Capturing & Surrounding
The following was written for the handout which accomponied a 30 minute bite-size ‘train the trainers’ session:
Capturing is the process by which learners, be they in a group or as individuals, use methods such as note-taking, action-plans, whiteboards, flipcharts and snow-carding to help capture thoughts, ideas, key methods and approaches.
The learning facilitator can turn a sterile environment into a focused and creative learning environment by surrounding the learners with the results of their capturing, as well as using relevant displays, posters, materials and visual aids.
These approaches are most commonly used in syndicate work and brainstorming sessions, where appropriate tools and methods are needed to map the rapid generation and exchange of ideas and approaches. This way of working is not new to us by any means, anyone stepping in to a primary school classroom in the last 100 years would have seen some fine examples of capturing and surrounding, but in terms of workplace learning, facilitators and trainers have tended to capture the thought processes of their learners in a very linear way, encouraging learners to stick with the sentence and paragraph structures that have been drilled into them at schools and universities.
Over the last ten years, we have seen much more creative approaches to capturing and surrounding become prevalent, spearheaded by design agencies such as IDEO, who use the clustering, sorting and voting of ideas on post-its as one of the key stages in their ‘design thinking ‘ process, which they have used to produce a range of award-winning products. It is worth noting that that these more creative approaches have been made easier by the advent of more flexible tools. Products such as ‘magic whiteboard’, sticky flipchart paper and more durable post-its are much more adaptable than blu-tac and drawing pins and give the facilitator a much wider range of options.
Using capturing and surrounding techniques will not lead to the creation of perfectly crafted ideas and solutions by themselves of course, but there is no doubt that they enhance the learning process. The most simple way that they do this is through aiding retention. By writing out your thoughts, ideas and learning points and then displaying them, you have a much better chance of remembering them, as (to put it crudely) they are not allowed to disappear back into the ether. When you start to build on these ideas and combine them with those of other learners in a group and again, display them, you can quickly build a matrix of ideas where the connections and links can be traced and new solutions built in a very visual and stimulating way. Working in this way can help learners to immerse themselves in their thoughts and choose where they place their focus. It is a fun, creative and vibrant form of self-expression.
However, capturing and surrounding may not always be suitable in a learning situation and it is the facilitator’s role to provide an element of control. They must ensure that the techniques retain their usefulness, giving learners the right tools, guidance and structure and be able to make the right judgements on what should be displayed and retained, and what can be jettisoned. Post-classroom, they need to exercise discipline, using their editing and translation skills to ensure that important information can be logged and distributed.
With the advent of Web 2.0 technologies, facilitators and learners now have an expanded range of tools to use when capturing and surrounding. Hand-held video recorders, audio devices and digital cameras enable us to record our thoughts, words and ideas and swiftly upload them to classroom laptops and then transfer them to a video screen where they can be replayed and dissected. We might then choose to send them to platforms such as Evernote and Slideshare, so that they can be accessed and commented on by peer networks, or convert the best ideas into captivating visuals using Wordle or even comment on them in a podcast.
This dizzying range of options that is now available to facilitators and trainers has come at a good time, because if we are indeed seeing a decrease in time spent in the workplace ‘classroom’, then we are going to need to find new ways of capturing and surrounding for the benefit of our learners