Courses

Facilitators Certificate

This certificate course is for facilitators and educators who are designing and delivering professional development sessions, formal and informal learning events related to the practitioner certificate units and more broadly, using the Transform and Empower approach.

Overview

In adult learning today, transformation of self, community and society are inseparable. There is a wealth of theoretical and practical approaches to adult education at vocational, graduate and post graduate levels, that cover organisational learning, emancipatory learning, action learning, situated learning, critical learning and critical management learning, geared to professional development for adult learners in the workplace. Contemporary adult learning combines values, competences and awareness skills drawing from frontiers in psychology, the new sciences, power, rank and privilege awareness, consciousness studies. Learning and change occurs at personal, relationship, professional, and global levels. Over time, adult educators facilitate this in themselves and with others.

The Transform and Empower Facilitators Certificate contains three train the trainer units in course design and delivery for Transform and Empower units.  It is situated within this paradigm although it is not a qualification path in adult learning. It does however, offer relevant practice-based tools for those delivering training to supporters of people with complex needs. With practice, these methods can also facilitate greater ownership for one’s own state of being, and the impact of one’s actions and ‘atmosphere’ on others, as well as encourage greater awareness and effectiveness in learners.

Co-workers who turn up for training often have negative past learning experiences as well as barriers and tensions related to their experience in the workplace that affect their ability to engage with training material, particularly when the primary mode of learning is didactic.

Any interaction  — whether individual, relationship or group  — follows a basic structure with three levels of awareness. Worldwork theory (Mindell) frames this in the following way:

1. Consensus reality is the day-to-day working (plans, strategies, rules, projects, outcomes, requirements) that can be agreed to and objectively measured.

2. The level of subjective experience is more illusive but ever-present, and informs our ability to work at the level of consensus reality. Our delights, excitements, fantasies and imaginary beings, irritations, tensions, polarities and conflicts are present at this level.

3. At this level of awareness we can sense deeper currents and impulses beneath our best-made plans and subjective experience that point to the future.

Professional development activities that engage learners at all three levels are more likely to stimulate the learner’s authentic ability to connect, to create and to become more effective. Nuts and bolts methods are informed by this structure.

Reading

Zajonc, A (2008) A New Vision for Higher Education

Awakening insight through action and reflection

This is the first of three train-the-trainer units for those designing and facilitating Transform and Empower and related trainings. Through this unit, learners can extend their range of practical facilitation and learning methods — nuts and bolts tools — that can be put to use straight away.

In this unit, learners will gain tools to:

• create a relaxed and alert learning atmosphere

• enable course participants to tap into and share ideas and experiences that are relevant to their context

• deliver content in short, accessible and dynamic presentations

• introduce reflective tools that can awaken in both facilitator and learner authentic insights, and motivation to use those insights in practice 

• sustain learners’ engagement, meaning-making and memory through training activities that use often unoccupied channels. For instance: imagination (through evocative pictures); action theatre (to convey and reinforce key aspects of mandatory policy work).

Using participative idea gathering tools, learners will have an opportunity to discuss with each other their own excitements, frustrations and hopes as trainers.

Learners will be introduced to the theory underpinning the Transform and Empower approach to adult learning, group work and social change:  worldwork (Mindell — process science); conscientisation (Freire — social science); freedom in action (Steiner — spiritual science). 

Thanks to new frontiers in psychology, quantum sciences and consciousness studies, evidence of the holographic nature of fields we inhabit means that our modest steps at one level of awareness can be affecting change at many levels (referred to as the the butterfly effect). Small, conscious steps can therefore be very effective.

Participative learning using visual mapping

Talking Paper is a visual, people-oriented approach to participative communication and planning that taps directly into the experience, insights and wisdom of those involved with the issues at hand. It works across languages, cultures and abilities. It is well suited to participative learning and planning in groups, and thus is a valuable learning tool in Transform and Empower and related activities.

The Talking Paper method uses coloured cards in a variety of shapes and sizes to individually write down, project, collectively organize, and prioritise ideas and themes in a quick and engaging way. Everyone contributes and therefore everyone can follow the process. It embodies the egalitarian values of participation and a commitment to the notion that decisions are best made by all people affected by them. 

Discussion focuses on ideas rather than personalities and encourages people to become problem solvers. It is time saving, makes visual the development of discussions and so improves accuracy of minutes and records. People can communicate on an equal footing, plan, prioritise and make agreements. Ideas can be generated anonymously, significantly reducing power imbalances within the group. Participants can adopt a course of action that brings together values, purpose and practice.

In this unit, learners will be introduced to Talking Paper, its origins and values, using examples from Transform and Empower work worldwide.  Learners will practice four base-line applications of visual mapping and dialogue. These are the necessary building blocks for basic and more advanced uses of the tool. Once mastered, facilitators can adapt and splice these foundation applications into their own practice:

• facilitating a visual dialogue: gathering and organising ideas

• prioritising ideas

• facilitating a review of a session

• recording a discussion

• making a presentation with visual prompts.

Learners are welcome to use competences, tools and methods acquired during this unit in creative and innovative ways. Learners are not authorised to conduct training using the name Talking Paper.

Reading

Read here about the Talking Paper process, its origins and applications.

Assignments & assessment

In this practice-based workshop, participants will develop competence in designing, assessing and marking assignments.  Participants will heighten awareness of key principles that inform Transform and Empower approach to design and are also coherent with current developments in the Lifelong Learning sector.

Through interactive practice sessions, participants will be introduced to tools for verifying learner’s competences in the learning objectives that enhance the content of the course being delivered to their learners and the methods of learning.

These tools use a multi-levelled approach to experience. This approach can expand their learner’s awareness on a personal and professional development path. The ideas and tools introduced in this unit:

• Fit course values and match the content and methods of the course being delivered
• Lead learners towards greater insight and effectiveness in their existing practice – do the same things better
• Are flexible in accommodating a range of learning styles and needs
• Encourage creative and practical methods for meeting the standards of formal accreditation

Small group in-class projects give opportunities to practice the tools in a supportive, creative and friendly learning environment.  A variety of examples and templates are available. Learners will be able to implement the learning straight away in their own context.

By the end of this unit, learners will be able to:

• Design an assignment to match the syllabus and learning outcomes of a course or session, which accommodates a range of learning and communication styles.
• Use assessment criteria and tools, that accommodate a range of learning and communication styles. 
• Comment respectfully and insightfully in a written dialogue with learners in a reflective journaling assignment.
• Explain the principles that inform assignment and assessment tools and design choices.

Reading

DeSeCo - Definition and selection of key competencies

Continue to the next course: Measuring quality: Personal Outcomes