Most of us have at least one song that can shift our mood instantly. You could be feeling off—unmotivated, anxious, or disconnected—but the moment that song starts playing, your mood changes. That’s the power of emotional connection. And it’s not unique to music.
When we feel emotionally connected to something, we’re more likely to engage deeply with it. The same principle can (and should) be applied to learning.
Energizer or Energizing: Recognizing When the Sponge is Full
An intentionally designed and facilitated learning experience – grounded in dialogue education principles, naturally – can be a thought-provoking and engaging opportunity. Until it isn’t, because sometimes too much of a good thing is no longer a good thing. As an educator once shared with me, “At a certain point, the sponge is full and students aren’t able to be present to learn.” The sponge is full, and when that happens, the learner struggles to focus on the content.
Icebreakers, Warmups, and Energizers: Using Experiential Tools Effectively
As a 30-year experiential education practitioner (think challenge course, ropes course, group initiatives, etc.), I have had numerous opportunities to dig into my experiential toolbox and select an activity to match my group’s energy or need. I say activity intentionally, as these tools are not learning tasks per se, but interjections into the group flow to enhance the learning experience.
These opportunities have taught me to be thoughtful and purposeful in my selection, as the right tool serves to either ease tension and anxiety, get the group ready to learn, or provide a brain-break away from the learning. The wrong tool – used in the wrong situation or at the wrong time – can negatively impact a group’s safety and ability to be present for the learning.
Embodied Design and Facilitation
Have you participated in a meeting or event lately where, instead of starting with an overview of the agenda, you started by taking breaths together? If you haven’t yet, you might soon.
Working with “The What”— Exploring the Contours of Content
I’ve been working with the principles and practices of Dialogue Education for more than a decade. I’ve come to feel as if too little has been said about the content of our courses, workshops, and classes — how we find content, how we shape it, how we select it, and...
Dialogue Education and Love: The Power of Sacrifice
Love has different faces. In Dialogue Education and Love Part I (published December 22 2014) I reflected on 8 ways that Dialogue Education principles are really a practice of love. Below are three aspects of the costly nature of love that Dialogue Education invites...
Dialogue Education and Love
“In the end, Dialogue Education is all about love”. This statement deeply resonated in me when I heard it during the Global Learning Partners course Advanced Learning Design in Toronto with Jeanette Romkema this past November. A few days after the training, I realized...
Where Aboriginal Practice and Dialogue Education Meet
At the beginning of summer I had the opportunity to take a course for professional development. It was a course offered by the Canadian School of Peacebuilding and the instructor was the author Rupert Ross The content of his book Returning to the Teachings:...
Fire, Flora, and Food: Lessons from Abroad Enliven Dialogue Education
Winding our way through Bali last spring, we observed people throughout the island offer small, hand-woven baskets to their gods. These daily baskets were lovingly filled with sandalwood incense, fresh flowers, and a local food item such as fish, or other real food,...
Bringing the Sacred into Learning
The above image was drawn on one of our tables by a participant over the period of our 7-day course. Last week we had the honor of teaching the course Designing Learner-Centered Training for Conflict Transformation at the Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI) at...