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...
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.
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!)...
School of the 80’s: Learning from Stillness and Suspending
How fortunate I am to have such a forum as this GLP blog to share my new learning! In School of the 80s: Learning from Leisure, Experience and Vulnerability, I said I was learning apace as I turn 88! I realized that there were four factors at play in this learning: I...
Onboarding is a Dialogue Too
Onboarding is usually the first time someone is truly exposed to an organization. Hopefully, first on the training list are the values, mission and cultural expectations—these will set the foundation for employee conduct, collaboration and work expectations....
Equipping Educators for Assessment: Tips for Resource Developers
Some years ago, I led a workshop that was based on an outline I had developed and used in previous settings. At earlier events, the activities and script had been well-received, including a humorous anecdote about shoveling snow in my hometown of Chicago that always...
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.
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...
A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
My world is full of visuals. I can’t imagine life without art, and I can’t imagine a training without images. Whether I am designing a meeting, learning session, knowledge sharing event, strategic planning day or retreat, I include photos, drawings, art and other...
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...
Co-creating a Personal Finance Program for NYC
Neighborhood Trust Financial Partners works to create change in the financial lives of New York City residents. They believe strongly in the need to break people out of inertia and support them to take actions – even small actions – to improve their money management skills and build a healthy personal balance sheet.
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...




