I thoroughly enjoyed myself during the Institute Facilitation Workshop – it was good fun to facilitate and to connect with our Institute Facilitators in person!
Overall, I think the workshop went well and met the Institute Facilitators’ practical needs in developing a more robust workshop plan for their sessions in the upcoming Spring Institute. Many Institute Facilitators were appreciative of the structured opportunity to draft, revise, and receive feedback from their peers on the workshop plan. Feedback has long been recognized as a vital requirement for professional development with aims to support practitioners develop new skills and integrate them into practice (Joyce & Showers, 1982). Through modelling effective facilitation practices during the workshop, I was glad to observe that all of them were grappling with various factors while (re-)designing their sessions and were willing to experiment with new techniques in their facilitation practices! Fine tuning this aspect of the workshop would be worthwhile to support Institute Facilitators, especially for those who are new, in developing well-aligned interactive workshop plans. This professional development workshop for the Institute Facilitators has the potential to become an essential component of quality assurance for sessions offered at the CTLT Institutes. I am hopeful for active integration and change implementation in their workshops during the Spring Institute, where they will be able to receive specific feedback from their participants and have the opportunity to debrief their facilitation experiences with me.
In the feedback received, an emerging theme spoke to Institute Facilitators’ desire to share stories, to gain insights from others’ experiences, and to belong to a community of facilitators. Their needs in sharing personal facilitation experiences – both spectacular failures and triumphant successes – went unmet with the informal, unstructured format provided before and after the workshop. I’d imagine a more structured opportunity, perhaps in the format of the World Cafe, would offer a safe and inviting space for the Institute Facilitators to connect and to learn from one another. Not to mention, providing these opportunities for the Institute Facilitators to connect would be in alignment with Guskey’s recommendations (2002) in creating more sustainable behavioural changes! I’m eager to initiate this process and have the Institute Facilitators design and shape their community of practice!
References:
- Guskey, T. R. (2002) Professional Development and Teacher Change. Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice. 8: 381-391.
- Joyce, B., and Showers, B. (1982) The Coaching of Teaching. Educational Leadership, 40:4-8.
Follow