Learning citizen

Do you want to want to evaluate and stimulate deep social learning in your online community, in order for more people to step up in service of the collective wellbeing?

Here are three quick insights I can share with you from this research project:

1. The Wenger-Trayner social learning methodology provides a fine-grained, powerful and flexible way to evaluate social learning processes in online communities of practice and social learning spaces.
2. However, be prepared to analyse masses of data; the methodology is complex to roll out, and there's a steep learning curve to it; and remember that this methodology does not “favour” any particular kind of learning – all are equally valued. This makes it less useful to analyse forms of decolonial (un)learning, for example.
3. With what level of criticality do you expect to consider people’s stories of learning and change? If the answer is “a lot” then perhaps this methodology is not the most suitable.

Read more about how the DAF research team used the WT methodology in their case study of DAF in this summary. You can read more details about it in Annex 5.5 and 5.6. In the Conclusion to my thesis, I describe some of the strengths and limitations I found with regards to using this methodology to investigate the matter of enacting radical collective change.

Some other resources you may want to check out:

• This interview (audio and transcript) I did with Bev and Etienne Wenger-Trayner in 2021, in which we touched on the topic of learning citizenship in social learning spaces - among other topics.
• In 2023, Etienne and Bev Wenger-Trayner published a new book providing an accessible summary of their social learning theory and evaluation practice, which they have been developing for over two decades: "Communities of Practice Within and Across Organizations. A Guidebook". It is available as a free ebook on their website. For a more scholarly take, read their 2020 opus "Learning to Make a Difference: Value Creation in Social Learning Spaces."