These days, there are many opportunities to not just visit another country for pleasure, but spend time getting to know a community and a culture. College education-abroad programs, faith-based experiences, international culture exchanges, and “voluntourism”...
Why stop with one open question? Dig Deeper.
I know the power of the open questions. I design with them, facilitate with them, and evaluate with them. But, are they enough? I often feel that some people are good at giving me just what they think I want. I ask a question and they give me an answer with just...
The Essence of a Good Question
On a recent Sunday morning, I was up early and listened to On Being with Krista Tippett. This morning’s broadcast guest was Pádraig Ó Tuama, who is a poet, theologian, and extraordinary healer in our fractured world. He leads the Corrymeela community of Northern...
Confessions of a Former Workshop Rockstar
Participating in a Dialogue Education course has been a game-changer for me. For more than a decade I’ve done presentations, designed curriculum, taught workshops, etc, and I was pretty sure that I was good at what I did! I prided myself on being an engaging...
Facilitation as Hospitality and Belonging
In Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life, Henri Nouwen states, “Hospitality means primarily the creation of free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space...
Wait… What? Hearing it Twice for Learner Engagement
Chatterbox is what teachers dubbed me from a young age. During class and on progress reports, I’d often be called out for jabbering to my comrades out of turn. In fact, for whispering while the directions were being given for a standardized test in 6th grade, I served...
Pick a Spot and Invite some Truth Telling
There are countless helpful ways to engage learners during a workshop or meeting. I get great joy designing ways to ensure purposeful and productive uses of solo and group activity.
What Jane is Reading: Parker Palmer’s Newest Book
By Jane Vella with Valerie Uccellani On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity & Getting Old by Parker Palmer, 2019 From Jane I found this a delightful, informative, funny, inspiring and honest book. Parker is a contemporary of mine (I’m his older sister!)...
Put Yourself in Someone Else’s Shoes
A while ago, my colleagues and I invited the people in our training to imagine they were someone they were not. For a while they had to “be” this person and experience the joys and challenges of this role. They had to put themselves in someone else’s shoes and look from a different perspective.
Courage and Bravery in Addition to Safety and Respect
During the first day of the Foundations of Dialogue Education course and many other Global Learning Partners learning events, we ask participants to identify guidelines that will support each other’s learning. The generated lists usually include expectations about...
Designing for People
At GLP we use the word “design” to describe what we do when we create learning events. I’ve always loved that term (Thank you, Jane). It has to do not only with how a learning process “looks” on the outside – but how it FEELS on the inside. I think of it like this…...
3 Tips to Invite Engagement during a Webinar
So … you’ve scheduled your webinar, sent out the invitations and marked your calendar with a reminder to log onto your selected platform 15-20 minutes early to make sure everything is ready to go. You’ll be ready to start on time – which will please your online crowd....