Workshop / Session Title:

/

Designing and Facilitating a Dynamic TLLP Workshop: A Workshop in Five Acts

Workshop Description: / Join me as we navigate the ebb and flow between the art and science of workshop development and facilitation. Together, we’ll explore, in an engaging, hands-on and interactive way, practical, research and experience-based protocols and strategies that you can harness to support you in developing and facilitating your own meaningful TLLP workshops for adult learners.
Facilitated by:
/

Ian Pettigrew

Date:
/

Offered May 7 and 8, 2015

Audience: /

TLLP experienced teachers (Carousel segment)

Time / length:
/

May 7 - 1:30 – 2:40 (70 minutes) / May 8 - 10:45 – Noon (75 minutes)

Location: /

TLLP Leadership Skills for Classroom Teachers, Sheraton Toronto Airport Hotel Conference Centre

Learning Goals:
(Relational and Rational) / Relational: To provide a safe space to learn and work together.
Rational: To deepen knowledge about, and use, of structures, strategies and protocols to support you in the design of your own professional learning opportunities.
Master Materials List:
·  Masking Tape
·  Markers
·  Traceable Chart Art
·  Sticky Notes
·  Chart Paper
·  Pens
WC = Working Copy
PT = Participant Takeaway / ·  Laptop, LCD projector, Screen
·  4 ledger-sized quotations
·  WC: Colour (Ledger-sized) Booklet
·  WC: “Chapter 1 Understanding Facilitation” (from Ingrid Bens’ Facilitating With Ease)
·  WC: “What Protocols Are and Why to Use Them” (from Lois Brown Easton’s Protocols for Professional Learning)
·  PT: Tweet, Bumper Stickers, etc. (from Lipton & Wellman’s Groups at Work)
Time
(mins.) / Segment and Activity Sequence / PPT
Slide # / Materials Required
10 /

Act I: Setting the Stage

/ 1-11
Welcome and Introductions
Welcome participants
There are two most “dangerous” times for facilitators of teacher groups: when you’re standing between them and lunch or AFTER lunch.
·  Name and brief bio
·  Proud teacher, 22 years; formerly with PDSB
Define my role as a facilitator with the group:
Key messages:
·  I am a facilitator (neither a presenter, nor a participant) and a “guide on the side”, not a “sage on the stage.”
·  If this were a Himalayan mountain climbing expedition, my role would be as your Sherpa. I can help you find your way up the mountain, but you have to make the climb or scale the mountain. Put another way, you will be the actors in this 5 act workshop.
·  It will not be a traditional sit-and-get and will involve a combination of individual, pair, small, and whole-group activities – all of which will be connected to the learning goals.
·  The session is designed to an effort to help you create a “brushfire of innovation” as you share your learning journey with others.
Provide opportunity for table group introductions (because you will be working alongside your table peers for some of the session, please take a moment to introduce yourselves
Conduct Who’s in the Room? (Stand Up If) to build community
Use last question from Who’s in the Room? (Stand Up If...) as transition to review of, and agreement on, working assumptions (group norms):
·  Everyone has wisdom, experience and something valuable to contribute.
·  We learn more when we share our ideas, wisdom and experience(s) with each other.
·  Everyone has a voice (and this voice will be heard by others).*
·  All voices will be heard (each person will hear others).
·  Mutual respect is essential.
*This is a tweet-friendly space. Out of courtesy/respect, please Tweet only when it doesn’t undermine your learning or that of others.
Refer to and articulate relational and rational learning goals/aims
Connect EDS Airplane commercial: https://youtu.be/L2zqTYgcpfg
to rational learning goal and purpose of workshop: This session will support you so that you don’t have to plan on the fly....or during take-off. It will equip you with a sample flight plan to follow before you leave the ground.
Key follow-up messages:
·  typically, the content of a workshop is different from the process. However, in this session the process IS the content. So keep your eye on the process, and feel the flow, and you’ll pick up the content; effectively you’ll be learning by doing / experiencing.
·  throughout the session, I’ll be turning the facilitation process inside out so you can see how the seams are stitched together - how the session is put together (contrast my approach with the magician eviscerated for spoiling the secrets to magic tricks and illusions). I will “facilitate out loud” and share WHAT (definition/key attributes), HOW (process) and WHY (purpose and rationale)…we’re doing what we’re doing.
·  a message for those who are typically allergic to process: please trust the process and work through it with me and us. This does NOT mean you can’t be critical, but try to be attuned to how things feel as you move through them; this way you’ll know how to anticipate how YOUR participants will feel.
Refer to learning supports (materials management):
·  participants’ working booklet (at certain points, you’ll need to take booklet and a pen/pencil to share)
·  protocol harvest (advance organizer) chart (transferable to the classroom)
·  bike rack and sticky notes (US classroom story about “where questions go to die” – re-named “the freeway”)
I’m curious to see what lies ahead. Are you? Are you ready to work and learn together?
Review the Approx-agenda
(Underscore short, “in-room” stretch break BUT look after your personal needs)
Model (with participant) using Stand Up, Hand Up, Pair Up, to facilitate the pairing process how to find learning partners and provide opportunity for participants to find three learning partners for “reflection/processing occasions” (reminder to have booklet and pen with them).
“Rules”:
·  3 different names/people; one for each symbol
·  No one you already know or work with (incl. someone at your table group)
Identify a space in the room for “temporarily matchless” (those who cannot find their designated learning partner) / LCD, Laptop, Speakers, Screen, Slide Advancer
Masking Tape
Markers
Sticky Notes
Traceable Chart Paper (MiraVia)
EDS Airplane commercial: https://youtu.be/L2zqTYgcpfg
Working Assumptions – PPT slide
Learning Goals chart paper and participants’ working booklet
EDS Airplane commercial: https://youtu.be/L2zqTYgcpfg
Participants’ working booklet
Bike Rack/Parking Lot chart paper
Protocol Harvest chart paper
Approx-agenda chart paper and participants’ working booklet
Time
(mins.) / Segment and Activity Sequence / PPT
Slide # / Materials Required
10 / Act II: Minds On - Activating / surfacing prior knowledge and experience(s) / 12-16
Refer to four (corner) quotations (in working booklet and posted on the wall) about professional learning
Invite participants to skim all the quotations in their working booklet (inside left page) and select one that resonates with them (it CAN resonate either because they agree or disagree with the whole or part of the statement)
Then, invite them to travel to the corner where “their” quotation is posted
Ask them to have a conversation with at least one other person about why they chose that quotation. Optional: ask for a volunteer to share out from each corner
Invite participants to meet up with their TULIP learning partner.
Prompt: Individually, think of a time when you were a participant in a professional learning event that represented a positive experience for you...what made it positive?
Invite participants to popcorn defining characteristics/criteria/”look-fors” of an effective professional learning experience
Ask participants to keep these criteria in mind as I’ll be asking for feedback on the learning goals for the session and these characteristics will be folded in with the learning goals.
As a debrief, explain how we moved from considering the perspectives of academic “experts” and researchers say about professional development/learning to their own, personal experience with professional learning. / Ledger versions of four quotations re professional learning posted in corners of room
Time
(mins.) /

Segment and Activity Sequence

/ PPT
Slide # / Materials Required
15 /

Act III.i: Action - Thinking & Learning, Part One

/ 17-20
Reference concept of the “third point” – provides a common focus for the learning and the group (TLLP participants might substitute “student work” for this reading)
This reading helps to reinforce the process/content in THIS session.
Invite participants to find their ROBIN learning partner (bring reading “Chapter 1 Understanding Facilitation” reading and their working booklet)
Refer to handout of excerpt from Ingrid Bens’ Facilitating with Ease: “Chapter 1 Understanding Facilitation“
Use Say Something with 4 stopping points to chunk the reading / Ingrid Bens’ “Chapter 1 Understanding Facilitation”
4 / Stretch Break
Time
(mins.) / Segment and Activity Sequence / PPT Slide # / Materials Required
10 / Act III.ii: Action - Thinking & Learning, Part Two / 22-26
Conduct working assumptions check-in. Prompt: review the 5 working assumptions and self-assess how you are doing in terms of following them. As a debrief, indicate that re-surfacing the working assumptions helps to keep them alive and explicit for the group.
Refer to handout version of excerpt from Lois Brown Easton’s Protocols for Professional Learning: “What Protocols Are and Why to Use Them”
Identify the sections to read:
•  Reasons for Using Protocols
•  Why Protocols Work
Explain code-the-text protocol (talk mark) stacked with roundrobin as protocols to help structure a table group discussion. After reading the sections, and coding the text, participants, at their tables, share ONE new learning (!) or wondering (?) from the reading / Working Assumptions (chart paper)
Lois Brown Easton’s “What Protocols Are and Why to Use Them”
Time
(mins.) / Segment and Activity Sequence / PPT
Slide # / Materials Required
15 / Act IV: Consolidation, Reflection and Debrief / 27-36
Conduct walk-through of the structure of the workshop (template) with reference to flow for this workshop. Explain that the facilitator’s flow I’m using for their session will be shared with them.
Refer to slide/visual of my whiteboard (with “brainstorming/pre-planning notes for the workshop): every workshop starts as a seed of an idea; it germinates and gradually takes shape (i.e. whiteboard in my office) and blooms when you add participants and facilitate it.
Invite participants to meet up with their SUN learning partner.
Together, as a pair either…
…create a Tweet OR a Bumper Sticker to highlight and communicate a most important point from the workshop (S.U.M. criteria: Short, Unforgettable, Meaningful)
…or complete the give one to get get one to surface and share 1-3 most important point(s)(M.I.P.s) they gained from the workshop.
Use or reference the focused conversation (O.R.I.D.) questions on the working booklet with whole group to debrief the whole session:
Objective: (If we were reviewing a game film) What steps did we go through in the session? First? Second? Next? (this is a no “because” zone)
Reflective: At what point in the session were you MOST engaged? Least engaged?
Interpretive: What is one aspect or idea (from the session) that you might want to explore further?
Decisional: What’s ONE thing you’re committed to playing with / trying out in your own TLLP workshop?
Circle back on the two session learning goals. Using fist-to-five protocol solicit feedback from participants about degree to which I met the stated goals:
Relational: To provide a safe space to learn and work together.
Rational: To deepen knowledge about, and use, of structures, strategies and protocols to support you in the design of your own professional learning opportunities.
Address any bike rack questions / Lipton/Wellman handouts from Groups at Work: Tweet and Bumper Sticker
Time
(mins.) / Segment and Activity Sequence / PPT
Slide # / Materials Required
5 /

Act V: Closing and Adjournment

/ 37-40
Offer closing remarks:
Share my personal perspective: I don’t believe in “trade secrets” but rather “trade sharing”; this work is too complex and important not to share with each other. “Hiding” our experience from others serves no purpose except self-aggrandizement. Deprivatizing our knowledge & skills (learning/sharing “out loud”) helps others learn from us and we from them, in turn.
“To thine own self be true.” I trust you’ll be able to adapt and use some part(s) of this workshop to design and facilitate your own authentic, professional learning experience for colleagues. Personalize the journey to suit your own style and address the needs of your own audience.
Explain how and when to access e-materials (my workshop flow, PPT): under Carousels at http://bit.ly/TLLPsess2015 and share my contact information
Thank participants for NOT making the last 75 minutes for me and you like the following clip (Show EDS Herding Cats video clip): https://youtu.be/vTwJzTsb2QQ
End with Ursula K. Le Guin quotation: “It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end.”
Thank participants for taking this journey with me today; wish them good luck on theirs / EDS Herding Cats video clip: https://youtu.be/vTwJzTsb2QQ
1 / Prepared by Ian Pettigrew, Ontario Teachers’ Federation