CCSL checklist of questions

Social Learning Checklist

(This social learning checklist was originally developed on the [https:www.yammer.com/ccsl/| CCSL sandbox] on [https:www.yammer.com/ccsl/#/notes/940937| this page] [restricted to sandbox members]). It was updated last on 20 March 2014 to incorporate latest comments and better reflect the structure of CCSL Framework & Toolkit (from earlier draft by Ewen Le Borgne, Marc Schut, Alison Shaw and Carl Jackson).

Introduction This checklist of questions/pointers can help those already using social learning approaches to assess whether initiatives are addressing social learning as meaningfully and completely as they could/should. For help in answering the prior question - Is Social Learning Right for Me? - there is an SL Decision Tree.

Intent

This is about realising whether social learning is intended, recognised, embraced, characterised or not. 1. To what degree is facilitated learning and reflection a central component of your plan?

• Did you explicitly conceptualise social learning or not?
• To what degree did it cover the 'thematic' elements below (social differentiation, looped learning, power, monitoring, evaluating, capacity development)?

2. Did it change and become (more) obvious and (if not done before) did you then include this in your conceptual approach over time?

• Has it been recognised by other initiative members, partners, beneficiaries?

3. How were institutional obstacles to social learning identified and addressed during the design of the initiative to create an enabling environment?

Looped Learning

This is about double and triple loops for learning to reflect on what activities would be more effective and what behaviours need to change - rather than just correcting errors in an existing practice: 4. To what extent is the initiative designed around an exploratory process, reflecting on, learning about and incorporating contextual factors that emerge, rather than goal-driven?

• What measures are in place to enable the initiative to flexibly deviate from a given goal if the need is felt by the stakeholder group?
• Is a process for adaptive action towards a good enough outcome central to the design, rather than bolting on adjustment when a pre-defined solution fails under implementation?

5. What strategies are in place for encouraging iterative, trust-building processes of engagement?

Social Differentiation

This is about recognising that any community is made up of different groups of people who represent both collective and individual interests (i.e. biological, physiological and socio cultural factors as sex, age, race, nationality etc): 6. What measures (processes, criteria, incentives, interfaces, etc) have been put in place to ensure that an extended range of different social groups are engaged by the initiative?

• How were diverse perspectives accounted for and collective cognition supported?
• How was selective stakeholder engagement justified when necessary?
• What measures (mechanisms, approaches, etc) have been put in place to ensure that different social groups are sharing, learning, reflecting and transforming their knowledge and practice together?
• How are characteristics of the different social groups who are involved and not involved in the initiative recorded?

7. How does the objective of social learning reflect the objectives of other actors/stakeholders?

Power

This is about whose knowledge counts and the ways to reveal and moderate power inequalities: 8. What is the potential for initiative to result in social transformation that goes beyond the individual to effect the broader community, systemic or social change (e.g. in terms of changes to systems, practices, or ways of knowing)?

• To what extent is the initiative, in its intentions and consequences, instrumental or emancipatory?

9. How are power dynamics in the field and within research being facilitated?

• Who initiates social learning activities and with what objective?
• Is participation informed and voluntary or compliant / bureaucratic?
• How are a range of lower-profile / less powerful actors involved in the problem definition (as well as senior internal and external champions)?
• What process is in place to build a synthesis of all stakeholders expectations of the initiative and to sustain that understanding through subsequent conflicts and changes?

10. How was an enabling environment for transdisciplinary approaches and recognition of multiple sources of knowledge supported?

Capacity development for social learning

This is about the skills and knowledge that enable beneficiaries participation 11. How are beneficiaries’ capacities for social learning assessed to determine whether they can participate meaningfully or require capacity development as part of the initiative?

• Are there activities to address these needs (which ones?) and integrate them into the social learning approach?
• How are beneficiaries’ own learning, adaptation, innovation, research, negotiation and management methods indentified and integrated?

12. To what extent have the capacity development efforts effectively led to improvement in the way the social learning approach is being implemented?

Monitoring Change

This is about who decides what evidence is gathered and how: 13. What measures are being used to engage beneficiaries in monitoring?

• How are beneficiaries defining their own indicators for successful change

14. What indicators are being used to determine whether the initiative is achieving transformational learning?

• To what extent are those with responsibility held accountable for initiating real world change?

15. How will change be monitored and accounted for in an iterative manner? 16. What is the theory of change behind the outcome that is hoped for? 17. What indicators are being used to determine whether the initiative is socially and ecologically beneficial?

Evaluating Extent of Change

This is to understand what parts of a given initiative were affected by social learning - to get a sense of scope and possible impact, geographically, thematically etc. 18. Who did the social learning approach initially affect

• One or more distinct geographic area (with no easy possibility to interact face-to-face)?
• One or more team (as part of the people originally involved in this approach)?
• A homogeneous or heterogeneous group of people (e.g. single discipline/type, multi-disciplinary, transdisciplinary?)

19. Did the social learning approach eventually expand

• Scale up in time (affecting more people in the same area[s])?
• Scale out in space (affecting more areas)?