Curriculum Design :: How Social Change Works

[Joe Brewer]

Hi Everyone,

Let's start exploring elements of the curriculum in more depth.  In this thread, I'd like to focus on the patterns and processes that lead to significant societal change.  Change Makers will need to understand how change happens in the real world.  This will comprise a critically important set of topics, including:

• Stages of Cultural Change (both within organizations and across a community)
• Psychology of Personal Change
• Insights Into Human Nature (to set design parameters for creating change, as presented here: http://www.chaoticripple.com/2011/5-things-large-scale-behavior-change/)
• Diffusion of Innovation (As depicted here: http://www.chaoticripple.com/2011/the-various-roles-for-social-change/)
• Economic Paradigm Shifts (As described here: http://www.chaoticripple.com/2011/change-maker-guide-economic-paradigms/)
• Procedural Change In Organizational Settings
• Case Studies of Historical Change Processes

Last year I gave a workshop titled "How to Bring About Large-Scale Behavior Change" that covered some of these topics.  Over the next several months I will put together course materials for a three-part workshop series hosted by Sustainable Seattle on the design of large-scale social change campaigns.  So I will begin putting together core elements of a curriculum in this topic area.  

As a group, let's talk about what we'd like to see covered in the arena of social change. What other topics do you feel will need to be covered?  What kinds of educational resources should be created (e.g. training manuals, web videos, schematic visualizations of key processes, etc.)?

As we expand on this and other "teachable topics", we can begin to scope out how such a curriculum might be used in your various efforts around the world.  And we can start to talk about how to fund the creation of sharable materials so that they are maximally useful to a broad range of learning communities.

Best,

Joe

--
Joe Brewer
Designer of Social Change

http://www.chaoticripple.com
206.914.8927 (mobile)
--

[Pennie O'Grady]

Resources:  A virtual library?  I have books in mind to suggest.

Just One Example:  Getting to Maybe would be a good resource for Historical Change Processes.

There may be a spanning topic between Diffusion of Innovation and Psych of Personal Change that would be something like Conditions That Enhance Personal and Collective Social Innovation.  

Pennie 

If we think we can put ourselves first and then fit the natural world into our program, it's not going to work.  We have got to fit the human project into the Earth Project.    Thomas Berry

[Osbert Lancaster]

The topics Joe and others have posted on the group look great. Of course there's more we could add, and we could argue about what should and shouldn't be included in the list of topics and in each one of them!

I wonder though whether this is the best place to start? Not least because we could end up feeling overwhelmed by the need to develop a huge amount of material.

I'm drawn towards thinking about what's actually needed at this point in time:

• what do the particular groups I find myself working with need to be more effective in their activities?
• what resources do I need to help me do my work with them better?

I'm focussing on my needs and those of my clients, not to be selfish, but to ground my thinking about the curriculum.

So, in my experience the groups I'm working with find any or all of the following useful:

1. Innovation Diffusion Theory (Atkisson's Amoeba Game)
   
2. Values Memes - why different people will do the same thing for different reasons (and much more!) http://www.cultdyn.co.uk/valuesmodes.html (Note I have strong reservations about how some people use this work!)
   
3. The concept of Intrinsic and Extrinsic motivators, and the issues around which one works with (Tom Crompton's work: Common Cause etc - this post is a bit of an intro)
   
4. Distinguishing between different levels within systems: personal, community/organisational, and societal; and within these between formal structures and informal values, memes, culture etc.
   
5. Strategic and tactical project planning - logical models can be very useful here, though they prioritise outcomes over process.
   
6. Understanding different loci for change, barriers and enablers (eg governrment/law; economics/pricing; business/availability; technology/infrastructure; individual and collective behaviour). Links with understanding structural power and identifying points of leverage (relates back to the Amoeba).
   

There's probably more that I just take for granted and that imbues my approach without being aware of it!

The people I typically work with want to understand the concept, grasp its relevance to their situation and most importantly to work out what it means for their plans and activities in practical terms. Generally they don't want or need to read 'the literature' - though some do.

The Amoeba is a great example: I first came across this at a workshop with Alan Atkisson in the 90s: it made intuitive sense, I immediately understoond how I could use the insights from it to plan my activity. I've since used the amoeba in many places. But I've never read Rogers! Perhaps I should, but the amoeba has been incredibly useful to me and others without doing so.

Next step - what do I need at this point in time?

For each of the bullet point topics above, I need to:

• Articulate it clearly - because a lot of it what I do in my own work, but I need to clarify is so I can work with it in different ways. And because I'm trying to make sense of new material that is often powerful but written in ways that are complex and inaccessible.
• Develop exercises/presentations etc to share it with others in workshops and trainings. In this the process is as important as the content - one of the reasons the amoeba is so great is because of the two 'games': it enables people to experience the theory in a really compelling way, and it stays with one in a way that a powerpoint slide usually doesn't! I've already got the Amoeba, what's the equivalent for the other topics?
• Develop different levels of material for each topic for use in different situations.
• Develop material that participants can take away as aide memoires or for further study or to work with - ie really good 'handouts', toolkits etc

I'm already working on this. In particular I'm focussing on:

• how to articulate 2 and 3 above in ways that are accessible (hopefully as accessible as IDT/Amoeba)
• and finding ways of integrating 1, 2 and 3 into an internally consistent model.

So, here's a suggestion - if we each asked ourselves:

• what do the particular groups I find myself working with need to be more effective in their activities?
  
• what resources do I need to help me do my work with them better?

We might then be able to see

• who is looking to address similar issues - and those of us with a common need could collaborate, share material etc 
  
• what the priorities are, for example areas of need where little resource exists a present - where our collective energies would be best focussed.

Thoughts?

All the best

Osbert

changemaking.co.uk

[Joe Brewer]

Osbert,

This a great stuff!  There's quite a lot in here worth thinking carefully about.

I am in total agreement with you that the emphasis of the curriculum needs to be on effective learning tools (like the Amoeba Game) and translation of powerful knowledge into usable form (as activities and exercises).  

For example, one of the ways I help people understand moral reasoning -- as part of human nature -- is to engage them in a game where they partner with one other person and have to chose how they'll split $1.  The game is designed to have them experience the violation of Rational Choice Theory as they are either (a) motivated by a sense of fairness to share roughly half of the money; or (b) motivated by disgust to "punish" their partner so that neither gets any money.  The game has participants experience these feelings so they understand how emotions shape decision-making in a powerful way.

In our design work, we will want to identify:

1. Which insights will be useful and relevant for change makers in their real-world work;
2. What activities most effectively give them a transformational experience that helps them internalize these insights; and,
3. What form(s) should the educational materials take such that we the 'expert change makers' can best share this knowledge with each other and with those whom we teach.

Best,

Joe

--
Joe Brewer
Founder & Director
Cognitive Policy Works
http://www.cognitivepolicyworks.com
--
Founder & Director
Seattle Innovators
http://www.seattleinnovators.org
206.914.8927 (mobile)
--

[Osbert Lancaster]

> Http://bettermeans.com/

This service looks like it be very useful for our project. Unfortunately it's in private beta, but the approach might be useful all the same.

Osbert

[Richard Reid]

Hi Osbert,

Based on his latest email about "Creating a New Science - Human Interface with Global Change," I can't tell if Joe is following through with: "Curriculum Design :: How Social Change Works" or "On Building a Design Team for a Curriculum for Change Makers" or "the three-part workshop series on Designing Campaigns for Large-Scale Behavior Change" or any of the rest of it.

When I posted this question to the CPW blog it was immediately deleted.

Have you heard anything?

Richard Reid

[Joe Brewer]

Hello Richard,

I am not aware of the CPW site deleting your comment.  Perhaps there was a glitch in the caching system.

I did offer a response to your comment on the Chaotic Ripple blog, namely that the three blog posts are all part of the same discussion thread.  Conversations about designing a school were started earlier this year and have yet to congeal into a shared vision or actionable plan.  The most recent video blog about creating a new field of science is focused on my personal work to integrate findings in the cognitive sciences for addressing global challenges, which will hopefully be successful at moving things forward on that front.  A desired outcome of that piece of my vision is to design educational curricula in academia (something I've done a bit of before... I helped create a new undergrad major at the University of Illinois several years ago).

The discussion about creating a design manual is focused on my workshop series and a recent crowdfunding campaign.  Members of this group were hesitant to get involved in it when invited two months ago, so it remains a project I am doing independent of this group... until or unless others here decide that they'd like to collaborate on it.

Hope this helps clear things up.

Best,

Joe

--
Joe Brewer
Founder & Director
Cognitive Policy Works
http://www.cognitivepolicyworks.com
--

Innovation Strategist

Chaotic Ripple

http://www.chaoticripple.com
206.914.8927 (mobile)
--

[Richard Reid]

Thanks Joe,

It does help clear things up.

Good luck. Stay in touch.

Richard