The Curve Consortium in partnership with The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) invite you to discover Responsive Feedback and explore how it can help you.
Responsive feedback is about regularly analysing feedback data, so we can improve programs whilst they are live in the field. It is an integrated framework that incorporates elements of feedback, continuous learning and engagement, to promote social and behavioural change.
Call to learning
You are taking actions to make a difference.
Yet, implementation in the field can be complex. You may face challenges that you did not expect.
How do you overcome such challenges? Or better yet, how do you stop problems before they start?
How do you respond to field realities that change rapidly?
How do you course-correct in the heat of action?
Explore this quick learning module to find out how to make your implementation more effective so your programs can get better faster.
What is Responsive Feedback?
If we keep learning, we keep improving.
The Responsive Feedback approach was created out of a deep dissatisfaction with traditional intervention designs, where you have to wait until the end of an intervention to learn if you have been successful or not.
We cannot wait. Lives are at stake. Resources are at stake.
Hear Professor K. “Vish” Viswanath, the co-creator of the Responsive Feedback approach, tell you the story of why he created this approach and what difference it can make.
Responsive feedback is an integrated framework that incorporates elements of feedback, continuous learning and engagement, premised on using foresight and learning to iterate programs for better results.
Responsive Feedback has five key elements:
- Requires diverse stakeholders to work together
- Interrogates a program’s Theory of Change and makes assumptions explicit
- Prioritizes information gaps where a program would benefit from data and course-correction
- Seeks evidence to fill information gaps, using learning questions
- Advocates Pause & Reflect sessions to evolve a program based on evidence
Who is this for?
This learning module is for:
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Program planners or implementors;
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Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) managers or staff;
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Decision-makers in your organization or program; or
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Those seeking to help projects, programs or organizations with live learning for improvement– in the international development sector and beyond.
Learning objectives
By the end of the learning module, you will have explored how to:
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Determine if and how Responsive Feedback is helpful in continuous improvement of a real-world intervention (while still in the field);
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Use the key steps and tools of Responsive Feedback;
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Adapt elements of Responsive Feedback in your current interventions to improve implementation.
What will you gain?
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Improve your field implementation with the Responsive Feedback approach;
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Connect with a global community of practitioners using Responsive Feedback;
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Compare and share best practices with fellow practitioners and global experts to improve through Responsive Feedback;
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Adapt global guidance to your local context, culture, and language;
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Earn a certificate of participation recognizing the level of effort and your commitment to improve;
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Develop your digital skills to collaborate and learn remotely.
What others have said about Responsive Feedback
“For every project that we implement going forward I will ensure that we have a responsive feedback mechanism integrated.”
An implementor and user of Responsive Feedback
“[Responsive Feedback] is definitely an important approach and it's critical that those who work on programs are aware that this is something they need to actively and deliberately build into the way programs are managed.”
An implementor and user of Responsive Feedback
“I think that what The Curve and the toolkits from The Curve are doing is giving people more practical ways, tools that they can use beyond the on-the-job style of mentoring that we typically do within the organization. And beyond the standard consulting skills, it's taking it more to practical tools that you can use in your day-to-day as an implementer.”
An implementor and user of Responsive Feedback
“With pause and reflect (part of the Responsive Feedback approach), you bring up the capacity of everyone in the team to a certain level so if one person is missing, the other people are able to step in and fill in that gap because they've been part of the ongoing pause and reflect.”
An implementor and user of Responsive Feedback
“This training on RF has actually made me to see programs the way we see surveillance. In surveillance, we track progress on diseases and here we track progress on activities. That means, there is room for improvement on a daily basis rather than the traditional midterm and end line survey. More importantly we also realized that by using RF, we will be saving cost because we always see cost as a hinderance to what we wish to achieve.”
An implementor and user of Responsive Feedback
“Benefited from the training because before now, some of the responsive feedback approaches were being done unconsciously and to a large extent without documentation but now we can improve by doing it systematically with proper documentation and involvement of key stakeholders internally and externally.”
An implementor and user of Responsive Feedback
How can Responsive feedback help you?
Benefits of Responsive Feedback:
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Hone your understanding of how you expect to make change. This is your program’s Theory of Change
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Reveal the assumptions underpinning your program design
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Get more value from data
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Better understand on-the-ground realities
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Stop problems before they start
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Test, learn and iterate to find a better way
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Make decisions with greater confidence
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So programs can get better faster
Key learning resource
The learning module will engage you in activities using the Curve’s “Step by step In-depth guidance to embedding responsive feedback in your program”. Participants will become familiar with this guidance document, which includes:
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A practical definition of ‘responsive feedback’
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A step-by-step guide on the process to establish responsive feedback in your program. The guide also contains hints about obstacles and challenges you may face, along with suggestions on how to overcome them.
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A ‘Learning Agenda’ to be completed throughout the guide, which will form the basis of your responsive feedback plan.
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Advocacy arguments to promote responsive feedback in your organization/program
Faculty
Professor K. “Vish” Viswanath
- Professor K. “Vish” Viswanath is the co-creator of the Responsive Feedback approach.
- He is the Lee Kum Kee Professor of Health Communication in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH) and in the McGraw-Patterson Center for Population Sciences at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI). He is also the Faculty Director of the Health Communication Core of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (DF/HCC).
- Prof. Viswanath’s work, drawing from literatures in communication science, social epidemiology, and social and health behavior sciences, focuses on translational communication science to influence public health policy and practice.
- His primary research is in documenting the relationship between communication inequalities, poverty and health disparities, and knowledge translation to address health disparities.
Dr. Rachel McCloud
- Dr. Rachel McCloud is a Research Scientist at the Center for Community-Based Research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
- Her research focuses on communication inequalities, with an emphasis on how technology and connected health may address or exacerbate these inequalities.
- Over the past several years, she has played a key role in developing trainings and associated tools to educate diverse audiences about the Responsive Feedback Approach.
- Her recent work has focused extensively on using Responsive Feedback to aid in creating and disseminating COVID-19 information to communities in both the United States and globally with an emphasis on promoting vaccine and preventive behaviors.
Certification
Upon successful completion of the learning module, you will receive an Official Letter of Participation issued by the Curve and the Geneva Learning Foundation.
Honor code
The Scholar community is devoted to learning and the creation of knowledge. We view integrity as the basis for meaningful collaboration. We thus hold honesty – in the representation of our work and in our interactions – as the foundation of our community.
Members of the Scholar community commit themselves to producing course work of integrity – that is, work that adheres to the scholarly and intellectual standards of accurate attribution of sources, appropriate collection and use of data, and transparent acknowledgement of the contribution of others to their ideas, discoveries, interpretations, and conclusions. Cheating on assignments or projects, plagiarizing or misrepresenting the ideas or language of someone else as one’s own, falsifying data, or any other instance of dishonesty violates the standards of our community, as well as the standards of the wider world of development.
Scholar course participants are required to adhere to a strict Honor Code. Violation of the Honor Code may result in removal from the course, loss of certification (including prior Scholar certificates), and notification of your employer.
Confidentiality and data protection
This initiative uses the Privacy by Design approach. This means that we think of privacy implication before offering a course, we don't ask for information we do not need, and we protect the information you share. We take pride in treating our learners' privacy the way we would like to be treated, as individuals. We will treat your information with respect.
Research and evaluation
The Curve and The Geneva Learning Foundation may review work developed by learners and may consider some of them for use in their communication, advocacy and training effort.
Learners may also be invited to participate in research and evaluation. Participation in this research is completely voluntary, and you may stop taking part at any time. In cases where learners do not consent, no learner data will be collected. Participation or non-participation will have no effect on assessment of your performance in the module or your present or future relationship with the organizations involved.
About The Curve Consortium
The Curve is a consortium formed by M&C Saatchi World Services, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health and Development Outcomes Nigeria, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The consortium’s mission is to make continuous improvement through Responsive Feedback (RF) more readily achievable for everyone.
The Curve has convened a global community of practice and a Nigeria-based community of practice, where it shares best practice advice and practice-based evidence on Responsive Feedback.
The Curve wishes to ensure its Responsive Feedback approach is available through open access to relevant resources, in ways that help its intended audiences discover and use these resources, while reducing maintenance needs and costs.
Why is the Curve partnering with TGLF?
“The Curve is excited to partner with TGLF to share learnings with their expansive, experienced community of practitioners across the globe. We want to partner with an organization that prioritizes learning and practical application of concepts, and TGLF is a digital pioneer in this space.”
Why is TGLF partnering with the Curve?
“TGLF welcomes this partnership to offer Responsive Feedback as a new tool in the arsenal of health professionals – starting with Members of the Movement for Immunization Agenda 2030 – who are seeking better ways to lead change.”
About The Geneva Learning Foundation
The Geneva Learning Foundation is a Swiss non-profit with the mission to develop, trial, and scale up new ways to lead change to tackle the challenges that threaten our societies, including through its scalable package of proprietary interventions to accelerate learning, leadership, and talent development using digital and pedagogical innovations ("TGLF Scholar Package”) and through its flagship comprehensive learning system “Full Learning Cycle”, translating learning into outcomes, through the interlinked components of peer learning exercises, learning analytics (Insights), and conferences (Teach to Reach).
TGLF has nurtured a rapidly-growing immunization community of over 40,000 health care professionals and volunteers from around the world including over 9,480 immunization personnel in Nigeria providing a unique way to listen to, learn with, and involve national and sub-national immunization staff in knowledge development, policy-making, research, and advocacy.
TGLF works in partnership with interested stakeholders to serve community needs, offering partners unique opportunities to engage with the community through the Full Learning Cycle.
