Best Education Practice: Community RSS Feed

See below for: research findings about outreach with a community.

For the Community, the learning experience:

  • Builds on locally existing skills and resources.
  • Supports a person who takes responsibility for managing or leading the process, and relies on quality group planning and facilitation techniques.
  • Is flexible in response to both process and conditions.
  • Provides participants with feedback about the results of their actions.
  • Generates and makes use of data about the local condition.
  • Takes into consideration the community as a whole, including: socio-political, economic, historical, and cultural influences.
  • Evolves from work with a coalition or group.
  • Builds effectiveness through linkages to other communities, partners, and resources.
  • Takes place close to the location where people practice a behavior of concern.
  • Reaches people in multiple ways.
  • Relates to long-term community vision and goals.
  • Provides training to increase skills needed to accomplish goals identified by the group.

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Kallis, G., Videira, N., Antunes, P., Pereira, A. G., Spash, C. L., Coccossis, H. et al. (2006) Finding 1

Watershed management participatory methods include, scenario workshops (develops ideas and actions based on visioning processes), mediated modeling (problem definition, conceptualization, specification, and policy analysis), and social multicriteria evaluation (compliments decision-making processes with social science techniques including institutional analysis, interviews,questionnaires, obeservation, polls, and focus groups). Scenario workshops and mediated modeling are well-suited to the early stages of the planning process (problem solving and identification of goals and alternatives) and good at educating participants and building capacity, but not as effective at resolving long-standing conflicts and achieving consensus.  Social multicriteria evaluation is better able to address the evaluation of alternatives, reveal trade-offs, and aid convergence between divergent stakeholder’s views; however, implementation is heavily reliant on experts, and allows for less participation and deliberation than scenario workshops or mediated modeling  in the goal-setting stage.  A hybrid of participatory methods may be the best approach. Continue reading →

Lamoree, G. B., Garcia, L. E., Perez, R., & Castro, E. (2005) Finding 1

Capable institutions are an essential element of effective integrated water resource management.  An institutional assessment process investigating policy, organizational and operational elements, are effective tools when designed and analyzed by stakeholders.  Assessment criteria include:

  • a decision-making capacity at the basin level that reflects the interests of different uses and users;
  • a clear and administratively detailed regulatory framework with criteria for decision making;
  • a monitoring and information system for water resources information;
  • a system that allows development and analysis of different scenarios for water use and effluent discharges;
  • effective and transparent accountability through a stakeholder participation mechanism;
  • enforcement and sanctioning power;
  • representation of water used interests and liaison with river basin management institutions;
  • effective control of service providers;
  • cost recovery by service providers and a system that allows market incentives for efficient allocation.

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Lankford, B., van Koppen, B., Franks, T., & Mahoo, H. (2004) Finding 1

To improve integrated water resource management by addressing existing views held by various local entities and insufficient involvement of outside researchers in local decision making process, scientists need to work on two key fronts:

  • Action research, which involves various aspects of the research spectrum; conducting studies and assessments; and resetting research questions in the light of new knowledge;
  • Action advising, which strives to encompass various dimentions of policy making, involve various groups of stakeholders and identify the influential ones, provide advice throughout the policy making process and alter advice in the light of new experience.

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Larson, S., Smith, K., Lewis, D., Harper, J., & George, M. (2005) Finding 2

Industry initiated voluntary pollution control programs, supported by education, can result in implementation of BMPs when course work involves participants developing a water quality management plan for their ranch that includes
ranch description, ranch goals, ranch maps, basin water quality status, nonpoint source self-assessments, existing and planned BMPs, and monitoring procedures. Continue reading →

Leach, W. D. (2006) Finding 1

Assess the democracy merits of collaborative public management by watershed partnerships in terms of: inclusiveness, representativeness, impartiality, transparency, deliberativeness, lawfulness, and empowerment. Continue reading →

Maurel, P., Craps, M., Cemesson, F., Raymond, R., Valkering, P., & Ferrand, N. (2007) Finding 1

Social learning refers to the growing capacity of a social network to develop and perform collective actions. In promoting social learning in watershed management, it is important to frame information in such a way that a convergence of views becomes possible through interaction and collective learning processes, e.g. maps illustrating the impacts of water releases, as perceived by the users; graphs showing flow/time relationship and details of the hydrological regime; and field trips and video sessions to allow participants to see the impact of water releases on fish reproduction. Other useful tools include, for example, tools to communicate a vision about water management such as might be accomplished with a 3D model of a hydro-electric dam, a3D chart localizing all the dams on the river, video cassettes and measuring instruments, which testify that the water management authority cares about people’s safety, and stakeholder involvement in data gathering. Continue reading →

Ferreyra, C., & Beard, P. (2007) Finding 8

In watershed partnerships, negotiate indicators of evaluation among stakeholders. Watershed partnerships bring together multiple stakeholders with a diversity of goals, values and expectations, and each may bring different perspectives regarding what a ‘successful’ partnership entails, what type of scientific knowledge is ‘valid’, and how ‘progress’ should be measured. Continue reading →

Ferreyra, C., & Beard, P. (2007) Finding 10

When considering ecosystem outcomes from a collaborative watershed management process, develop evaluation criteria that can account for the influence of scale and better reflect the potential contributions of the watershed team to their broad, longterm vision for the watershed. Continue reading →