The “Roundtable” for school learning and planning groups: planting a seed for systemic renewal

Abstract

Current public education, overwhelmed by piece-meal reform efforts, is in need of systemic renewal. An investigation of key literature -systems methods, instructional design, and group process models -yields the conditions necessary for systemic change and a suitable base model. Namely, a successful systemic educational change effort is ideal-based, holistic, continuing, participatory, user-friendly, easy to adjust/improve, and emancipatory. A suitable base model is discovered in the learning systems of Alcoholics Anonymous and then built on for a new model: the Roundtable (RT) for secular learning. Briefly, the RT session is designed so that leadership and learning opportunities are distributed among all participants, who have equal time to present their ideas. Pilot studies in professional scientific organizations allowed refinement of the model. This study investigated sought the seven conditions in four RT applications in 4th-grade classrooms in California. Participants at each site were the teacher and their 30^1 students. Each teacher held ten RT sessions, with students leading two to three of the last four sessions. Evidence was sought in the RT texts, session recordings, and users' views. The criteria were met in the following ways. The RT applications were: ideal-based in the RT texts; user-friendly as they were user-ready and engaging; easy to adjust/improve in the simple revision session tasks, and emancipatory as users learned in important, positive and unanticipated ways. The RT applications were holistic: found suitable for all classroom levels at both schools, and for all school groups at one school. They were continuing after the study in 2 or 3 of the four classrooms. They were very participatory in the roles of listener, reader, and speaker; somewhat participatory in the leader and co-planner roles. Contributions to organizational /educational change theory and future projects are promising. IntroductionThis paper reports on a formal study of the "Roundtable" (RT) model in four 4th grade public school classrooms in Los Angeles County. The RT is an activity for classrooms of all ages and also for professional and community meetings. Briefly, the activity is named the RT to contrast it with the well known "lecture" model in two ways. First, the RT is "co-operated" because of its shift from leader-operation to co-operation (shared operation). In the RT session, leadership is distributed and rotating among all participants. Second, during a RT session all participants have equal time to present and develop their ideas.

The future is humanistic: Infusing compassion in the systems thinking world—Circles, dialogue and RoundTables as levers for individual and community emancipation

“…Today, in 2022, the RoundTable has become a regular part of several social systems-Pennekamp School since 2000 (Gabriele, 2002(Gabriele, , 2003(Gabriele, , 2011; the ISSS since 1989 (Gabriele, 2002); both the Association for Talent Development (ATDLA) and International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI SoCal) since 2013; and the INCOSE since 2016. Individuals in these organisations have introduced it in their workplaces (Katz & Ryan, 2005;Pafford, 2017).…”

Developing a Pipeline for Increasing Diversity in STEM Careers

“…Perspectives/Theoretical Framework Education has been evolving with society since it conception, and reform efforts continue to drive that evolution through the development of various change theories in education. To ensure the goals and objectives were reached in this study, the researchers engaged a modified version of Gabriele's (2002) "Roundtable Theory" for systemic change and Marzano's "Engaged Classroom Theory" to increase students' motivation in STEM careers (Marzano, Pickering, 2011). Gabriele (2002) identified RT as a method for distributing leadership and learning equally across participants.…”

“…To ensure the goals and objectives were reached in this study, the researchers engaged a modified version of Gabriele's (2002) "Roundtable Theory" for systemic change and Marzano's "Engaged Classroom Theory" to increase students' motivation in STEM careers (Marzano, Pickering, 2011). Gabriele (2002) identified RT as a method for distributing leadership and learning equally across participants. A modified round table (RT) theory was used for this study because it focuses on strengths, rather than problems; it is a research--based model that leads the participant to self--transformation and goal attainment; and it is an on-going process allowing the participants to progress toward excellence.…”

Teaching Sustainable Responsibility through Informal Undergraduate Design Education

“…Building upon the success of the pilot study in the School of Design [7], this research aimed to officially embed an informal education strategy to catalyze a culture of sustainable material management that cut across all academic and administrative units in the School of Design at Syracuse University. To create these sustainable actions in the School of Design, a seed planting technique [22] for altering change behavior was utilized. Exercises such as generating idea-based solutions (using observations and surveys to develop and implement ideas on how to increase sustainability practices), using a holistic approach (which seeks to encourage personal and collective action) performing continued tasks, participatory engagement (students would gain something of value for correct sorting at the end of the year), a user-friendly approach (using humor in the communications and making corrections if necessary), facilitating improvements/making adjustments (responsive to incorrect sorting with new informative infographics) [22].…”

“…To create these sustainable actions in the School of Design, a seed planting technique [22] for altering change behavior was utilized. Exercises such as generating idea-based solutions (using observations and surveys to develop and implement ideas on how to increase sustainability practices), using a holistic approach (which seeks to encourage personal and collective action) performing continued tasks, participatory engagement (students would gain something of value for correct sorting at the end of the year), a user-friendly approach (using humor in the communications and making corrections if necessary), facilitating improvements/making adjustments (responsive to incorrect sorting with new informative infographics) [22]. As the design disciplines are high-volume consumers of prototyping materials and convenience food and beverages (due to the long format studio educational approach teaching), two codesigned interventions were conceived.…”