Experience capitalization for continuous learning

Together with the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services (GFRAS), the FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia will co-organize a blended learning programme on experience capitalization for continuous learning. Good practices and innovations need to be continuously documented, shared, adopted, adapted, and scaled up. Instead of reinventing the wheel, FAO and its partners have developed a learning course to facilitate this process.

Already tested and validated, the blended learning programme consists of six modules that will be offered through an interactive online course from 7 February to 5 April 2020. Each module has a workload of 2–3 hours. The online course is free and open to participants who are able to learn in English or Russian.

The online course will be followed by a face-to face workshop in May 2020. Only participants from Europe and Central Asia working on an agricultural extension who have successfully completed the modules and assignments are eligible to attend the face-to-face workshop. The double goal of this is to train the participants to become facilitators of capitalization process within their organization after documenting their experiences.

Several thematic areas have been selected, such as rural advisory services and extension , gender, climate change, and digitalization.

People interested in applying for this course can register in English or in Russian.

The deadline for registration is 4 February 2020.

What is experience capitalization?
Experience capitalization is a methodological process through which an experience is identified, analysed, and documented, leading to creation of knowledge (e.g., good practices or lessons learned), which can be shared and used to generate change.

What is the course about?
This course introduces the methodology and process of experience capitalization. It gives you guidance and tools that help you plan and implement your own experience capitalization process, ensuring efficiency and effectiveness.
This course is aimed at providing organizations working in development programmes with the necessary tools and skills to plan and implement an experience capitalization process, and contribute to increased efficiency and effectiveness in their work.

Course goals
The learning programme will create awareness about the conditions and requirements for such a process, and an understanding of the steps to follow. In particular, through the programme, learners will:

• identify or acknowledge the value of experience capitalization in their work
• build skills to use experience capitalization in their work, and
• be able to use and help others use experience capitalization.

Audience of the course
The course is designed for professionals involved in reflecting upon, learning from, and sharing the lessons of their work. Therefore team leaders, managers, project and programme technical staff, monitoring and evaluation officers, communication professionals, and knowledge management and knowledge sharing professionals.

Participants will learn about:

• how to facilitate and plan an experience capitalization process
• how to implement an experience capitalization process step by step, and
• how to adopt, adapt, scale up, and mainstream experience capitalization.

Course outline
Module 1: Introduction: What is experience capitalization and why it is important
Module 2: Facilitation: What is facilitation and how to use in the experience capitalization process
Module 3: Preparation for the experience capitalization process
Module 4: Implementation of the process: Collecting, gathering, and analysing information
Module 5: Implementation of the process: Documenting and sharing
Module 6: Generating change

This course is composed of six modules and 13 lessons in total.
In each module you will find the learner’s notes, practical tools, and a test that you must complete to receive your certificate.
Assignments for each modules are not mandatory.

For each module, you will be able to interact with your peers in the discussion forum. We will also provide you with an online webinar for each module, where you will be able to ask questions and share your experiences.

We look forward to seeing you online for the course!