Fifteen educators from across North Carolina convened throughout the fall semester for a facilitative teaching continuing education course as part of Elon NEXT: Professional & Continuing Education.
Throughout the fall semester, educators from across the state engaged in a continuing education course called “Facilitative Teaching: Reimagining Teaching and Learning,” created as a partnership between the Office of Professional and Continuing Studies and faculty members in the Dr. Jo Watts Williams School of Education.
The course, taught by Marna Winter and Evan Small, invited educators from across the region to re-examine their own teaching practices. Throughout the hybrid course hosted both in-person on Elon’s campus and online, participants explored a facilitative teaching approach and how this model can be used to create powerful, relationship-driven, community-based learning environments.
“Facilitative teaching actually makes my work feel like less of a burden,” said a course participant, a testament to the power of an educator’s role of employing facilitation practices in learning environments.
The course introduced participants to the behaviors, actions and mindsets of facilitative teaching as another option for them to consider in their teaching practice. Participants in the course ranged from K-12 educators, university professors and educators who work in informal or nonprofit settings. Course content asked them to reflect on their teaching practice and explore ways to infuse student agency, risk, and choice into their pedagogy.
“This course utilized a parallel process model, employing facilitative pedagogies as theoretical design while also modeling facilitative teaching strategies for the participants that they could use in their own classes,” said Small. “One of our goals was to establish a supportive community where participants felt free to challenge their own practices and experiment with new teaching strategies.”
Participants developed facilitative teaching strategies for their own educational settings, implemented the activities, and then reflected on this process.
“It was uncomfortable to resist the urge to intervene too much,” said one participant. “I’m used to guiding the class more directly, so stepping back and letting them struggle or figure things out independently took some getting used to.”
This ability to step back and allow students to develop autonomy and the ability to co-create their own learning is a key aspect of facilitative teaching.
The course ended with a capstone experience in which learners thought about how they would incorporate facilitative teaching practices in their profession.
“The class community was evident during the capstone experience teach-backs as we observed the participants supporting and guiding one another in reflecting on their own practices; a testament to facilitating teaching in practice,” said Winter. “Moving forward, we hope that participants take these skills and apply them into their own contexts to change teaching and learning practices.”
About Elon NEXT: Professional and Continuing Education: Over 30 courses and certificates are open for enrollment, with programming offered in-person and online, synchronously and on-demand. Learn more and view upcoming offerings.