Open Space

Yesterday we had the day on Learning and Teaching at Cardiff Futures.

We ran the day as an Open Space Event.

So the agenda at the start of the day looked like this:

Tricia Price, the PVC for Student Experience and Academic Standards set the context by telling us some of the issues that 'keep her awake at night.'

Participants then said what they felt it would be most valuable to discuss and crafted an agenda for the day, based on which of them wanted to discuss which issues.

 So a little later, the agenda look like this:

So that's what we did!

The beauty of this process is that people get to talk about the issues that they believe to be most important and interesting: it should ensure that nobody leaves feeling 'the one thing we really needed to talk about was...' and it acknowledges, honours, and draws upon the high levels of expertise that reside within the group.

Towards the end of the day, we came back together in plenary, and some highlights of the discussions were shared with Colin Riordan, the Vice Chancellor and the Tricia Price, the relevant PVC, as well as between participants.

We ended the day, as we usually do, with 'brief Action Learning' in the small sets that have been running throughout the programme.

This is the penultimate day of the programme: we have a final day of reflection and celebration in June; and then kick off a new programme with a new cohort in the autumn (book early to avoid disappointment!)