Visual Facilitation with Eimear Mc Nally: Masterclass Toolkit

CREATIVITY & CHANGE Masterclass Toolkit: Visual facilitation

Creativity & Change Creativity & Change is based in CIT Crawford College of Art and Design, in the Department of Arts in Health and Community Practice and is supported by Irish Aid. Our programmes target change-makers, educators, activists, artists, community workers, adult educators, youth workers, volunteers and anyone who is interested in how creative engagement can nurture global citizenship and empathic action around local and global justice themes.

In the Creativity & Change programme, we believe that creative engagement can support transformative learning experiences that connect the head, hand and heart and nurture the competences of global citizens that are important for the sustainable future of our world. Competences such as empathy, resilience, critical thinking, problem solving, ability to take action and compassion are developed during our trainings through hands on, peer-led approaches and stimulating learning environments.

Our training opportunities bring creative methodologies and energy to Global Citizenship/Development Education.

We deliver a part-time, level9 award, as well as an annual international training course for youth workers, a ‘Creative Fair’ interactive roadshow and a rich, varied masterclass programme.

Creativity and Change masterclasses provide an opportunity for inspirational, intensive and in-depth engagement with focused creative learning methods in two day intensive workshops. Delivered by facilitators with specific expertise and experience, the programme is designed around identified gaps and expressed interest and needs of practitioners. Masterclasses look at specific topics connected to change-making, global citizenship and justice themes and specific methods, for example: Design Thinking in creating learning environments for global citizenship education Creative Tools to facilitate meaningful dialogue for change-making Stop-motion, a tool for global justice awareness raising Urban/ Street art. Bringing global justice messages to the street Theatre tools for transformative learning and empowering expression of global citizens through creative writing

l a u s vi n o i t a i l faci eimear mcnally with

I believe Einstein when he said “We will not solve the problems of today by using the same ways of thinking that created them�. I am passionate about bringing creativity and new ways of seeing the world to the way we work and live.

EImear mc nally Eimear has been a ‘graphic recorder’ since 2009, drawing large-scale live recordings of conferences, events and meetings as a way to create lasting memories of these events. It’s not just about pretty pictures!

Graphic Recording Uses Visuals to create shared meaning from an event or project.

Captures and communicates key points in a creative way.

Creates a useful talking point and memory aid.

Brightens up reports and planning documents.

Can be participative and prompts people to think more creatively.

Can be physical (on paper) or digital (on a laptop/ipad and projector).

masterclass OVERVIEW The overall aim of the workshop was to empower participants to use visual tools in their facilitation practice.

Visual, or graphic facilitation can help you to create more meaningful outcomes in your work with groups.

The level of complexity can be high when discussing global justice issues. Visual tools are helpful because they can illustrate complexity so that everyone can understand - we can literally put ourselves into the bigger picture, in a way that is impossible with words alone. Visual thinking also encourages our brain to work in a different, less linear, more relational way.

Participants on the masterclass were supported to experience a deep-dive into the use of visuals in facilitation.

Previous experience with drawing was not nessesary as the workshop focused more on the use of templates and the design of visual tools as part of participants’ preparation for facilitating. Eimear introduced basic, useful and re-usable visual tools (e.g. mind maps and clusters) and information visualisation tools, as well as more complex topics such as using visual metaphors.

This workshop aimed for particpants: To understand the value of visual thinking in general.

To feel confident introducing visual tools into their facilitation practice.

To feel able to design their own visual tools.

To understand the power of visual metaphor in facilitating discussion on complex topics.

getting to know the group The session began with ice breakers. These allowed the group to get to know one another and for facilitators to find out more about them and what they hoped to learn from the workshop.

The results were collected in a graphic, which represented collective information about the group. This gave participants a chance to see graphic recording live during the introductory stages of the workshop.

Particpants were invited to explore the chart to find out more about each other and to pick up some tips about differnt styles of graphic recording.

IMAGINED MAPS exercise Where did you travel from today?

Where are you from?

Where in the world is somewhere that you learned an important lesson about development?

Zodiac sign ? (for fun) Gender? (if we all feel comfortable), Your primary role in your job? (“ I mainly do…”)

The target audience of your job? (assuming you work to engage others in something)

drawing practice emotions Draw a matrix with 9 boxes.

Draw 9 cirlces in the boxes. Add eyes. Across the top of the grid add different eyebrow shapes and, along the edge, add different mouth shapes.

Fill the grid and identify the different emotions on each face.

Abstract mark making Practice drawing gestures, use your entire body, use your energy.

Lines Practice using lines to make shapes. In pairs, play ‘chase’ with shapes and arrows. objects Draw a combination of lines and shapes.

Break it down and practice real objects like a coffee cup, a bed, a tool.

people People are drawn with combination of lines and shapes. Participants are encouraged to “find their people shape”.

Practice with list of actions: celebrating, slouching, having an idea, worring, jumping etc.

clusters Participants were asked to write their learning goals and fears or reservations about the workshop on a post-its and invited to stick their post its to the wall.

The group were then asked to study the wall and to look for words that were the same or similar and to group them together into “clusters�.

Doing this instantly gave them a visual representation of the issues that were the most and least important to the group.

It also allowed them to explore different patterns that emerged, such as issues that were somehow linked or that overlapped and issues that closely related to each other.

It created a visual frame for conversations and allowed the group to quickly find common ground from very broad themes.

They explored the potential of clustering in the field of development education and the possibilites of its uses in visual facilitation.

Definition Cluster analysis or clustering is the task of grouping a set of objects in such a way that objects in the same group (called a cluster) are more similar (in some sense) to each other than to those in other groups (clusters).

It is a main task of exploratory data mining, and a common technique for statistical data analysis, used in many fields, including machine learning, pattern recognition, image analysis, information retrieval, bioinformatics, data compression, and computer graphics.

Building visual vocabulary The group started with a ‘Post-it Blitz�, writing down as many words as they could that they would like to visualize.

Participants then drew these words as illustrations on post-its.

They placed all the images on the floor, organised and clustered them.

The illustrations were examined and discussed, considering similarities and differences that appeared and drawings or symbols that different people used to represent the same words, creating a visual dictionary.

METAPHORS, MAPS and MENTAL MODELS The group brainstormed commonly used visual metaphors to explore development concepts.

They were shown examples by Professor of Global Education at the University of Oulu, Finland, Vanessa Andreotti.

They explored why metaphors work?

Example of a metaphor : a bridge from the known to the unknown.

They were invited to ‘say what you see’, exploring more examples of metaphors and puns.

They looked at the use of metaphors for visual templates for taking action, planning and exploring.

“Mental models are conceptual frameworks consisting of generalisations and assumptions from which we understand the world and take action in it” Senge In visual facilitation, we use the term to broadly cover images or pictures we build to help us make meaning.

The group were introdiced to the Iceberg Model of Systems Thinking.

Other mental models used in development education include: Popular Education sSpiral, U-theory, 2 loops, PLiNG, Dev Compass Rose.

David Sibbets “Keyboard of visual facilitation tools”

visual toolbox EXPLORE A SYSTEM VISUALLY In pairs, choose a system to explore (have a list to choose from for each pair).

Choose a diagram or model to try to explore that system. If you have time choose a second type of diagram to explore the same system.

Examples of System: Democracy, global trade, coffee trade, education in Ireland, climate change.

Materials: List of systems on cards to select Post-its Paper and markers

practice makes perfect To improve your graphic facilitation skills and to become quicker at recording it is important to practice as much as possible.

A good way to do this is to listen to podcasts or watch presentations or talks like TED talks and try to capture the key points in real time.

During this workshop, participants listened to a podcast about the solidarity economy and harvested the results. https://soundcloud.com/upstreampodcast/ solidarity-economy www.ted.com www.acast.com www.soundcloud.com

data visualisation Participants were divided into groups and given facts and statistics about global justice issues and a collection of materials and were tasked with representing these facts in a visual and engaging way. The materials ranged from feathers and beads to building blocks, clothes pegs and beans.

They were invited to create a visual to represent the facts they were given. Representing the data visually allowed participants to play and explore the possibilities of using creative props and creating images as a way of raising awareness or advocating for a cause.

After an hour, the group visited one another’s visualisations and guess what each was trying to represent. They unpacked these facts and spoke about the power of images and visual representation as a universal language to express information and how it can be a useful tool for learners that have difficulty reading.

DESIGN CHALLENGE Teaching tool.

The challenge is to design a learning chart to introduce a Development Education theme to a first year in teacher training college in Ireland.

The design should include: - values that underpin development education.

- historical background to dev-ed.

- a vision of the world that dev-ed wants to see.

- educational methods.

- trends that influence dev-ed.

- threats to dev-ed/enemies.

- dev-ed’s natural allies/ friends Put this all into a single picture - use metaphors!

materials Big sheets of paper coloured paper glue Markers - different widths and colours

Resources and Reading visual principles https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/03/design-principles-visualperception-and-the-principles-of-gestalt/ https://visual.ly/community/infographic/education/6-principles-design

Visual Facilitation inspiration https://grovetools-inc.com/collections/visual-planning-templates http://www.grove.com/ideas-resources.php https://visualisingadvocacy.org/ http://www.gapminder.org/

Mental Models http://davidsibbet.com/2015/06/business-models-mental-models/ https://study.com/academy/lesson/senges-mental-models-definition-lesson-quiz.html

extra resources The Visual Facilitation Cookbook https://www.salto-youth.net/downloads/toolbox_tool_download-file-1430/ VF-cookbook-web.pdf?

Graphic Express, First Steps to Graphic Facilitation in Youth Work https://issuu.com/rannala/docs/2014-11-17_graphic_express_joonmeed

books Drawn Together Through Visual Practice

by Brandy Agerback and Sam Bradd Generative Scribing

by Kelvey Bird Visual Facilitation Field Guide crowd funded on Kickstarter

youtube <a href=”https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=H0QZbwqp4lg”>Learning Graphic Facilitation – 8th Element by Bigger Picture</a>

Systems thinking http://donellameadows.org/systems-thinking-resources/

Systems Thinking visual archetypes - Tragedy of the Commons https://medium.com/disruptive-design/tools-forsystems-thinkers-the-12-recurring-systems-archetypes-2e2c8ae8fc99

Double loop learning http://infed.org/mobi/chris-argyris-theories-ofaction-double-loop-learning-and-organizationallearning/

Research on where tipping points occur in a system/ society https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/research-finds-tipping-point-large-scale-social-change

Online causal loop model maker https://insightmaker.com/insight/559/Tragedy-of-theCommons-Systems-Archetype-CLD https://insightmaker.com/tag/Causal-Loop-Diagram Creative visualisation http://www.stanscafe.co.uk/project-of-all-the-people.html https://www.creativereview.co.uk/one-meal-day-lookslike-african-conflict-zone/?cmpid=crnews_3428566&utm_ medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_ campaign=cr_news https://www.fastcompany.com/3022248/see-the-25-mostbeautiful-data-visualizations-of-2013 Implicit bias test https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html