Two spots in a Dialogue Education workshop

I am holding an in-house session of Global Learning Partners' course on a Dialogue Education approach to designing and facilitating participatory workshops for a non-profit advocacy group in Ottawa.

The course dates are April 4-7, 2011. There will be two spots in the course available for outside guests at a subsidized price of $350 (CAD). It regularly costs $1300.

If you or someone that you know might be interested in attending, please contact Dwayne @ dwayne.hodgson@yahoo.ca by Friday, March 19.

Below is an outline of the course:

Outline of the 4-Day Workshop, Learning to Listen, Learning to Teach
The learning objectives
The workshop will provide the participants with an opportunity to explore some of the key insights of how adults learn as synthesized in the principles and practices of Dialogue Education.

The proposed content would include:

Ø How to incorporate the factors that make for effective adult learning as researched by Malcolm Knowles, Jane Vella, and others into a learning event;

Ø Creating a “safe” learning environment that invites the participants to be active decision makers in their own learning;

Ø How to conduct a Learning Needs and Resources Assessment (LNRA) to tailor a learning event for each group of participants and to build a relationship that supports learning;

Ø Designing for different learning domains (Cognitive, Affective and Psychomotor), learning preferences (Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic) and multiple intelligences;

Ø Using Power Point effectively to enhance learning and avoid visual overload;

Ø The Steps of Design framework for organizing and designing learning events – a simple but powerful tool that puts the needs of the learners first and provides an efficient means of joint workshop planning;

Ø Writing Achievement-Based Objectives (ABOs) that create accountability to the learners, switch the focus away from what the presenter says to what the learners can do, and that embed the evaluation indicators into the learning design;

Ø Using Bloom’s Taxonomy of cognitive learning and other skills-based learning taxonomies to write clear ABOs that specify the level of learning that will occur;

Ø Ways to write participatory Learning Tasks that incorporate inductive, deductive and experiential learning in a 4I Learning Cycle;

Ø Using Open Questions to affirm and engage learners while promoting dialogue; and

Ø Other topics as identified in the LNRA survey.

The facilitator will choose the specific content elements and develop the Achievement-Based Objectives of the workshop based on the findings of the Learning Needs and Resources Assessment (see below). The ABOs will describe what the participants will do to engage with every content element, and thus provide a transparent basis for evaluation and mutual accountability.

The process and approach to learning

1) Pre-Workshop Learning Needs and Resources Assessment
Every Global Learning Partners’ learning event is customized according to the findings of a pre-workshop Learning Needs and Resources Assessment (LNRA) through which the facilitator will review some examples of existing learning materials and consult with the participants by phone or email. The participants will be asked to share a bit about their work and training approach, and to provide feedback on the proposed objectives.

Based on the findings of the LNRA, the facilitator will prepare a detailed learning design and course manual that outlines a series of learning tasks that guide the participants as they engage with the content and meet each of the Achievement-Based Objectives. Each participant will receive Dialogue Education teaching tools to support them in applying their learning.

2) The Workshop Design and Facilitation
The design and facilitation of the workshop will model a Dialogue Education approach. They will work individually, in pairs, small groups and as a large group following a series of participatory Learning Tasks. Each learning task will produce a product (a presentation, chart, list, etc.) that will demonstrate what they have learned. These products will be included in final course report.

Day 1 provides grounding in the theoretical basis of Dialogue Education, with an emphasis on the factors that make for effective adult learning, distinguishing between monologue and dialogue; learning styles, using an LNRA process, creating a safe learning environment, and an introduction to the 7 Steps of Design framework.

Day 2 examines the importance of warm-ups, how a learners’ social context influences what they will learn and apply, and how we need to engage a learner’s cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains to promote deeper learning and behavior change. In the afternoon, the participants begin a supported design process where they work through the 7 Steps of Design to create a 30-minute workshop with a partner.

On the morning of Day 3, the participants facilitate their session and receive feedback from the instructor and the other participants. To ensure relevance and immediacy, each session must be designed and taught to the actual participants in the room (i.e. this is not a simulation). After a period of further reflection on essential facilitation skills, they design a second 30-minute session to teach the next day.

Day 4 starts with the 2nd practice teaching session and feedback. It concludes with a series of tasks that will help synthesize their personal and collective learning, to predict what they will transfer to their work and to name what kinds of supports they will need to successfully implement their learning.

We have found that having two opportunities to co-design and co-teach is essential for the participants to translate cognitive knowledge of the principles and practices of Dialogue Education into skills they can apply in their work.

Comments

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