In the latest edition of Learning Days, we hosted 93 community members and 25 staff for two days of pre-conference training, in which Wikimedians shared experiences and collaborated with other Wikimedians, seeking fresh ideas and perspectives on the movement to bring back to their communities.
Wall of Personal goals
Day One began with an activity in which attendees were invited to write down goals for the days’ sessions on a sticky note and post it to the wall. Although many different goals were represented on the Wall of Personal Goals, the most commonly-reflected aim was to connect with other Wikimedians and share knowledge. The second-most expressed goal on the wall was learning how to better engage with communities at home and improve their leadership skills within those communities. Here are a few examples of what some Wikimedians wanted to experience at Learning Days:
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Network: listen, learn, connect.
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Sharing resources with other chapters and user groups.
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I want to learn methods to engage multilingual communities.
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Expand and learn about GLAM strategies.
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Meet people, have fun!
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To share our experience.
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Viewing the most popular sessions by attendance offers another look into what Wikimedians wanted to learn from their experience at Learning Days. These figures are also useful to compare with later data of the most well-received and impactful sessions. Program and Event Practices, Lightning Talks, and Wikimedia Programs and Events received the most attendees on Wednesday, with Financial Planning for your Organization, Wikidata-Commons, and Storytelling leading Thursday. Here's a full list of sessions by attendance:
Wednesday
Attendees
Plenary Opening Session
77
Plenary Review Session
57
Program and Event Practices
39
Lightning Talks
31
Wikimedia Programs and Events
27
Tools Demonstrations
26
Communications Plans
23
Planning and Testing New Projects
23
Conflict Engagement and Group Consensus Building
23
Engaging Volunteers through Social Media
18
Community Listening
10
Presentation Skills
10
Thursday
Attendees
Plenary Review Session
61
Financial Planning
28
Wikidata-Commons
26
Storytelling
23
Evaluation Plans and Making it Count
22
Program Partnerships: Ideas to Action
22
Facilitation Skills
16
Collective Problem Solving
16
Education Strategy Track
16
Planning for Learning with Wikimedia Projects
10
Logic Models, Program Evaluation, and Strategy
9
Survey Design
6
Learning Days Feedback Form
As with previous Learning Days, collecting and analyzing feedback from sessions is critical to measuring our success. Using a similar feedback form from past Learning Days, we ask attendees what they like best in a session, what needs improvement, and, most importantly, what they will do differently in their communities, based on what they learned. The outcomes of those two days of training shared below stem from that feedback, which shows that over 50% of attendees shared their thoughts with us:
Learning Day
Number of evaluations
Percentage of total attendees
Wednesday
51
66.23%
Thursday
36
59.02%
Communications Plans sticks out from the data as the most-enjoyed session from Day One, with almost 80% percent of attendees to that session sharing positive feedback. Other well-received sessions from Day One include, Lightning Talks, Planning and Testing New Projects, and Tools Demonstrations. Favorite sessions from Day Two include Planning for Learning with Wikimedia Projects, Education Strategy Track, Evaluation Plans and Making it Count, and Program Partnerships.
Measuring the impact of these sessions is also critical. We can measure this by offering a space in the feedback form in which attendees can jot down something they learned from the session which they intend to apply to their work in the next 30 days. Feedback from previous Learning Days reveals that the most-enjoyed sessions often have the most impact on participants, and this trend has continued this year. For example, most participants who liked the sessions Communications Plans and Planning for Learning with Wikimedia Projects also reported that they intend to use the lessions they learned in their own future work.
Although generally, the most useful sessions usually receive a high percentage of positive feedback, this is not always the case. Survey Design, for example, tied for 2nd most useful session on Thursday, but was 5th in the percentage of positive feedback attendees reported. In the tables below, you can see the sessions that were ranked the highest in terms of usefulness and overall approval:
Wednesday
Session
Participants
Percentage sharing positive feedback
Percentage "Will do in next 30 days"
Communications Plans
23
78.26%
73.91%
Lightning Talks
31
74.19%
51.61%
Planning and Testing New Projects
23
69.57%
60.87%
Tools Demonstrations
26
69.23%
61.54%
Thursday
Session
Participants
Percentage sharing positive feedback
Percentage "Will do in next 30 days"
Planning for Learning with Wikimedia Projects
10
100%
80%
Education Strategy Track
16
68.75%
50%
Evaluation Plans and Making it Count
22
54.55%
45.45%
Program Partnerships: From Ideas to Action
22
54.55%
45.45%
Survey Design
6
50%
50%
Overall, feedback asking participants what they will do differently in the next 30 days tended to reflect enthusiasm for pursuing diversity in their communites, engaging other Wikimedians, and using new tools learned. Here are a few examples:
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To reflect diversity issues [in] my new starting project
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I will use all these incredible tools
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Try to apply what I learned about grants to develop language projects
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Use newly learned GLAM tools
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We will try to use WikiData on everything
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In board meetings, to be more aware of how I speak, of whom I let speak, and whom I tend to interrupt
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Engage more men to become allies for women in leadership!
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Integrate challenges into community discussions
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Change how events about language editing are planned
A Learning Days tradition, Lightning talks are short, five-minute presentations in which community members share talks experiences in Wikimedia and how their knowledge can be used to help other Wikimedians and their projects. 14 community members presented a short talk, and made Lightning Talks one of the most well-liked sessions of Learning Days. Here's some of the posters and slides shown during Lightning Talks. You can also find videos of these presentations on our YouTube channel, or on Commons
