With a wealth of experience leading and facilitating peer learning programmes, Amanda Smethurst reflects on the critical requirements for an impactful learning experience.
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“Learning with my peers has been massively supportive, there have been moments where I have felt I have been struggling, and access to peer learning has been the single most useful element that has got me through these times.”
My work focuses on creating spaces for people to reflect and connect, often in a peer learning context, as a process of learning with and from others. This approach is increasingly being embedded within projects or programmes, and within organisations that support an active learning ethos.
Peer learning is not new; many organisations and networks have been doing it for years. Ten years ago, Arts Council England (ACE) embedded independent peer learning within the Creative People and Places (CPP) network, actively supporting a programme founded with action research at its heart.
This commitment to learning has attracted much interest from funders and organisations keen to understand the impact of this approach.
Reflecting on my own experience working with peer learning programmes including Creative People and Places, Creative Civic Change, London Borough of Culture and the British Council, I am sharing six elements that feel critical to creating an impactful peer learning experience.
It needs resourcing
The most effective peer learning programmes are well resourced, and embedded at the beginning of a project. ACE decided early in the lifetime of CPP to fund a peer learning programme, led and developed by the CPP Places.
This initiative created spaces for honest conversations about risk, failure and successes alongside the development of relationships across the CPP Places.
The approach has been mirrored by other major programmes such as Creative Civic Change, which commissioned a peer learning approach within the wider evaluation and support of the programme in 2019. Evaluation of peer learning has demonstrated the importance of independent facilitation in creating different kinds of conversations and spaces for learning.
It has core principles
Determining at the start what principles are core to peer learning is fundamental. Honesty, confidentiality, listening, respect and curiosity are principles that characterise many peer learning processes. The alignment of these with the values and culture of the programme help to create an environment conducive to learning and constructive challenge.
There are challenges to consider - time, capacity, geography, cultural differences, openness to engaging - as well as the power dynamics within a funder and programme relationship or between the peers themselves. These can be mitigated through an open collaborative approach and careful planning in the development stage.
We all learn differently and the programme needs to reflect and respect that. There are many ways to create learning spaces – action learning, mentoring, reflective sessions, creative activities and online spaces. With Creative Civic Change we co-designed the learning environment for the face-to-face gatherings to create spaces for people to learn in the ways that work for them.
The importance of the informal moments is critical too – never underestimate the power of a conversation over a cuppa or a meal.
“It was fun to connect and meet other people doing similar things to me.”
It takes time
“There's been a number of occasions where speaking with and listening to others through the programme I've felt more confident.”
Building an environment conducive to learning doesn’t happen overnight. It requires a time commitment from participants to fully participate and develop mutual trust so conversations can be rich and full.
There is a risk that the initial stages of a peer learning process can almost be competitive – with people nervous of revealing any flaws in their practice. Careful facilitation can create an environment to explore the failures and the moments that haven’t worked as well, as this is where the deeper learning is.
It takes time to build this culture of trust and honesty.
It makes time
“Hearing how other people are doing has been so reassuring. I now know I’m not alone with the challenges we’re facing.”
For me, peer learning creates a rare and precious space to breathe. To pause, to lift your head up and look around. It’s a chance to check in with yourself, to connect with others and share your learning.
With that often comes a sense of reassurance and renewed confidence. When you’ve got a packed diary and a full to-do list, taking time for peer learning can be a stretch and feel like an indulgence. But when people can step away they always come back from sessions with fresh perspectives and energy.
It creates connections
“It has made me feel one of many rather than a lone outpost – collective strength and voice is more powerful in making change.”
I’ve witnessed how learning with peers and sharing experiences also forges a deep sense of trust and a connection with others – a network. This in turn creates a supportive structure through which people become sounding boards for each other, offering a listening ear, and sharing ideas or advice.
Critical to this trust is having a space which is negotiated and people can use to talk freely about their joys and frustrations without judgement.
It can be a lifeline
“It has fostered a space in which we can all contact each other, learn from each other and reach out when there's something that we can't face alone.”
Recently there has been an increased hunger for connecting and collaborating. This is especially true where teams are small, or those delivering complex, time-limited projects. The pandemic created huge pressure points for projects working with and for communities, often stretching teams beyond capacity and role, and impacting on wellbeing.
A space to reflect and connect became more critical for many as a support structure and somewhere to let off steam in what were sometimes very emotional conversations. In this context the challenge as a facilitator was always to hold that space to enable the learning space to be generous yet still retain a focus.
And the impact?
None of this is rocket science. But it’s the care and thought about how a peer learning programme is constructed and facilitated that is the thread that runs through all the elements.
For an individual, I’ve seen it build confidence and encourage new ways of working as people can place their successes, challenges and learning into a wider context. Through building trusted networks, support structures develop and new collaborations evolve.
Collating and sharing learning provides the framework for a body of practice to be analysed over time, which in turn draws out collective themes that influence delivery of practice.
The peer learning bubble can also be a magical place that will create a space to look at things differently. Something we all need a little of.
Amanda Smethurst is a facilitator and coach.
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