DIY Learn Module of the Month: Creative Workshop
www.nesta.org.uk/blog/diy-learn-module-of-the-month-creative-workshop/
www.nesta.org.uk/blog/diy-learn-module-of-the-month-creative-workshop/
We present the final module in DIY Learn, our online learning programme in innovation created in partnership with the Open University.
It’s been over a year since we launched DIY Learn, our first online learning programme in innovation. Developed in partnership with the Open University and with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, DIY Learn is a collection of interactive, bite-sized modules developed from the most popular tools and methods in Nesta’s DIY Toolkit.
The DIY Toolkit was created to help development practitioners invent, adopt or adapt ideas that can deliver better results, and DIY Learn takes this support one step further. With a lot of online content on innovation already out there, it can be difficult to know what is really useful. DIY Learn cuts through this, presenting a collection of the most widely used innovation tools in the DIY Toolkit.
Over the past 10 months we’ve been featuring each module from DIY Learn here and in the Nesta newsletter, and our final Module of the Month is the Creative Workshop module.
Creative Workshop
A Creative Workshop provides the opportunity to create fresh thinking around an issue. It is distinguished from other workshops by its focus on providing a supportive environment for participants to share new and innovative ideas openly. These participants might include people involved with or affected by your work - those you’re trying to reach, the partners you’re working with, experts from similar fields, or any combination of these (and other) groups.
It can be used in many different scenarios, for example when a project is in the initial design phase, when ‘business as usual’ is not working and standard solutions have failed, or when there is a new opportunity to do things differently. Holding a successful Creative Workshop takes careful thought and planning; you need to ensure that you have the right people in the room, and that they have the space and support they need to think playfully and inventively about potentially serious topics.
The DIY Learn module walks you through the setting up and running of a Creative Workshop and offers guidance so that you can make the most of using it. By taking the module, you will be able to:
Watch the Creative Workshop module introductory video below, or go straight to the module.
We estimate this module will take between two and three hours to complete for an independent learner with a good level of English. It is divided into smaller study sessions, each of which follows a standard pattern to make it easier for you to plan your time. As you work through the module there are some in-text activities to help test your understanding of the material, and it finished with a series of self-assessment questions.
We hope that you enjoy the module, and we’re always delighted to hear from our learners. Please send feedback on the module to [email protected]. We are particularly keen to hear what you have done with the skills and tools you have learned.While the module has been designed to be studied independently this is not the only way it can be used. The DIY Learn Trainers' Handbook also provides guidance on using all the modules as a basis for group training in a classroom setting.
