Abstract
ABSTRACT Spatial planning as a field in continuous transition needs a way of working that allows for questioning its professional practice. In this paper, we focus on the design of 4-days long ‘studios’ for planning professionals that aim to reflect on new notions of democratic practice and participatory planning. During these studios, different methods to enhance a collective reflective attitude among participants were tested. The paper describes how the tutors of the studios tried to encourage participants to develop their own theory of practice by iteratively (re)designing the learning artefacts, learning content and learning modes of the studio. In the conclusions of this paper, we introduce the idea of a Participation Studio Conjecture Map to support and structure a culture of collective reflection-in (participatory planning) organizations.
Highlights
The work of Donald Schön and his concept of the reflective practitioner (Schön 1983; see Argyris and Schön 1978; Fischler 2012; Kadlec 2006) and the idea of reflection-in-action has already for a long time been a popular concept in planning theory and practice (a.o. Bertolini et al 2010; Scott 2019)
The aim of this paper was to reflect on the kind of processes that could help planning practitioners to reflect-in-action. We argued that this required a collective double-loop learning process which we defined as a process of critical reflection during which a collective of planners questions and redefines the values and assumptions on which they rely when they facilitate participatory planning trajectories
We adopted the approach of conjecture mapping (Sandoval 2014) to analyse an intuitively designed process of collective reflection in order to understand why we expected some of the adjustments that we made along the way to trigger DLL
Summary
The work of Donald Schön and his concept of the reflective practitioner (Schön 1983; see Argyris and Schön 1978; Fischler 2012; Kadlec 2006) and the idea of reflection-in-action has already for a long time been a popular concept in planning theory and practice (a.o. Bertolini et al 2010; Scott 2019). Building upon the work of Argyris & Schön, several authors in planning theory (Forester 2013; De Leo and Forester 2017) and adult learning sciences (Bradbury et al 2010; Goh 2019; Boud and Hager 2012; Wenger 1998) have been stressing that if the reflective practice should trigger double-loop learning and question underlying assumptions, it essentially depends on the collective nature of the endeavour. The main challenge of this collective reflection is to provide an environment that allows practitioners to learn from each other by reflecting on their own professional practice experiences (DiSalvo et al 2017; Beauchamp 2015) By doing so they can further develop their own theories of practice: the basis to evaluate and understand their own practice in relation to underlying (often shared) assumptions (Gardner 2014; Fook 2010). How can we make a collection of planners, who do not necessarily know each other, who are not involved in the same planning process, reflect on decisive transitions taking place in their profession? How can we encourage them to explore together the values and assumptions that shape their practical experiences? How can we train them to engage in both single- and double-loop learning and turn critical collective reflection into an inseparable part of the planning discipline?
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
