Facilitation Strategy #3- World Cafe

I'm going to finish off articulating another facilitation strategy that I think aligns with my facilitation philosophy  - the world cafe. It`s such an engaging, participating and inclusive process that I think it`s fairly clear why I added it to my toolbox- though I`d love to see it in action now that I know what it is! I'll highlight some key pieces below:

Key practice points

• Allows for a structured process and facilitated guidance to link to bigger ideas 
• participants participate in a discussion with different people using different questions throughout the process
• there is no right answer, this is best suited for creative or unbounded thinking 

Why is world cafe suited to a particular learning context/learner characteristics

The world cafe strategy is particularly good for engaging so many different types of learners (Kolb):

• Divergent learners who have a strong imaginative ability and viewing concrete experiences from many different perspectives. 
• Assimilative learners who would look to combine disparate ideas into a unified whole by putting together different ideas to form sound concepts. 
• Convergent learners who are problem solvers and like the hands on approach of dealing with an issue
• Accommodative learners who appreciate open ended questions, self discovery and lots of examples 

Strengths

• allows people to connect through conversation, to really understand other`s lived experiences 
• opportunities for storytelling! 
• huge opportunity to build off work already done and to delve deeper into concepts and ideas 
• allows the linking of many different threads to form a unified concept 

Weaknesses

• may not have clear space for introverts, quiet people, those who need more time to think through issues
• storytelling may alter the dynamics, create fatigue,