Liberating Structures are simple, adaptable microstructures that promote collaboration, trust, and inclusive engagement. By making small, intentional shifts in how groups meet, plan, and make decisions, Liberating Structures empower all participants, not just designated facilitators, to contribute meaningfully. These methods are particularly effective in enhancing group dynamics for teaching, team building, and shared decision-making.
As a Liberating Structures Catalyst at Washington State University (WSU), I helped lead campus efforts to introduce and integrate these tools into academic and professional settings. In April 2016, I coordinated a three-day immersive Liberating Structures Workshop in partnership with WSU’s Professional Development Initiative (PDI) and the WSU LS Design Team. The event was designed for graduate and professional students, faculty, and staff, and brought together over 20 Liberating Structures practitioners from across the country to explore how these methods can transform learning environments, research collaboration, and organizational change.
In addition to the large-scale workshop, I helped facilitate several smaller LS sessions and seminars across campus, building capacity for facilitation and inclusive participation within academic departments and student leadership programs.
2014 Liberating Structures Workshop
Davi Kallman of the Washington State University Murrow College of Communication and Laura Griner Hill of the Human Development Department discuss Liberating Structures theory, which holds that classrooms and office meetings are often either too formal—sage on stage—or too loose, such as open discussions that can devolve into irrelevancies. Liberating Structures offers a new approach—actually 33 new approaches—called microstructures. These lively techniques range from User Experience Fishbowl to 9-whys, from Wicked Questions to Celebrity Interview. This Nov. 18, 2014, workshop at WSU Pullman was part of a series on increasing student success co-sponsored by the WSU Provost’s Office, WSU Teaching Academy and the Global Campus.
2014 Liberating Structures Powerpoint