MATTERS OF WORKSHOP FACILITATION

prep
technologies
praxis
the feedback loop

an idealized roadbook
for a successful live, online, or hybrid workshop

1 - start with exploring the space
2 - make sure that the space is safe
3 - keep holding the space
4 - provide an iteration of activities, not less than 1 or more than 3 in every series
X - make sure to keep building up a learning value chain
X - provide a neat flow
5 - allow for a review: what have we learned?
6 - make time for a retrospective - how did we experience the process?
7 - reassure safe space

repeat [1, 2, 3 ,4, X², 5, 6, 7]
repeat [1, 2, 3 ,4, X², 5, 6, 7]

on and on, towards a landing strip,
near the desired learning outcome

source:
Francis Laleman (2020),
Resourceful Exformation
KDP Publishing

1

 

There is Yoshi Oida, my incomparable teacher of Noh and Kabuki theatre and erstwhile collaborator of Peter Brook, who taught me to keep focusing on the framework, format, structure, choreography even, of the activity I am offering to the participants - and not on the content. As a consequence, the facilitator keeps a lot of open space 'inside' her - some kind of inner void, which allows for the participants' imagination to enter, and where they can make up their own stories, store their own knowledge and skills, let emerge their own insights about the training content, and grow and nurture their own emotional and attitudinal learning outcomes.

2

Here is another thing that I learned from 笈田ヨシ Oida Yoshi San, something that profoundly changed my work as a trainer and a facilitator. Or rather, this is a teaching from Kyūi (Nine Levels), a classic by 世阿弥 元清 Zeami Motokiyo, the famous aesthetician, actor, playwright, educationalist and Zen Master of the 14 century AD.

That all learning is divided into an internal fundamental structure and an outside phenomenon, between tai and yu. If tai is the flower, yu is the scent. If tai is the moon, yu is the moonlight. As a trainer or a facilitator or an instructional designer, if we focus on tai (the fundamental structure), then yu (the outside expression) will emerge automatically. If we work with yu, without understanding its tai, our work will have no meaning.

If we make our trainees and workshop participants copy yu, without understanding its tai, our work will have no meaning. Tai is for us to offer. Yu will come after.
It took me a whole lot of time to really understand this.

And look, at last, now, when it is almost too late for me, I like imagining that I understand better today than I did yesterday.

3

Another thing about being a good facilitator and trainer, that I learned from Yoshi Oida, the celebrated Noh and Kabuki teacher, is how immersion is much more important than preparation. This is why I often discourage my student trainers and facilitators from preparing their courses or classes or workshops too much. Don't lose time studying the lines or where on the stage to move, Yoshi Oida San would say. Instead: immerse. Read books, talk to people, look at photos, enjoy art, go out, visit the landscape, sit in a village square, be 'in' the workplace, smell the surroundings, sing songs, recite poetry, cook and eat. Textbooks are just the tip of the iceberg. Explore what is normally left unnoticed beneath the surface. If you do this first, what you need to do and say while on the job, will simply emerge.

The Law of Perfect Affordance

In any learning environment, there exists a stable level of minimum structural design, including spatial confinement, structures and tools, where learning happens at optimal pace, in quality and quantity.

With less than the stable minimum or more than the stable minimum, the learning outcome underperforms in relationship to the learning capacity and capability inherent in the students individually, and in the group.

vocabulary

learner experience design
affordance
narrative structure
learning activity
safe space
holding space
assembly
community
discourse
engagement
conversations
live online learning
iterations
time box
timescale
the Agile manifesto
interactions
processes
tools
documentation
collaboration
negotiation
responsiveness
meaning
value
value chain
flow
motivated individuals
face-to-face conversation
remote
online
live online
measure of success
definition of “done”
agility
simplicity
architecture
choreography
maximizing the work not done
minimizing work in progress
self-organizing teams
cross-functional teams
review on the what
retrospect on the how

agile learning facilitation principles

1 Our highest priority is to satisfy the students
through early and continuous self-discovery of learning value.

2 We welcome changing requirements, even late in the learning process. Responding to change in a facilitation process harnesses the learner’s societal advantage.

3 We deliver learning value frequently and in short iterations, with a preference for the shorter timescale over the long-term view.

4 Educators and learners must work
together daily throughout a learning track.

5 We build curiosity and keenness to learn around motivated individuals and teams - providing with the learning spaces and learning environments they need - and trusting them to self-organize to get the learning done.

6 The most efficient and effective method of
conveying information to and within a learning team is peer-to-peer conversation.

7 Relevant learning value acquired is the primary measure of progress.

8 Agile learning processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, educators, and students should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.

9 Continuous attention to excellence in learning skills and good learning space design enhances agility.

10 Simplicity in learning means practicing the art of maximizing the amount of learning not done - while minimizing the structural design elements needed for learning to happen.

11 The learning outcome emerges from self-organizing learning teams.

12 At regular intervals, the learning team reflects on how to become more effective learners, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.