We’re very pleased to announce that, together with partner Dr. Lyn Carson of Deliberative Designs, we have won the 2018 IAP2 Australasia Core Values Award for Research. We feel very honoured to have had this exciting work recognised in this way.
To celebrate, we’re providing everyone with all the digital resources and materials that have been produced to date as a result of this work. Providing these resources to others is in line with our commitment to enhancing the quality of deliberative processes, and our aim to encourage quality engagement practice everywhere.
(Continue to the bottom of this post to access all the resources).
A video summarising the project prepared for the IAP2 Australasia 2018 Core Values Awards featuring MosaicLab co-founder Nicole Hunter and Dr. Lyn Carson.
The research, which began in 2016, sought to understand what happens when participants have an opportunity to build and use critical thinking skills during a deliberative engagement process such as a citizens’ jury or people’s panel.
Critical thinking activities developed in a university context were applied to participants in MosaicLab-facilitated deliberative processes. With oversight from Dr. Carson, MosaicLab experimented with various critical thinking exercises, with a particular focus on participants’ ability to effectively interrogate experts.
During this research we learnt that there are ways to tweak these processes to ensure that a group’s use of critical thinking skills is enhanced and provides maximum benefit to participants and the wider experience. The exercises and resources that have been produced via this project have been made available for others to use.
FREE CRITICAL THINKING RESOURCES
The following resources are particularly useful in a group setting.
A short critical thinking film that connects specifically with the six approaches to be used, and the use of critical thinking in collective decision making.
A critical thinking guide – free download prepared by MosaicLab as an introduction to critical thinking skills in a group decision making context (can also be used as a handout to complement the process note provided below).
A critical thinking process note - outlining an activity that can be run with participants in deliberative processes.
The newDemocracy Foundation’s Research and Development Note summarising the research project.
A leaflet was produced for the SA Nuclear Jury because of the presence of Indigenous expert witnesses: Being Culturally Aware – Using Critical Thinking. The jury was overseen by DemocracyCo. The leaflet was developed by Joel Levin, Aha! Consulting and was revised by a number of Indigenous community members and elders.
We believe that critical thinking is an essential skill. Every citizen needs a way to test claimed expertise, so critical thinking is relevant to life, not just to a deliberative process. We hope this work and these resources will be used to help strengthen and enhance the capacity of participants in deliberative processes, but also give citizens confidence in their ability to objectively assess their own and others ‘opinions, and explore, navigate and understand complex problems more broadly.
View a summary of all the winning entries and finalists in the 2018 Core Values Awards Showcase.
Congratulations also to the winners of the Highly Commended award in this section - the ANU Crawford School of Public Policy and The Engagement People for their exciting Next Generation Engagement Project.
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