explains how the Roundtable is to be embedded in formal EAS and HAS systemically, that is, with a view to protecting the new Roundtable system from being consumed by, or threatening to, the existing organization. A 60 minute Roundtable session is described as consisting of 4 parts. The first 3 parts-- leader's guide, 5 basic readings, a topic of the day-- are for management and subject matter presentation and are designed to take no more than 10 minutes of the session. The remaining 50 minutes are devoted to learning reports for subject matter and learner development. In the learning report, participants are invited to give their views, ideas, experience on the topic, or anything else that is on their mind, and then to link it with the topic or subject matter. The topic of the day will depend on the group. No one is required to speak, and learning reports are to receive no responses. Participants speak only once and limit their time so that everyone has a chance to speak. For example, if there are 25 participants in attendance, speakers are to take about 2 minutes each. The result is that each Roundtable participant hears about 24 different viewpoints around a selected topic. An application of this Roundtable model is being experienced here and now at the ISSS 2001 Conference on the Asilomar site. We meet every morning from 7:15 to 8:15am. ISSS members, friends and family are invited to attend every day or whenever possible.