Patterns to Outcomes - A reflection on Language and its application in student engagement

Note: When we talk about complexity, we refer to the concept as defined in Cognitive Edge website1: A complex system is a system composed of interconnected parts that as a whole exhibit one or more properties (behavior among the possible properties) not obvious from the properties of the individual parts. A system’s complexity may be of one of two forms: disorganized complexity and organized complexity. In essence, disorganized complexity is a matter of a very large number of parts, and organized complexity is a matter of the subject system (quite possibly with only a limited number of parts) exhibiting emergent properties.

When you apply a purely programmatic or Service focused lens to address existing complex social and economic challenges (e.g. when you implement a program designed to address a complex problem within a certain environment), you run the risk of oversimplifying the context and potentially creating undesirable outcomes. There are many examples of this, such as policies to reduce fishing in Pacific islands2 that ultimately led to the contrary outcome of decreasing fishing stocks.

In Mastering Systems Change by Christian Seelos and Johanna Mair3, they remind us of the importance of mastering the systems causal architecture. That is, understanding the cause and effect of activities that we are involved in. Through examples they share the relevance of robustly transforming the causal system architecture, and how if we don't do so, things may be as bad as or even worse than before.

In contrast, seeking to understand the impact of our activities in the context and embracing the complexity of systems that our ideas will operate in, can lead to new ways of seeing challenges and allowing for innovative solutions to emerge. Over the past few years, we have been embracing systemic challenges and applying different approaches to usefully map the interdependency of elements within systems and identify levers that may influence positive change.

We have been exploring different methods to assist making sense of complexity that help us move quickly into action. This exploration uncovered an approach from architecture called Pattern Language which is both highly adaptable and a great addition to the systems thinking toolbox.

Education engagement Pattern Language’s Patterns What is Pattern Language? The term Pattern Language was first coined by the architect in 1977. In his book4 of the same name, he describes Patterns (see ‘What is a pattern?’ below) that other architects might follow to make successful design decisions.

In this book, we present one possible pattern language (...). This language is extremely practical. It is a language that we have distilled from our own building and planning efforts over the last eight years. You can use it to work with your neighbours, to improve your town and neighbourhood. You can use it to design a house for yourself, with your family. or with other people to design an office or a workshop or a public building like a school. And you can use it to guide you in the actual process of construction.5

PURPLSOC (an Austrian founded global community in pursuit of pattern languages for societal change) have been developing a deeper understanding of how Pattern Language can be useful in other domains and disciplines. And ultimately be used as a tool to create social impact. Their ebook the Pursuit of Pattern Languages for Societal Change6 references different examples drawn from papers presented at their World Conference in 2015. These examples are as diverse as for dementia (which consists of 40 patterns, categorized into three different groups: words for those living with dementia, words for caring families, and words for everyone) and a set of 24 behavioral properties that capture “wholeness” in a lively human activity (an investigation of pattern languages of human action).

What is a Pattern? A Pattern is a piece of information that appears repeatedly. In the context of a Pattern Language it frames a problem and an opportunity area to assist with implementing a solution.

The elements of this language are entities called patterns. Each pattern describes a problem which occurs over and over again in our environment, and then describes the core of the solution to that problem, in such a way that you can use this solution a million times over, without ever doing it the same way twice.7

A Pattern Language example describing a single Pattern within the Pattern Language for baking Chocolate Chip Cookies : • Pattern Name: Chocolate Chip Ratio • Context: You are baking chocolate chip cookies in small batches for family and friends • Consider these patterns first: Sugar Ratio, Flour Ratio, Egg Ratio • Problem: Determine the optimum ratio of chocolate chips to cookie dough • Solution: Observe that most people consider chocolate to be the best part of the chocolate chip cookie. Also observe that too much chocolate may prevent the cookie from holding together, decreasing its appeal. Since you are cooking in small batches, cost is not a consideration. Therefore, use the maximum amount of chocolate chips that results in a really sturdy cookie. • Consider next: Nut Ratio or Cooking Time or Freezing Method

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_language Adopting Pattern Language into complex social contexts

In the following case study we share how we used Pattern Language to help us reflect on the multilayered challenges of student engagement. We’ll outline how we broke down the complexity into concrete patterns that helped build a common understanding of the problems while linking them to evidence based solutions that help schools take action.

Our Pattern Language is based on thorough ethnographic research we undertook with five schools and an evidence base horizon scan (identifying rigorously evaluated solutions from around the world) compiled by our evaluation partners Clear Horizon (https://www.clearhorizon.com.au/).

In essence, we found that Pattern Language offers a way to navigate complexity and take action towards implementing concrete solutions.

TACSI team working on framing the Education engagement Pattern Language

CASE STUDY

How we used Pattern Language in an educational context? We used Pattern Language to build on themes which emerged from our ethnographic research exploring student engagement. We visited and met with people in a series of schools that had been identified as Positive Deviants, that is schools that were enabling great education outcomes for students despite current system challenges. Richard Pascale, Jerry Sternin and Monique Sternin in their book The Power of Positive Deviance8, frame Positive Deviants as:

(...) the few individuals in a group who find unique ways to look at, and overcome, seemingly insoluble difficulties. By seeing solutions where others don't, positive deviants spread and sustain needed change.

We hang-out -or as we like to frame it, we rigorously hang-out- with students, their families, community organisations and institutions, teachers, support staff, deputy principals and principals and heard about the complexities of the education system. We also learned about how those complexities change from individual to individual and for each school depending on its context.

The patterns we defined (based on the emergent themes from our research) were clustered into three types of Patterns that impact student engagement at school:

• Conditions for success: these are the circumstances that allow ideas to become actions in the school environments that we visited. For instance: ‘Leadership support’ or ‘Safe space to try new things’. We share the detailed description of these Patterns later. • Process to follow: these are the methods and practices we observed were being used to approach challenges and frame new ways of doing things. For instance: ‘Talking to the people involved’ or ‘Try, test, learn’. • Principles to shape: these are the priorities or behaviours we witnessed being used to keep the most important things top of mind while providing guard rails to keep ideas on track. For instance: ‘Positive behaviour focus’ or ‘Family engagement’.

Pattern card examples developed in the Education Engagement Pattern Language

The Patterns we articulated have been framed in the positive - in alignment with the Principle to Follow: ‘Positive behaviour focus’-, taking a strength-based approach and focussing on solutions rather than problems.

Here is a concrete Pattern example: • Pattern Name: Leadership Support • Context: You have an idea about how to solve a student engagement challenge and want to test it in a small way. (This would be contextualised for the situation and school within which the Pattern was identified and being used) • Consider these patterns first: Trusting two way relationships, Safe space to try new things, Share learnings • Problem: The leadership team in the school doesn’t support the initiatives that the team are trying to implement, and as such it’s very likely that these new ideas won’t be successful. • Solution: The leadership team ensures that the school staff are given the permission and opportunity to share and test their ideas. The knowledge, ideas and input of all staff is valued by the leadership and staff are encouraged to ‘have a go’ at solving the challenges they face around student engagement. • Consider next: Supports for staff, Policy support, Community of support

If you are interested in receiving the full deck of Student Engagement Pattern Language cards please get in touch with us at [email protected]

Defining where to start and how to navigate the Pattern Language was critical. For this tool to be useful to schools in their unique contexts - and with limited external support - we chose to develop a series of canvases to specify a starting point and a roadmap that schools can follow.

Together with schools we defined the following process:

1. Reflect on strengths: starting with existing strengths choose a foundational Pattern to build upon at your school.

Reflect on strengths canvas

2. Map your future focus: decide what patterns will help sure up your foundational strength and allow you to move forward and build new capabilities.

Map your future focus canvas

3. Translate for context: adapt the Pattern problem and solutions for your own context to ensure it’s as relevant for your specific needs as possible.

Translate for context canvas

4. From Pattern to action: build out a rough plan that the school could follow to achieve building those desired Patterns.

From Pattern to action canvas

If you are interested in receiving the Student Engagement Pattern Language canvases please get in touch with us at: [email protected] How has Pattern Language added value to our work?

Breaking down and navigating complexity Pattern Language is useful for breaking the complexity of systems down into actionable elements and creating a common language to assist navigation of what can feel like overwhelming problems. Actionable elements might be specific points in the system (or nodes) or the relationship between two or more nodes. For example, in the Education Engagement Pattern Language a node in the system would be the Leadership Support Pattern (as shared above) which requires change of an individual or group of individuals in same kind of leadership roles. Whereas, the Trusting Two Way Relationships Pattern (that we frame as:

Most people consider trust is earned, reciprocal and based on clearly defined parameters in the context of their relationships. The schools seek to build intentional interactions that foster trust and respect) requires the relationship between elements in the system to change.

The Pattern Language is also valuable when building a roadmap forward and to avoid fuzzy problem paralysis. For example, educational engagement it is such a broad and fuzzy problem. The definition and use of 28 Patterns and a series of canvases helps schools to move from understanding their own context to finding a pathway forward and taking action.

Building a shared vocabulary In the same way that a systems mapping exercise can help facilitate conversations between diverse actors across a system (and ultimately lead to greater alignment between their actions), our Pattern Language creates a shared vocabulary between diverse educational stakeholders from divergent contexts.

In turn, this allowed stakeholders to build a more comprehensive understanding of each others contexts and agree on pathways to action in alignment with other stakeholders.

Emphasizing the relevance of relationships In systems mapping, we can reflect on the connections and types of relationships between different nodes. In Pattern Language, we can reflect on the connections or relationship between Patterns. We can use those connections to help map the current context and decide what connections we need to strengthen to work towards a desired future state. In the Education Engagement Pattern Language we have been able to explore this through: • Framing the patterns that might be considered before and after other patterns • The series of canvases that help create a roadmap that can be followed to leverage the Pattern Language within any context

Auntie Vickey (TACSI) on the left after one of the interviews we conducted

What have we learned in this journey?

• Pattern Language is a powerful way to link problems and potential solutions. • It takes time to familiarise users that haven’t been part of building the Pattern Language. Participants will need time to make sense of what the different Patterns mean and how they translate to their context. Once immersion has taken place the shared vocabulary is greatly appreciated and enables individuals to share how Patterns are different in their context. • The willingness to improve student engagement was evident for the 21 schools that were part of this process. For schools, understanding where to start and how to continue addressing the challenge of student engagement was the challenge. The Pattern Language facilitated this conversation. • Solutions identified within Patterns will change based on the context within which a school is operating. It is important for schools to go out to find and explore examples working in neighbouring schools and incorporate those into their Pattern Language. The examples they find will help them make sense of the Patterns and build relationships in their community and with other schools. • There are a lot of ways of navigating the Patterns. Through our work at TACSI we have understood the importance of focusing on existing strengths and to have them as a starting point. • Building a Pattern Language for a complex social system, or system of systems is an emergent process. New patterns emerge and old ones shift. So as new and/or better information emerges, it's important to revise the Patterns and consider new or better solutions linked to them. • Pattern Language is a valuable approach for cross-sector collaboration. It creates a shared vocabulary built from multiple perspectives. It is helpful for knowledge sharing and facilitates a way to talk about abstract and nuanced situations in an efficient way.

What’s next? As we continue to reflect on the Pattern Language approach here are some areas we will continue to explore:

• Who else has tried applying Pattern Languages in which complex social systems? • What is the place for Pattern Language within the context of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities? • What are the blind spots of Pattern Languages in the context to trying to influence positive social outcomes in complex systems? • What are the most effective ways to introduce and help people familiarise themselves with Pattern Language? • How can we make it easy to iterate and continuously evolve a Pattern Language? • Who owns, maintains and iterates a Pattern Language in a complex social system? • At what point does the complexity of a Pattern Language limit its usefulness? • How might we make it easy for people to rewrite Patterns for different contexts? • Are Conditions, Processes and Principles relevant in all contexts or would these clusters be different in every context?

Are you interested to hear more about Pattern Language and how it might be used in your own context? We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with us at [email protected]

1 Cognitive Edge (n.d.). Glossary definition of ‘Complexity’. Retrieved from http://cognitive-edge.com/resources/glossary/ 2 The Omidyar Group, PlusAcumen. (2017), Systems practice course, reading module 1: Why we need systems practice. 3 Seelos, C., Mair, J. (2018). Mastering Systems Change [Article]. Retrieved from https://ssir.org/articles/entry/mastering_system_change 4 Alexander, C. (2005). A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. 5 Ibid. 6 Edited by Baumgartner, P., Gruber-Muecke, T., Sickinger, R. (2016). Pursuit of Pattern Languages for Societal Change: Designing Lively Scenarios in Various Fields (1st ed.). Retrieved from https://www.purplsoc.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/PURPLSOC_book2-1.pdf 7 Alexander, C. (2005). A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. 8 Pascale, R. T., Sternin, M., Sternin, J. (2010). The Power of Positive Deviance : How Unlikely Innovators Solve the World's Toughest Problems (1st ed.). Boston, MA, United States: Harvard Business Review Press.