explore creating transformative learning spaces for adults

This workshop is for adult educators who are open and interested in learning new skills, for instance how to use deeply engaging learning methodologies for facilitating transformation for their students. If you work in adult education, social entrepreneurship, sustainability, and leadership, and if you build learning environments for lifelong learning, we believe this workshop is for you.

“Be the change you want to see in the world.” We have all heard Gandhi’s thought so many times, they unfortunately sometimes flies by without really making us think. So let’s do that for a moment and look at people like you and me – the educators of the world. We decided to dedicate our energy to guiding people through a learning process because we believed in growth, in changing perspectives, in making a dent in the way our learners see the world.
Yet, many of us got so dearly disillusioned on the way. The rigidity of the system. The ever bigger pile of administrative work we have to do before doing what we are there for. The difficulty of capturing the interest for our subject in our learner. The challenge of bringing them deeper than just piling up the facts we need to tick off.
All of us – Jasenka, Marco, and Neža, the facilitators of this training – we have all been there. To stay devoted to changing the face of education we found a different way to reach our learner. A way that offers a deeper connection to them as human beings. A way that gives us energy and enjoyment for our calling on a daily basis.

We are, therefore, inviting you to join us as a whole person: that is, as spiritual, intellectual, emotional and physical beings, curious to learn. We will help you build your leadership capacities and readiness to serve as role models for your students. Together we will be the change we want to see in education. Ready? Read on.
Knowing that majority of adult learners learn when they need new knowledge in their practice, adult teachers now need to learn student-centered approaches. This course is based on several methods which emphasize the notion of bringing the students’ existing knowledge to surface, question its validity, reconstruct ideas and practices that are not serving anymore and construct new frames. Our learning environment is experiential, ready to support the dialogue and deep-dive processes.
Participants will be actively engaged in content delivery, experiencing interchangeably facilitation and participation in different methodologies. We will host you as whole persons, that is, on spiritual, intellectual, emotional and physical levels. You will build your leadership capacities and readiness to serve as role models for your students.
The ultimate aim of the workshop is to re-evoke your curiosity and enthusiasm for life-long learning as students and facilitators.

Today’s adult learners need to be equipped with more than notions: they need to be ready for a complex, volatile, uncertain world. They need to learn how to learn, how to solve complex problems, how to think critically, and how to work collaboratively. We believe adult education needs profound innovation and rethinking. With our workshop we aim to contribute in equipping you, the teachers, with inspiration, theories, and ready-to-test ideas for curriculum design.
We have been students and later faculty members of leading-edge schools in innovative teaching (Marco at MSLS, Neža at Knowmads, Jasenka at DOBA), and we all carry the fire for embodied, proactive, engaged learning. We share our passion with people and institutions wired in the network International Partnership for Transformational Learning (IPTL). The IPTL network provides context for peer learning, coaching, articulating newly developed and time-tested methodologies, and the most important for us, inspirational human contacts. All three facilitators of the workshops are also practitioners of Art of Hosting/ Art of Participatory Leadership or Genuine Contact, which deepen the learning through the process dimensions of collective intelligence, shared responsibilities for outcomes, and a deep appreciation for whatever is present. We meet our students wherever they are.

If you join us and each other with an openness to learn, we believe you will go home with these outcomes:

We believe there is nothing more practical than a good theory. The overall architecture of the workshop will be grounded on solid theoretical arcs that will make the foundation strong and support your ‘learning journey’. Some of our foundations are:

• The constructivist approach applied to both education and leadership development. We believe that people construct meaning to events (and learn new things) out of their pre-existing beliefs, values, and experience. Constructivist approaches emphasise the learners build knowledge on what they already know, and hence that “Teaching is not a matter of transmitting but of engaging students in active learning, building approaches their knowledge in terms of what they already understand” (Biggs and Tang, 2011). Applied to leadership development, this means that our workshop will both confirm and validate your existing frames, and at the same time stretch and challenge some of your models and beliefs that may not serve your work anymore. At once, we meet you where you are at, and stretch your boundaries, too.

• Frameworks for dialogue-based and action-based learning.
  We are social creatures, and we learn from meaningful conversations with others. But these conversations rarely happen by accident. Frameworks for dialogue to enhance peer-learning and critical reflection inform our approach: we will invite peer learning and use dialogic approaches to learn from one another. To deepen our reflections and tap into the intelligence of the whole group. You will not experience a traditional conference with expert panels but rather a highly interactive event with methods based on deep dialogue, learning from each other, and shared inquiry. You will learn a lot by doing in safe-to-try scenarios, and having structured feedback from your peers and mentors. Frameworks such as Genuine Contact™, the “breaths of design” and other tools from the Art of Hosting community will inform the design and running of the event, while action learning will inform your approach by doing + reflecting.

• Theory U.
  Educators like you face daunting challenge at work. You require not only new knowledge and skills but also new ways of seeing and acting in the world. We believe that the inner dimension of your own leadership journeys, personal resourcefulness, and alignment with purpose is of paramount importance for effective work in the world. A time tested framework developed at MIT and applied the world over as a process design and blueprint for transformational change, Theory U will inform the design and hosting of the stages of the gathering. We invite the whole human to the room as a learner: mind, body, heart, and hands. This process will invite all dimensions to show up and learn with us.

what to bring?

• Notebook (preferably without any lines),
• comfortable clothes,
• your favorite pen,
• open mind and curiosity
• Be prepared to bring topics that you are passionate about, where you/ your students struggle. Those will be the topics you will then design around. Furthermore, you will have a chance to facilitate the first version of your design in a safe-to-fail scenario with us.

Jasenka Gojšić is a facilitator of transformational learning. She almost 30 years of experience in leadership and management, always focused on the growth of people involved in an endeavor. She has been proactively engaged in Art of hosting community from 2010, and transformational learning community from 2013. She is curious novice in SF world. She has been proactively engaged in Art of hosting community from 2010, and transformational learning community from 2013. She is curious novice in Solution Focus world.

Jasenka has master of telecommunication and informatics earned at Faculty of electrical Engineering and Computing of University of Zagreb, Croatia, and MBA and Master of Science in Management achieved at IEDC School of Management, Bled, Slovenia.