I have the privilege of meeting almost weekly with incarcerated persons for one and a half hours as an Alpha facilitator. Alpha is a faith-based course that is approved by the local jail in my county in Northern Wisconsin. Each session, as described by the organization, is “a space for honest and open conversations about life’s biggest questions.”
The Cleveland African American Prostate Cancer Project (CAAPP) is a research project in Cleveland, Ohio led by a team of cancer survivors, researchers, doctors and community members that aims to increase prostate cancer screening in the African American/Black community using the voice and reach of barbers. Prostate cancer (PCa) is the leading cancer diagnosis and the second leading cause of cancer-related death among Black men (American Cancer Society, 2025). CAAPP’s goal is to get Black men screened for prostate cancer starting at age 40, as they are at higher risk and early detection helps to reduce mortality and increase options for treatment.
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.
Three small rural communities in Ukhia, Bangladesh where child marriage rates are quite high (most girls are married by or before age 15), was the site of a 5-day workshop I designed and co-facilitated to create interventions to shift social norms that perpetuate child marriage using a tool designed and validated for diagnosing drivers of child marriage.
I recently collaborated with a colleague to design and facilitate a workshop on gender justice for teenagers from Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) youth groups from across the country who were attending a national youth conference. We facilitated the workshop three times and learned more each time—especially how to start strong.
I felt so fortunate to have taken a Global Learning Partners Dialogue Education training many years ago, and equally as lucky to have joined a team that has adopted Dialogue Education (DE) as a guiding philosophy and methodology for all our learning events and...
We call each other ‘family’. So, you can imagine how happy we were to reconnect after three long years of the Covid pandemic! We are staff and partners of Episcopal Relief & Development. On February 7-11, 35 of us gathered in Accra, Ghana from seven countries...
I intentionally design to maximize learning. I conduct a needs assessment, asking select questions of participants and stakeholders, studying websites and key documents, and observing events and meetings of the client and small groups. I check my assumptions and work...
Learning collectively is vital to addressing the shared challenges we face around the globe. A Community of Practice can be a powerful vehicle for collective learning. But it’s not straightforward, and there are many challenges to enabling and sustaining a learning...
Just as many of us finally settled into our virtual meeting routines we found a new challenge: hybrid meetings. A hybrid event is where some of the participants are online and some of the participants are in-person. As my colleagues and I prepared for our first...
As we reviewed the assessments coming in after the pilot of a newly developed training course, two words stood out: breakout rooms. Half of our team expected the feedback on these virtual discussion groups to be negative, the other wondered why almost every...
I had the privilege of participating in a life-changing wildlife educational experience about black bears. When I got home after the first year, I felt I hadn't made the most of this incredible opportunity. A guided learning journal I created for year two helped me...