World Cafe Community

Learning From Each Other: 10 Tips for Maximizing Hosting World Café: The Fundamentals

10 Key Tips, gleaned from wisdom generated during the Hosting World Café: The Fundamentals courses at Fielding:

1) Complete the Reading Before the Course Starts
This is probably the most valuable advice we heard, and the one most often repeated. The course is fast-paced and once it starts you'll want to immerse yourself fully in the assignments and peer conversation. Having done the required pre-reading will give you confidence, valuable knowledge, & a solid basis for fruitful participation.

2) Post Your Weekly Assignments Early in the Week
You'll be doing the bulk of your coursework in rotating World Cafe "tables"; each week you'll join a new table and get a new assignment. Each assignment has two parts: 1) responding to a question, and 2) building on each other's responses.

This is a team process, so by posting your response right away on Monday you give not only yourself but your whole table the best chance of receiving maximum benefit from the week's knowledge-building process.

3) Devote Regular Times to Your Coursework
This course has a regular rhythm and finding your own beat within it will help you keep up and get the most from the assignments and your World Cafe conversations. You'll find your own pace, but most participants find that devoting an hour or so, at least two or three times a week, is a good rhythm.

4) Fill in Your Profile & Read Each Other's
One of the challenges of working online is getting to know your fellow participants without being able to see each other or get visual cues. One of the simplest and most useful ways to learn about each other is by utilizing participant profiles.

Upload a photo of yourself and share personal details in your profile that will give others an idea of who you are beyond your role or position. Give links to websites that will reveal more about you if you have them. When you join a new table, start out by reading the profiles of the people you are with. Refer back to people's profile often to get perspective on who you are working with and gain insight into their thinking.

5) Participate, Participate, Participate
Given the largely peer-learning format of this course, the key to receiving the most value and best quality of learning from it is, quite simply, participation. If ever there was a case to prove the old maxim "you get out what you put in", this is it. What's most interesting here is that in this course, as in life, you're not in it alone. The quality of your participation automatically raises the bar for everyone else, as theirs does for you. Your active contribution can help stimulate a culture of learning and collaboration that yields exceptional results for everyone, not only during the course but also extending far beyond it. 

6) Attend the Optional Study Groups
One of the most popular improvements we've made to this course over time has been to extend opportunities for personal engagement through additioal optional "real time" sessions. These synchronous sessions are highlights for many participants and they are highly recommended. Use this time to learn from senior World Cafe hosts who will join us for occasional session, engage each other and utilize "real time" conversation to understand your weekly assignments, and get support for anything you need help with.

7) Frequent the Watercooler
While the ongoing discourse of the curriculum will be happening at the Café tables, we also have a "watercolor" or forum where informal or over-arching conversation can take place. Many participants in the course have said they wished they would have made more use of it, and asked that we put more focus on it when offering new courses. This is also the place where you can ask general questions of the group or request help from the presenters, as well as explore other topics you find valuable.

8) Take Advantage of the Senior World Cafe Hosts Presenting Your Course
This is a rare opportunity to be mentored by Bo Gyllenpalm, one of the early European contributors in the development of the World Cafe process and a pioneer in applying the World Café principles and method in an asynchronous environment. Bo was on the committee for Juanita Brown's dissertation (which is one of the core reading texts for this course) and an extraordinary resource. We don't know long Bo will be a presenter, so work with him while you can.

Bo's co-presenter Amy Lenzo pioneered the World Café process in a synchronous online environment, and has been a key member of the World Cafe Community Foundation since 2005, guiding the development of the World Café Signature Learning Programs since its launch. Working with her offers excellent opportunities for deepening your grasp of this work, understanding the new modalities for presenting it, and engaging the larger world of World Cafe practitioners.

9) Come Prepared for an Adventure
Although it is offered through an accredited graduate university and can be quite academically rigorous, this course is perhaps a little different than classes you may have encountered in the past. It calls for opening your mind to new possibilities and suspending reliance on old beliefs and assumptions that may be limiting you. It asks you to embrace the idea that the wisdom you seek may be standing right before you in the hearts & minds of people who were strangers before the course started. Embrace this spirit of adventure to really receive the treasure waiting for you on the journey.

10)  Claim your Credits
The course offers 6 CEUs (continuing education units) and 19 CCEUs (coaching continuing education units), which you can claim with Fielding's help to support your ongoing professional requirements and/or extend your academic or professional credentials.

Gems from the last Fielding World Café Learning Program

Here are some comments excerpted (without attribution) from Capstone Papers written by participants in the Hosting World Café: The Fundamentals course with Fielding Graduate University last Spring. They are answering the question "Describe what you have learned in this course":

"This course has taught me many nuances of working with diverse perspectives and combining many styles of communication. It has deepened my appreciation of the art of finding the best question for the issue. To test the questions for latent assumptions. To make sure the question will reach for the sharing of people’s stories and experience rather than ask for a binary answer or statement of dogma."

 

"A deeper level of responsibility showed up in relation to my role as a table member. To be active and to be present matters to the quality of the conversation and to the overall well-being of the group.  And deeper still is the responsibility that I am carrying away- to invite and engage dialogue around conversations that matter..to do with what I've learned something productive and positive and powerful enough that spirits are called together."

 

"What's fascinating is that a simple process based on principles can generate such deep connections. And of course the fact that while the actual experience for the participants could last only for a few hours, the rigor that is required in setting the context, diversity of the group to ensure inclusiveness and the laser sharp questions that get people to pause and share from deep within. What I absolutely love about the process is how quickly it helps people drop closely guarded 'positions' to genuinely connect and evolve something that's larger than the sum of the parts."

 

Announcing Level Two

We are pleased to announce that we are now accepting registrations for Hosting World Cafés: The Fundamentals. Level Two of The World Café Signature Learning Program series, this educational event is collaboratively offered by The World Cafe and Fielding Graduate University and co-presented by Fielding Faculty member Bo Gyllenpalm and Amy Lenzo of the World Café Community Foundation. 

The course will be a robust 4.5 week process delivered online through Fielding's distance learning technology and 2 2-hour synchronous events on Sunday May 6th and Sunday June 3rd using MaestroConference. Graduates will receive 6 CEUs.
Download a flyer for the course here.

See the Fielding web page for more details - including the complete course schedule - and registration. More information on the Signature Learning Programs is available on the World Café website.

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We are very excited about this partnership with Fielding. There been a close association between the two organizations for a long time, but this projects brings us into new territory. We welcome the opportunity it opens for the entire World Cafe community - to secure continuing educational and professional accreditation for World Café work, research, and learning programs, and to benefit from the experience and academic excellence that working with Fielding brings.

In addition, this course is a rare opportunity to work with two of the leading pioneers who have brought the World Cafe processes and principles into the online environment (see their articles on this subject in World Café Publications). Bo Gyllenpalm pioneered the use of World Café in an asynchronous online environment starting with the Masters course Organizational Development Concepts and Methods he presented at Fielding back in 2000, and Amy Lenzo has been following his lead and evolving "real time", or synchronous, World Cafés online since 2008 - see the stories on StoryNet.

Here's a statement from Bo:

I am proud and excited about the cooperation between the World Café Community Foundation and Fielding Graduate University. I have been working on this for the last 5 years and my vision is for Fielding to be the academic home for the World Café like Case Western Reserve University is the home of Appreciative Inquiry.

The World Café has been used a lot at Fielding after Juanita Brown presented her dissertation at Fielding, ”The World Café; Living Knowledge through Conversations that Matter”. Having been on her dissertation committee and working with her for more than 17 years it is my pleasure to present an academic online World Café course at Fielding awarding 6 CEU credits.

This 4.5 week online World Café Signature Learning Level 2 course provides a fundamental understanding of the World Café theory and method, applying the World Café principles to bring forth the creative power of conversations and engage questions that matter. Participants will collaboratively develop the capacity to use the World Café design principles in their own lives and work, and gain a basic understanding of the World Café hosting practices.

Bo Gyllenpalm, PhD
Fielding Adjunct Faculty and Trustee

 

World Café Signature Learning Programs

We have now scheduled our next set of Level One World Café Signature Learning Programs!

We will be offering these learning programs in three two-hour sessions online - one in January 2011, and one in February 2012.

Each one is timed to be convenient and accessible to people in different parts of our international community, so you can choose the one that works best for you. 

January 2012
Level One Online - The Americas & Asia/Australia
Offered online in three two-hour sessions
January 6th, 9th, and 11th
(in Asia/Australia that is Jan 7th, 10th, & 12th)
5pm - 7pm Pacific Time
REGISTER HERE

 

February 2012
Level One Online - The Americas & Europe
Offered online in three two-hour sessions
February 15th, 17th, and 19th
8am - 10am Pacific Time
REGISTER HERE

 

We call them Learning Programs rather than trainings, because while you will come out of the series (Levels One to Three) well grounded in the art and craft of hosting World Café, the process is one of collaborative learning rather than pedagogical instruction. Interactive and experiential, these programs are held in an atmosphere of shared inquiry and mutual support.

 

Start your own "learning journey" into the magic of the World Café by registering for one of these introductory Level One events now!

 

Level One is a pre-requisite for the Level Two Signature Learning Programs, so you'll want to take one of these currently-scheduled programs to prepare for our Level Two course being offered online in May 2012 in collaboration with Fielding Graduate University.

Read more about World Café Signature Learning Programs here.

 

If you would like to contribute a scholarship to one or more of the many people who would love to participate in this program but are prevented by financial limitations, please make your contribution using the "Give" button in the left column - be sure to indicate your wishes in the PayPal text field provided.

From the Heart

World Café Community Foundation board member Samantha Tan speaks from the heart in support of the Harvest Fund Drive:

So many of us are longing to speak from our heart about what we care most about in our lives and in our world today. The World Café is the most powerful and successful method I know to connect people through authentic conversations that ignite our courage and spirit to act - to make a difference and be the difference. It is my honor and privilege to serve on the World Café Signature Learning Programs team. My wish is for everyone to experience the satisfaction and profound joy of the
"World as Café".

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Our immediate goal is to raise $25,000.00 by November 4, 2011.

Thank you to all of you who have already joined us in making this Harvest Fund Drive a great success. Please make your valuable contribution to the World Café Community Foundation now.

You'll be helping to catalyze the most critical conversations of our time.

 

A Hospitable Space

From World Café steward Donald Proffit, about what the World Café has made possible for him and why he is contributing to the Harvest Fund Drive:

I first met Juanita and David in 2004 at the Marconi Conference Center in Marshall, California on Tomales Bay. Rolling December storms coming across the Pacific triggered a number of power outages, leaving our group in the dark. Hurricane lamps were placed around the room and candles on small tables. In this setting surrounded by "intimate strangers," I was introduced to the World Cafe, which prior to this moment I had thought was a radio show originating on WXPN-FM in Philadelphia. Juanita welcomed us, in a very true sense, "out of the darkness." And Finn was there and Tom and Meg and Peter and so many more...

This one experience changed how I would work with others from then on. A principal at a large New Jersey public high school, I returned with a gift for my community. Faculty meetings shifted to cafe conversations on what students needed to be successful; diverse groups of students gathered to consider ethics and the school's core values. It was transforming, magical.

The World Cafe Community Foundation has provided me with the generosity of tools and skills to transform a school community. It's time to pay it forward.

Donald

World Cafe in Elementary Schools!

This from Jean Kluver of the Explorer Elementary Charter School in San Diego:

"I thought you might be interested to see how we use World Café at our school with children from K through 5th grade.  We learned it originally from Nanci Cole, a master teacher from the California Association for the Gifted (we don’t use that term, or separate our children - we like their strategies but think they are for all children) but she never told us where it came from. 

Now I have found your website and shared it with all of our teachers. Now that we know who you are we will credit you and link to your site.

Have a look at our website and you can see how we use it"

I have another example of how it is used in first grade.

We are part of a network of nine charter schools and a graduate school of education, so I am spreading the word of your resources.

Thanks, Jean!

World Cafe in First Grade

Several heart-warming stories have come in lately about the World Cafe being used in schools with young children. Read this one about a World Cafe in First Grade, by Stacey Stevenson. Stacey is from the Explorer Elementary Charter School in San Diego, which is part of a network of nine charter schools and a graduate school of education. (the story was submitted by Jean Kluver):

World Café is a teaching technique that helps students think deeply about issues by asking them to find evidence of various trends and concepts in what they are reading.  At Explorer, we use World café often in the upper grades.

When we do World Café in first grade, we modify it quite a bit, since some of the children are not yet reading and writing and their attention spans are short. It actually can take us up to 2 or three weeks to prepare and go through the whole process. The text that we analyze is usually a picture book or a chapter book that I am reading to the children.  Last year, for example, I read them James and the Giant Peach and we did a World Cafe on several of the chapters.