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Back to Framework & Toolkit home Next section: What you can do CCSL Framework and Toolkit Baseline self-assessment

This section should help you to assess your baseline with regards to social learning. If you're new to the social learning approach or have already explored its potential, the Social Learning Decision Tree below is a good place to start. The Social Learning Optimization Checklist following is aimed at those already using social learning methodologies. Keep in mind that social learning is organic in nature and may be taking place in your work under a different name. toc

1. Social Learning Decision Tree
This decision tree can help you to determine whether social learning approaches are relevant and useful for your project.

















2. Social Learning Checklist
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. Relevant questions from the checklist can also be found in subsequent sections of the framework.

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? 2. Did it change and become (more) obvious and (if not done before) did you then include this in your conceptual approach over time? 3. How were institutional obstacles to social learning identified and addressed during the design of the initiative to create an enabling environment?
 * Intent**
 * 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)?
 * Has it been recognised by other initiative members, partners, beneficiaries?

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

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

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)? 9. How are power dynamics in the field and within research being facilitated? 10. How was an enabling environment for transdisciplinary approaches and recognition of multiple sources of knowledge supported?
 * Power**
 * To what extent is the initiative, in its intentions and consequences, instrumental or emancipatory?
 * 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?

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

This is about who decides what evidence is gathered and how: 13. What measures are being used to engage beneficiaries in monitoring? 14. What indicators are being used to determine whether the initiative is achieving transformational learning? 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?
 * Monitoring Change**
 * How are beneficiaries defining their own indicators for successful change
 * To what extent are those with responsibility held accountable for initiating real world 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 19. Did the social learning approach eventually expand
 * Evaluating Extent of Change**
 * 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?)
 * Scale up in time (affecting more people in the same area[s])?
 * Scale out in space (affecting more areas)?

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