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- [00:01]
Dr. Tolu Noah
So good, so good, so good.
- [00:02]
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Dr. Christina Gessler
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Dr. Tolu Noah
Cause there's always something new.
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- [01:30]
Dr. Christina Gessler
Welcome to the New Books Network. Hello everyone and welcome to Academic Life. This is a podcast for your academic journey and beyond. I'm the producer and your host, Dr. Christina Gessler, and today I am so pleased to be joined by Tolu Noah, who is the author of Designing and Facilitating Workshops with Intentionality. Welcome to the show, Dr. Noah.
- [01:56]
Dr. Tolu Noah
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.
- [01:59]
Dr. Christina Gessler
I am so glad that you're here and that we get to learn about all of these important Designing and Facilitating with Intentionality tips and ideas that you share with us in the book. Before we do that, will you please tell us about yourself?
- [02:15]
Dr. Tolu Noah
Yeah so my name is Tolu Noah and I'm an educational developer. My formal title is Instructional Learning Spaces Coordinator at California State University in Long beach, and in this role I design and facilitate professional learning programs for instructors about teaching and technology. And in general I'm just really passionate about teaching and facilitation and so I'm really excited to be able to chat with you today.
- [02:36]
Dr. Christina Gessler
We like to ask people about their own journey through higher ed. As you look back when you were 17, 18, did you imagine this is where you would end up.
- [02:48]
Dr. Tolu Noah
Yeah. So my journey is actually a little bit unique because I've known since fourth grade that I wanted to be a teacher. And so that's kind of the through line with my career. But I've also worked in lots of different contexts, so I'll go all the way back to undergrad, and then I'll try to work my way up to the present and be as brief as I can. But, yeah, since I knew since the, since I was in fourth grade that I wanted to be a teacher. I got my bachelor's degree in liberal studies at Azusa Pacific University. And immediately after graduating from college, I joined Teach for America and became a full time 6th grade language arts and social studies teacher here in Los Angeles. And during my first two years of teaching, I was also working on my master's degree in elementary education at Loyal Marymount University. And then the summer after my second year of teaching, I had the opportunity to work as a curriculum specialist for Want to Teach for America summer institutes. And this basically entailed, like, teaching a new group of incoming TFA corps members about teaching. So I was doing all of the pedagogical sessions, and that experience really sparked my interest in one day becoming a professor and teaching future teachers. So I continued teaching at the K12 level. I was, you know, at my original school for three years, and then I transitioned to another school where I taught fifth and sixth grade language arts and social studies for six years. And during the time that I was teaching at my second school, I decided to go back to school again and got my doctorate in educational leadership from the University of Southern California. And I taught at the K12 level for a total of nine years before transitioning to higher ed and becoming a teacher education professor. And I actually ended up teaching at the same university that I had attended as an undergrad in the same program that it taught me how to teach. It was a really awesome full circle moment. I absolutely love being a professor. I love being able to, you know, support my undergraduate students as they were pursuing their own dreams of becoming teachers. So it was a fantastic time. And I taught at APU for seven years. And throughout the time that I was teaching, I also was presenting at academic conferences like the Teaching Professor Conference and the Lilly Conference, and doing workshops by request at other universities. And so these interests, these then sparked a new, or these opportunities, rather, then sparked a new interest in doing professional learning. And so I started looking into those types of roles. And one of the positions that I came across was for a senior professional learning specialist position at Apple. And this would basically entail facilitating professional learning at different schools and universities across the nation about how they could use technology to enhance teaching and learning. And so I applied for the job despite thinking like, there's no way I'm going to be selected because there's so much interest in this position based on what I had seen on LinkedIn and. But I did end up getting the job and it was really cool to be able to explore Apple technology in depth and to partner with so many different educators about how they could use these tools in their teaching. But I also found myself really missing academia and wanting to do professional learning about more than just Apple tools. And so I started applying for faculty development positions at universities and was eventually hired for my current role at csulb. And. And it's been such a blessing and such a joy to partner with instructors and help them explore. Yeah, how do you integrate technology with your teaching and go even beyond that.
- [06:02]
Dr. Christina Gessler
I'm curious if something happened around the fourth grade level where you said, oh, this is definitely for me, was there a particular inspiring teacher or a particular inspiring subject? What, what cemented for you at such a young age? Like, this is my thing.
- [06:17]
Dr. Tolu Noah
So when I was in elementary school we had like a track system. I think there were four tracks, A, B, C and D. And so tracks would be off at different times of the school year so we didn't all have the same summer. And when I was off track, I would actually volunteer to help in other teachers classrooms. And that was what sparked my interest in teaching was, you know, being in the classroom. I mean, I was only like a fourth grade student in like a first grade classroom, so I wasn't doing anything like super out of the box. But it was so fun to like see the teacher teaching students and you know, I got to take home some of her old textbooks. And so that just felt like a lot of fun. And, and I also ended up playing school all the time as well. So I would take these old textbooks that I was given and then I would force my sisters to be my students and I have my little mini chalkboard and all that. So I think it's just something that like has always just been really interesting to me. And so getting to see that as a child, it just never left like in and in all of the roles that I've ever done, ever since it's been in, it's involved teaching in some form or capacity.
- [07:19]
Dr. Christina Gessler
I just had a flashback to taking home old textbooks and teaching my doll and teddy bear how to Read. I just remember how thrilled I was to get to that inside peek of, oh, this is what they use. And, you know, practicing it on an inert audience, they had to just sit there until I said they couldn't.
- [07:37]
Dr. Tolu Noah
But.
- [07:39]
Dr. Christina Gessler
So that leads us to this book. And you tell us a bit inside the book about why you wrote it. But for listeners who haven't had a chance to see a copy yet, how do you describe the book and what inspired you to write it?
- [07:51]
Dr. Tolu Noah
Yeah, so my, I guess one sentence description would be that my book is all about how to create engaging, enriching, and effective workshops for adult learners. And so in the book, I share a model I developed called the Workshop Wheel. And it offers 10 different principles for designing and facilitating workshops with intentionality. And so for each principle I describe, you know, what it entails, why it matters, and lots of practical ideas for how you can actually incorporate it into your design and facilitation of workshops. And the book also includes interviews that I conducted with seven higher ed facilitators who share how they design and facilitate workshops so that readers can learn from their approaches too. But all in all, it's meant to be a guide that people can turn to as they are designing and facilitating professional learning experiences. And my inspiration to write the book kind of came from a few different places. So one is that, you know, workshops are one of the most common formats that we use for professional learning in higher ed. But I wasn't really seeing any in depth resources about this topic that were geared towards us. So I've seen lots of really great books about workshop design and facilitation that are geared towards K12 corporate and nonprofit settings, but nothing for us. And so I thought that this book could really help to fill an important gap and it would also bring together all of my prior experiences with teaching and facilitation into one resource that would hopefully be helpful to other people. And then I also had two opportunities that also sparked my interest in writing this book. One was that I received an invitation to do a three hour workshop about how to design and facilitate workshops. And then the other is that I had the opportunity to write an article for Educause Review about how to design and facilitate virtual workshops. Well, and so the feedback that I got about the three hour workshop and the article was really positive and it showed me that there was definitely an interest from other people in learning more about workshop design and facilitation. So all of those factors combined inspired me to write this book.
- [09:45]
Dr. Christina Gessler
And the book has 12 chapters. 10 take us through these essential principles to consider when designing professional learning experiences. And it names what the principles are, it tells us how to implement them. It has lots of actionable tips. But you also wanted this to be useful for people, whether they can meet in a community to figure out how to implement these things or if they're working on their own. So you built in a number of support, support systems that take us beyond just reading the chapter. How did you come about with these support ideas?
- [10:17]
Dr. Tolu Noah
Yeah, so one of the. The key ideas that I talk about in the book is how workshops should be spaces of multidirectional learning where everyone can learn from each other. And I also talk about the importance of community as part of learning. So one of the pieces of research that I draw on in my book is from Josh Eiler's book, How Humans Learn. And. And one of the themes that he talks about is how sociality is a key part of learning that we learn from other people. And so I was like, okay, how can I build that into the way the book itself is structured so that it's not just, you know, individuals sitting on their couch or at the beach reading the book by themselves, but if they want to, they also have the opportunity to learn from other people. And so what I decided to do is I created what I call the Facilitators Lounge. And each chapter ends with a QR code and a link that will take you to the Facilitators Lounge. It's basically a webpage on my website, and on that page you'll find links to each of the chapters. And it's basically a discussion page so people can post their comments or questions or reactions or ideas that they have, you know, anything that the. That the chapter sparked for them so that, yeah, hopefully readers can also learn from each other and not just from my book.
- [11:29]
Dr. Christina Gessler
And you invite us into sticky note reflections. You talk about how people who teach and facilitate teaching have a lot of sticky notes. So I appreciated the shout out to that because the book is currently stuck up with many, many sticky notes. And when I do one of these, I am surrounded by sticky notes as well. And so we're invited into sticky note reflection. So I immediately knew you were my people.
- [11:51]
Dr. Tolu Noah
Oh, thank you.
- [11:53]
Dr. Christina Gessler
You also offer a recap at the end of each chapter, which is so helpful because when we're learning new material for how to have someone to say, like, okay, I'm drilling it down for you, it's really help not only to confirm what we just learned, but for us to be like, wait, no, I Didn't take that away. Let me go back four pages and re reflect there. So it really shows your commitment to us being active learners. It's not just advice in the book, but it's designed into how we're going to use the book.
- [12:19]
Dr. Tolu Noah
Thank you. I'm so glad that came through because yes, that was my goal, was I wanted to model even in the writing of the book what that might look like. And just like you said, being able to have those recaps, it's a way for you to kind of do your own self assessment of like, okay, are these the key ideas I took? Were there, was there something else do I need to revisit at things? And reflection is so critical for learning. Like that's the space where we make sense of our learning. And so I wanted to make sure that there were frequent reflection points throughout the book and that those reflection points also modeled strategies that people might be able to use in their own sessions too.
- [12:51]
Dr. Christina Gessler
You also provide a toolkit and that has a QR code as well. Each, each chapter ends with, you know, lists of sources, resources that you used in, in distilling down a lot of these principles and, and being in conversation with your colleagues. You mentioned the work by Dr. Eiler a minute ago, his book How Humans Learn. And he has these certain principles that he's, he's listing in the book and they are curiosity, emotion, authenticity, failure. And the sociology which you just talked about, which is belonging, collaboration and play. And you're saying sense of collaboration and how you are in discussion with other people who are in this space of facilitating learning comes through throughout the book, not only in the resources that you keep listing for us, but in inviting us into this toolkit. How did you develop the toolkit?
- [13:44]
Dr. Tolu Noah
So I love curating things. I think that it kind of came from there. So some I'll, I'll explain something else that I do that's curation related and they'll probably give insight into why I decided to do that in this book too. But I like curating events that are taking place that might be of interest to other people. So on LinkedIn, for example, I have a professional learning events newsletter where every month I curate lists of mostly virtual professional learning events, but definitely free or low cost events that might be of interest to higher education instructors or educational developers. And so I make a Google Doc that it's like, here's the date, here's a link to register, here's the time, and I share it with anybody so that everyone else can also benefit from all these really cool professional learning experiences that are happening. And so I think that spirit of curation is something that I definitely wanted to bring to the book as well. Because another thing that I talk about in the book is how when we're designing workshops, we want to make sure that we can help participants continue their learning even after the session has ended. And so I wanted to make sure that that was also built into the design of the book too. And so the toolkits are basically these Google Docs that are. And there's one for each chapter, and it includes additional resources related to the chapter. So it might be templates that I mentioned in the chapter or websites or videos or podcasts that you may want to listen to. And I'm also continuing to update the documents. So it's. They're basically living documents. And as I come across additional resources that I think might be useful, useful to other facilitators, they can find the latest things on those documents too.
- [15:20]
Dr. Christina Gessler
You tell us early on, the book rests on three key frameworks. Can you summarize those frameworks for us?
- [15:27]
Dr. Tolu Noah
Yeah. So one of the frameworks that I draw on is universal design for learning. And this is a framework that's all about recognizing the variability in learners and trying to minimize any barriers to learning that exist within the learning environment. And typically, people will think about UDL in the context of classroom teaching, but I wanted to extend this to professional learning as well. So how can we design our professional learning experiences with these guidelines in mind in order to minimize barriers in the environment? And then another framework that I drawn that I mentioned earlier is Josh Eiler's book about how humans learn, where he talks about those five themes of curiosity, sociality, emotion, authenticity, and failure. And in his book, he's talking about how you can apply those themes in the context of classroom teaching. But because his book is about how humans learn of all ages, I wanted to take those same themes and apply them to our design and professional learning experiences. And then the third framework that I draw on is a new learning compact. And this is a framework that describes what, like, well designed professional learning looks like in higher education contexts. And so the new learning compact framework includes about 16 different principles. I just focus on the first eight because those have to do more with professional learning programming. And I talk about how those principles can also be applied to our design and facilitation of workshops.
- [16:46]
Commercial Narrator
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- [17:08]
Dr. Tolu Noah
There Foreign.
- [17:13]
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- [17:41]
Dr. Christina Gessler
And we've talked a bit about several of these things, but for the new learning compact, there's a chart on page 13 that breaks that all down. And throughout the book you will find charts and various activities you can do so that the information is presented in narrative form, but it's also chunked down in various ways for us to grab on to information and start finding our own in you. Also on page 14, you provide a workshop wheel, and that's where we learn about the 10 essential principles that you're going to go through in the book. And each principle has its own chapter to unpack it. We will not have time today to go through all of them, but I'd like to just dive into a few key things and then hopefully give listeners some, some takeaways that they can get started on. Chapter one invites us right away into the importance of active listening. And I wanted to ask you what, what is active listening and what isn't it? Because I think if you ask people, they would tell you that they're very good listeners and that they're active listeners. And most of us have walked away from conversations saying that person didn't listen.
- [18:43]
Dr. Tolu Noah
That is very true. Yeah. So the way I frame active listening in that first chapter is about listening to what the people that we are designing the professional learning experience for actually want, instead of making assumptions about what they want. And, and I will say that there are times when, you know, people may not have said something, but we know that it is, you know, going to be important to provide opportunities to learn about these topics. But I really think it's important to actually start by finding out directly from the people that are going to be in your sessions. You know, what do you want to learn about, you know, what challenges are you facing, what's going well, and by starting with that we could actually make sure that we're designing our professional learning experiences in a way that's going to be relevant and meaningful to them. And so to me, active listening in this context could look like doing interviews or listening tours or surveys. Even just the informal conversations that you have with instructors like that's a form of active listening as well. And you can take the, the insights that you gain from those conversations and use them to frame what you're going to be offering throughout the year.
- [19:50]
Dr. Christina Gessler
It seemed to me that without this key piece, the rest of the book won't work as well for people as they're hoping that if you skip the active listening, but you say, I'm going to implement all the things that she said, but I know enough to get started, you've kind of hindered yourself right.
- [20:06]
Dr. Tolu Noah
Out of the gate a hundred percent because the learning experience is ultimately for them. Right. And so if you're not listening to them, then you may end up designing something that is, you know, way out in left field. It's not what people are actually wanting, but when people know that you have actually listen to what they're expressing and that you are implementing things based on that, that's also going to increase buy in for whatever it is that you're designing. And so I think it really is a critical piece.
- [20:33]
Dr. Christina Gessler
A related principle that you bring on early on is empathy and how important it is in this process. And I think my question is similar to my one about active listening. What is empathy and what isn't it? Because I think a lot of people would say, yes, I'm very empathetic, I care about other people, but often what the who's quote unquote, being cared about experiences is pity or some kind of othering. What is empathy, particularly in the context that you need to have in order to really design with intentionality.
- [21:06]
Dr. Tolu Noah
Yeah. So in the context of my book, I take empathy from design thinking, which is a very popular framework. Typically design thinking is used to create when you're think when you're creating products and you want to make sure that they are designed with the people who are going to be your end users in mind. But I feel like design thinking principles can also be very useful as we're designing professional learning experiences. And so in the book I talk about how that first step, which comes from design thinking is empathizing. And that's all about really learning about the people for whom you are designing and finding out once again what their needs or interested interests or challenges are and letting that be the starting point. For what you're going to do moving forward. And another piece of design thinking is that you don't just empathize with people at the beginning, but you're also checking with them later on. So there's a step later on that's like prototyping and testing, where you have the people who have that. You're, for example, designing the product for that you actually had them use it, and you seek their feedback, and then you'd use that to continuously iterate and improve. And in workshops that might be that, you know, people come to your session and you take their feedback and you're using it to continuously iterate and improve. And so I think it's. It's not just something that we do at the beginning in terms of listening and being attentive to needs, but also taking that feedback and using it to continuously improve it so that people really are getting what they need from our sessions.
- [22:30]
Dr. Christina Gessler
And listeners can learn more about the first phase of design thinking using empathy on page 22, on page 25, you help us write a focal statement. And that's an example of after you've been talking us through something, you give us an exercise to do. And it's. It's sort of this long sentence with fill in the blank where we can put our focal statement. Why do we need to be so mindful of our focal statement?
- [22:55]
Dr. Tolu Noah
So I feel like the focal statement is really useful in guiding your design of the session. So it kind of synthesizes everything you've learned from empathizing with your participants. And it also synthesizes what you've learned about, like, what the specific focus of the workshop should be into one sentence that's kind of going to be your. Your compass of sorts for designing the experience moving forward. And so I think it's helpful to kind of have that one sentence, you know, compass or mission statement, so that when you are designing the session, you're always thinking back to, okay, these are my learners. This is what they've said they've needed. This is the topic we're going to be focusing on. And this is what's important to them. And so everything, once again, is going to come back to, like, the people for who this session is designed. And you can keep it focused on that.
- [23:41]
Dr. Christina Gessler
And one of the early questions you invite us into right there on page 26, is, should this be a workshop? And it's such an important question because, as you mentioned, higher ed is full of workshops, but sometimes people walk away saying, this could have been an email.
- [23:56]
Dr. Tolu Noah
Yep, I've been one of those people who's like, I don't understand why.
- [24:04]
Dr. Christina Gessler
So what is. When we're asking ourselves, should this be a workshop? It's the, I guess, fair to assume that everybody who put on a workshop thought it should be. But what are we honestly asking ourselves in that question? Should this be a workshop?
- [24:16]
Dr. Tolu Noah
Yeah. So this is really about thinking about what would be the best format for addressing the whatever topic you've. You've realized people would. Would like more support with. And so the reason why I wanted to put this question in there is because I think sometimes when we are planning, it's easy to jump straight to choosing a workshop as the format. But there are so many other formats that we could use for professional learning. And I've seen lots of universities use other really innovative approaches. So, you know, it could be a workshop, but it could also be a newsletter or a blog or a podcast or an asynchronous email challenge. Like, there's so many other possibilities. And so this question is really aimed at encouraging people to pause and consider what format would be best for what I'm trying to do. And if what I'm planning to do is just talk to people, like present information, then maybe a workshop isn't the best fit for that. Because I think that a workshop should incorporate active learning, should be spaces of multidirectional learning. People should have time to actually do work during a workshop. And it shouldn't just be, we're coming, we have maybe an opening activity, but we spend 95% of the time just listening to someone talk. And so that question is really about helping people to pause and consider, what am I planning to do in this session? What is going to be the best format for this topic? And are there other options that might be a better fit than a workshop?
- [25:37]
Dr. Christina Gessler
Chapter one is called Begin with Relevance. Chapter two is called Plan with Purpose. Chapter three is Design a well Structured Experience. I want to move into chapter four because it's adopt an inclusive mindset. And I feel like we can't actually do a workshop with intentionality and inclusion if we don't know how to adopt an inclusive mindset. Why is that so critically important?
- [26:02]
Dr. Tolu Noah
Yeah, so it's important because we are working with diverse people, right, who have different backgrounds and values and experiences and needs. And we want to just be sensitive and attentive to that and make sure that the space that we are designing for the workshop is truly going to meet people where they are. And so if we don't take the time to pause and Think about the diversity of needs and interests and whatnot when we're designing a session that we're not actually going to be as effective as we could be. And we could also potentially exclude people, even if that's not necessarily our intention. And so I think this is really a critical piece to think about when designing any type of learning experience.
- [26:43]
Dr. Christina Gessler
This chapter, like all of them, is structured to provide information in a number of formats with visual graphics and examples. And one of the examples you provide is about an opening statement of providing options for engagement. And you take this from a fellow scholar, Karen Costa, and how at the beginning of the workshop, she has this particular invitation. And I'll go ahead and read it. You are invited to adapt this learning experience to your needs today. You are invited to keep your camera on or off or switch between the two. You are invited to set lofty productivity goals or join us in quiet reflection. You are invited to be a novice or an expert and everything in between. You are invited to show up as your whole human self. Can we unpack that a bit?
- [27:31]
Dr. Tolu Noah
Yeah. So, first of all, I love Karen Costa. She is amazing. She. Yeah, she's such an amazing facilitator. I've learned so much from attending her sessions. She's done some really great work, especially in the area of trauma informed teaching and climate action pedagogy. And so I've had the opportunity to attend many of her sessions. And I remember, you know, it was a virtual workshop, but I remember sitting there feeling like, oh, my goodness, this is such a beautiful way to open a session and to let people know that however they decided to come, they were welcome. And I feel like I sometimes have experienced the opposite in sessions where it's a list of mandates like you must keep your camera on at all times and all of this. And it, or, you know, things like that that can once again exclude people without the facilitator necessarily meaning to do that. And so I, I feel like the fact that she invited us to do what worked well for us was such a, once again, a beautiful way to, to frame and to open the session. And I especially liked her line about, like, you're invited to be an expert or a novice, right? So letting people know that regardless of what their prior knowledge might be of this topic, they're welcome here. They have things of value to contribute. And so, yeah, I, I absolutely love that invitation that she shares. And I think it's a great model for other facilitators too.
- [28:45]
Dr. Christina Gessler
In this chapter, you also have a section about encouraging disturbance and you talk to us about managing difficult dynamics. I think it's the worry that many workshop facilitators have is what happens if there starts to be a lot of tension or people are just all coming at this from different point of view. So you're encouraging people to show up as their whole self and that's going to mean we're going to have some disturbance and we're going to have some difficult dynamics. But you're not sending us in unprepared for that. How can we prepare for that?
- [29:18]
Dr. Tolu Noah
Yeah. So I would say that one of the key pieces in terms of preparation is actually thinking ahead about what those challenges might be. Right. So one silly example I'll give is if you're teaching a workshop about technology and it's a new tool that you're going to be teaching to a group of people, there's probably going to be some barriers not only in terms of, you know, learning how to use the tools because people might be, might have different levels of comfort with that, but also a mindset thing that we might need to think about. Like what, what might be the mindsets people are coming in with and how can I proactively design the session with those mindsets in mind? And so I think thinking through the possibilities is one piece. But then I also think it's helpful to have tools available that can help you to navigate those challenges when they do arise. And so one of the tools that I talk about in that chapter is called Open the Front Door otfd. And I learned about this from Tasha Souza, who's also an educational developer. I had the chance to co facilitate some workshops with her several years ago. And this is one of the main communication frameworks that she teaches because she's also a professor of communication. And even though we were co facilitating the workshop, when she was doing this part about OTFD and some other frameworks that she uses, I was like, oh my goodness, this is so helpful to have in your, you know, in your back pocket as a, as a script of sorts that you can use for addressing really challenging situations. So I'll briefly just name what the parts are. But the O stands for observation, where you're basically explaining what you've observed. And then the T stands for thought, where you're explaining what your thoughts or opinions are about that situation that's just happened. And then the F stands for feeling, where you're explaining, you know, how you feel about the situation. And then the D stands for desire, where you're explaining what you would like people to do moving forward. And so I think even having that framework can be really helpful for being prepared to address challenging situations when they do arise in a workshop.
- [31:11]
Dr. Christina Gessler
Chapter five takes us into cultivating connections. That circles back to one of the principles of how humans learn that we really need to feel connected to what we're doing. I think we've all been in experiences where we just felt like we were not we were the fish out of water or we just wondered if we'd gone into the wrong room. And this is really designed so that people not only feel that they're in the right room, but they feel welcomed and they're glad that they went. And part of that is about making these connections. One of the things that you give advice on is how the facilitator themselves is going to connect. And part of that is an encouragement to share your story and to share your journey. But you also go into how, and this is really critically important. Can you talk about the. How people should be doing that?
- [31:57]
Dr. Tolu Noah
Yeah. So I think that there are. One of the themes that I have in my book is that there's lots of different ways to do everything I'm explaining here. So I never want people to feel like it has to be done this way in order for it to be the right way to do it. But here are some options and choose what's going to work best for you. So one of the things that I talk about, especially in terms of introducing our own story, is that we first of all want to make sure that we are not over sharing. Right. Like we want to, you know, offer insight into our backgrounds in a way that once again feels relevant, that we're not getting too deep into the weeds. And we also want to think about our own comfort and positionality in what we choose to share. And because there may be spaces where maybe it doesn't feel as safe to be able to be super, you know, to go super in depth in terms of your background and experiences and whatnot. So I think keeping that in mind is really, really important. Another thing that I talk about is when we're doing workshops, not taking out too much time to talk about ourselves, because this is something I see all the time, especially when it comes to virtual workshops where the first five minutes of the session is reading someone's bio. And I don't feel like that's the best use of time. So even when we do choose to share about ourselves, trying to keep it brief, especially at the beginning, so that we can really get to the main reason people have chosen to join Us. And then throughout the session, there are other ways that you can still help people to connect with you. So I've seen facilitators who will include images, you know, that come from, you know, that relate to hobbies that they have, but also relate to the topic of the session. So that also gives participants insight into who they are or sharing stories of successes or challenges or lessons learned that relate to the topic. And so I think that there are lots of different ways that we can actually help participants to connect with us and to do so in a way that, once again, feels like it's. It's the right balance in terms of time and also the right balance in terms of disclosure.
- [33:48]
Dr. Christina Gessler
Another thing you invite us into is considering our personal presence. Can you say more about how we do that and why it's so important?
- [33:57]
Dr. Tolu Noah
Yeah. So I think of presence as, like, how we show up in a space, and we're all gonna, you know, bring ourselves to these spaces in different ways. So once again, there's not a right way to show up. But I do think that there are certain traits that can be really, really helpful. And so one of the traits that I talk about is enthusiasm for the topic that you are teaching. And once again, enthusiasm is going to look different for different people. So I tend to be pretty high energy in my sessions, and I tend to. I like to laugh. I like to, you know, have fun with. With my participants. And so I tend to be really high energy. But you don't have to be high energy in order to be enthusiastic about your subject. You know, showing your. Your passion and your interest in a way that feels genuine and authentic to you is really, really critical. Because if you're trying to be something that you're not, that's also going to come across in a way that you may not. Not want it to. But beyond enthusiasm, I would also say things like, you know, being approachable is really important that participants know, like, hey, you can come and ask questions. There are no dumb questions. Like, I want to make sure that everyone feels comfortable asking, seeking help, and also creating a space where people feel comfortable seeking support from other people, I think is really important. And then another piece I would talk about is being really encouraging and affirming. I think it's really important that people know that the ideas that they've shared have value. And so point that out to say, hey, I really like this idea that you've shared, or, thank you for sharing your story. All of those things are going to help to foster an environment where people feel a greater sense of belonging and connectedness and relatedness, and also just feel more comfortable in the learning experience.
- [35:35]
Dr. Christina Gessler
Early on in the book, you take us into when you were invited to give a keynote, and it relates to where we are now in the story about considering your own personal presence and really considering how you best operate in this world, that there's no one way to do things, there's the authentic way. And so you were thinking, I don't really do keynotes, I do workshops. And so you take us into how you sort of created this hybrid for that, and you tell us straight out that you're an introvert. So you were determined to show up as you and make your offering there, but to make it work. Can you tell us a bit about how we can kind of take that agency?
- [36:12]
Dr. Tolu Noah
Yeah. So I will be honest, even when I share that story in the beginning of the book, and I still, to this day, I have my moments where I'm like, oh, my goodness, I can't believe I did. Because I. We. We have these norms, right, in higher ed in terms of how things are typically done. So, yes, with keynotes and plenaries, it's typically someone goes up there, they talk for an hour, there's maybe a Q and A, and you sit down. But because that's never been how I've shown up to teaching and facilitation spaces, like when I was a classroom teacher, when I was a teacher education professor, active learning was also. Was always a critical component of how I actually designed and facilitated sessions. And so to me, it just felt like, even if this is the way things are typically done, I can't do that. And I. And hopefully it's okay and I'm just going to go with it. And yeah, so I felt like even though this is the norm for how things are done in higher ed, I needed to show up as my authentic self, which meant facilitating the plenary, more like a workshop. And I also felt like it would model my topic, which was all about, like, how to create engaging, you know, lectures and lessons in a more authentic way than me just telling them these are strategies you could use, but they're not actually getting to experience it. And what was really awesome was the feedback that I got from that session was, was really, really positive. Like, people appreciated, you know, having time to think and to talk and to do activities and not just sit and listen the entire time. And so I think that when we actually show up as our authentic selves, whatever that might be, that that actually is going to help people connect with us. Even better.
- [37:46]
Dr. Christina Gessler
Yeah.
- [37:46]
Dr. Tolu Noah
And I don't know if I addressed the full part of your question, so please feel free to let me know if there's a piece I missed. I missed there.
- [37:53]
Dr. Christina Gessler
It connects really well into to where we're going with chapter five. So we're all good. You give a lot of activities in chapter five, and one of them is one of the activities that you did during that keynote where you did this card sorting matching activity. And in chapter five, it's described and explained. And I was really curious when I was reading that part, like, how does this work? What is it? So can you tell us about it?
- [38:17]
Dr. Tolu Noah
Yeah. So the card sort matching activity is, the one that I talk about in the book is basically you make a set of cards. Some have topics, some have examples, and you mix them all together. And I made five different sets of these. So I basically get five envelopes, and I put the topic and example cards all mixed up in each envelope, and then you give the envelope to each group, and then you give them a certain amount of time to be able to sort the cards. So they might have the topics at the top and then the examples that align with each one at the bottom.
- [38:51]
Dr. Christina Gessler
And.
- [38:51]
Dr. Tolu Noah
And that's a way to really see how people are organizing their knowledge, the accuracy of that knowledge in certain cases, if it's a right and wrong sort of a thing. And so it can give you a lot of insight into how people are thinking about the topic. And you can use the same activity with other types of content. So I've done, like, topics and pictures. You can do, like I. The one that I just mentioned, where it's topics and examples. And you can also do it where there's not like a right answer. So one example that I saw from a session that I attended with a Kimberly Tanner years ago, she had people sort. I think it was superheroes like Marvel and dc. And in that example, there are lots of different ways that people could have sorted it based on their prior knowledge and experiences with the topic. And so I think it's a really great activity for seeing. Yeah, how are people thinking about this topic? How are they organizing their knowledge? And then that can give you insight into what you might want to address with the whole group afterwards.
- [39:46]
Dr. Christina Gessler
Another activity you take us into there is called Stop Jot. Share. How does that work?
- [39:53]
Dr. Tolu Noah
Yeah, so that's an activity that comes from Norman Ang. He wrote a really great book called Presenting. So I encourage people to check that one out. And basically this is kind of like a retrieval practice exercise where after you have, you know, talked about a topic for a few minutes in your session? You pause and you ask participants to stop and then jot down what they can recall. And then they turn to a neighbor and they share what it is that they jotted down. So this is a really great way to help participants recall what they learned in the session. And they can also help each other fill in gaps as they're talking through what they've jotted down.
- [40:27]
Dr. Christina Gessler
And there are more examples in that chapter, including the discussion diamond and the resource materials at the end to keep you going on working on cultivating connections. Chapter six is about using active learning strategies. And we've just shared some ways to get people interacting immediately with material. And the guiding question of using active learning strategies is how will participants actively engage with the workshop topics? It sounds like that question should be top of mind for the facilitator.
- [40:58]
Dr. Tolu Noah
100%, yeah. And it goes back to how I define workshops, that these are spaces of active and multidirectional learning. It's not about presenting information. It's not about one term that I'm not a huge fan of is delivering workshops or delivering information. Because it just, I don't know, it's this connotation of someone like dropping something and then kind of leaving. I really think that workshops should be spaces where participants are engaged throughout. They are thinking about the content, they are talking to each other. And so we want to be really intentional about designing our sessions with that active peace in mind.
- [41:33]
Dr. Christina Gessler
Chapter nine is called Be Responsive. And the guiding question there is how can you be responsive to participants before, during, and after the workshop? And we touched on that earlier and we've alluded to that also how this entire book is designed, that you're going to be, you know, participating while you're reading it, when there's activities after you've walked away from the book, and that there's ways to keep connecting through the QR codes. But when we're there and we're trying to be responsive to participants before, during, and after active and actual workshop that we're doing, what would that look like?
- [42:09]
Dr. Tolu Noah
Yeah, So I would say that responsiveness in the beginning really goes back to what I talk about in the first chapter, about relevance, where we're starting by listening to our participants and making sure that what we are designing aligns with what they need. And some additional ways that we can be responsive even before the workshop would be, you know, as in our pre workshop communication. So as we are sending information to participants about the session, making sure that they have the information that they need, but also addressing any questions they might have in a really timely fashion. So there's a lot of small moves we can make even before we have our sessions to be responsive to participants. And then during the workshop itself, we want to, you know, think about things like checking in with participants regularly. So I talk about the importance of assessment and making sure that participants are getting what they should be from the session. So, you know, whether that's asking questions or having them do active learning activities where we can get insight into what's sticking with them, that's really important. I would also say that providing space for participants to ask questions is critical. So if people feel like all they need to do is take in information, but they can't actually engage through their questions, I think that's going to limit the learning experience quite a bit. And so we want to think intentionally about how can we create space for them to ask their questions, Whether that's having pauses throughout where we invite people to ask their questions, or having a back channel space where they can post their questions, or doing a poll where they can share their questions. We just want to make sure that we are constantly checking in with them and addressing what's top of mind for them as well. And I would say the after piece would really come in the form of feedback that we get from participants, taking the time to review that, seeing what's there that we might use to revise a session for the future. And then if it's a virtual workshop, we can also look at other sources of information like the chat log to see once again, what are the questions that were there that maybe I missed in the time of the session that I might want to address afterwards. So it's this constant process of just kind of checking in with participants and making sure that they're getting what they need and that we are adjusting accordingly.
- [44:12]
Dr. Christina Gessler
And you give examples. Page 168 has a couple in particular. One is about about questionnaires, another is about surveys. And one of the survey questions you invite people to ask is what do you remember learning in these professional learning programs? And that just seems so critically important. Others are about what changes you have made, how did you implement them, what questions do you still have, what problems are you still grappling with? And that continues to invite the authenticity. Earlier in the book, there's a place where one of the worksheets people can offer is where people just honest about. I don't know what this means. I haven't seen this before. You know, it's A kind of where the participants coming from and they're really invited into that. I don't know.
- [44:56]
Dr. Tolu Noah
Yeah. And I think creating space where. I don't know, especially in higher ed, like, it. We don't like not knowing. Right. Like, or we don't like, maybe we don't like being forthcoming about the fact that we don't know. And I think that workshops can be such a beautiful space to normalize the fact that none of us knows everything all the time and that that's okay. Right. Like, this is a space where we can experiment together, we can fail together, you know, going back to Eiler's theme of. Of normalizing failure. And I think that, yeah, we have an opportunity as facilitators to create a space where people can do that.
- [45:30]
Dr. Christina Gessler
Chapter 10 is called your own distinctive style. And this is also part of the authenticity and what you've been reinforcing in our time together, that there's no one way and there's no wrong way. There's the way that's going to work. And the guiding question there is how will you bring who you are to your workshop design and facilitation approach? And then you take us through facilitator maps and all kinds of techniques and tools that we use. The final two chapters help you build on that there. Chapter 11 is 20 practical tips for optimizing your workflow. And chapter 12 is continue growing as a facilitator. We're coming to the close of our time together, and I want to be mindful of not running over. So my final question is, what do you hope this episode sparks for listeners?
- [46:17]
Dr. Tolu Noah
Yeah. So I hope that this episode encourages people to learn more about the art and science of facilitation, because there are so many ways that we can create meaningful learning experiences and so many great resources out there that can support us in our work. And I think that was the most exciting part of writing this book was, you know, I. I thought I knew a lot about this topic, you know, going into the writing process. And I learned so much more. And I'm really excited that the resources that I discovered, people who are reading the book will also be able to glean from through the. The workshop toolkits at the end of each chapter. And then I also hope that this episode will encourage people to check out my book. So it is available at all major retailers, and I would love to engage with readers further and hear about the new ideas that it's sparking for them.
- [47:01]
Dr. Christina Gessler
Thank you so much for being here today, Dr. Noah, and sharing from your book. Designing and facilitating Workshops with Intentionality A guide to crafting engaging professional learning experiences in higher education. You've been listening to the academic life. Please join us again.
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Dr. Christina Gessler
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