Conversations are powerful because they are an exchange of ideas. I have never been able to learn deeply about anything without talking about it. I can learn to do something or I can make a shift in my thinking, but I can't fully integrate my learning or its meaning until I can communicate it to someone else, answer questions about it, unpack it, and think through my why. Many people benefit from conversations for learning and as learning. Talk is an essential part of learning for me and key for meaning making for many others.
When we were struck with distance learning, because it is emergency remote learning, companies and educational leaders got very generous. They started offering free webinars, lessons, and how-to's to support remote distance/remote teaching. It's been a renaissance in education, seeing so many teachers learning so much so quickly, including myself. We met as a leadership team and The Mentoree with the goal of helping out during this extreme time of learning need.
When we were planing what became our first Conversations to Build Capacity, we were particular about the title for a few reasons. One is that mentorship isn't always about expertise. Event though so many of the OEMConnect Mentors are genuine experts in different areas, our mentorship community isn't about hierarchy, and expertise implies that. It takes me back to my first thinking around mentorship and why we needed to redefine it. For so long, this was the image of mentorship which feels a lot like the image of expertise. It's like, "I have it and can give it to you." Our sense of mentorship is not defined through a linear transaction or the imparting of knowledge.
We wanted to be different and developing a reciprocal. non-hierarchical vision of mentorship was part of our early work when we started OnEdMentors Connect which became OEMConnect and is now one of the offerings under The Mentoree. So, when we wanted to be responsive to the needs of teachers while being true to our values, conversations was the operative term to help our goal outcome of building capacity. It was also about inviting people to be part of the earning experience, so the Mentors leading the sessions made sure to make time for conversation. We redefined mentorship and hold ourselves accountable to that definition.
When we were reflecting on the day, we realized that we hadn't fully met our mark. We wanted to facilitate learning conversations, not just share knowledge and skill. While some of the sessions were more conversational than others, many participants had their cameras and microphones off to learn from watching and listening, or while multitasking, We needed to continue offering that for those who needed it, but we also wanted to create the foundation for more conversations. That is how we came up with the offerings for this Friday, May 8th.
This round of Conversations to Build Capacity offers Circle Conversations and Responsive Presentations. The latter is about Mentors sharing what they know through a slide deck and continuously inviting conversation by asking questions and inviting participants to add their questions and ideas to the chat, engaging responsively with those in the virtual room. It's not that different from a webinar in that it is a video workshop hosted online, except that it invites participants to help shape conversation around the topic as opposed to relying fully on the agenda of the presenter and the predetermined information to impart. Circle Conversations are about gathering around a topic with a Mentor who will facilitate the conversation, inviting everyone to take part, cameras on, voices and minds on. The conversation will unfold through the people "in the room", and the learning through the exchange can be more than just the what of the topic but the why, how and so what. We hope they will be the safe spaces to have hard, non-judgemental conversations, sharing and learning from each other in line with our norms of collaboration. The circle holds powerful imagery of equity and equality, and we hope to continue honing our skills to facilitate effective circle on Friday and grow from there.
Conversations build capacity. Whether it's one's knowledge or skill, sense of well being or efficacy, conversations are places to inspire thinking, share experiences, and build respectful relationships that can also improve insight into how we to respond to students, colleagues, and ourselves in this scenario of emergency distance/remote learning and beyond. Capacity building is a continuous improvement strategy that we want to evolve to help participants and our community obtain, retain, improve and evolve pedagogy, skills, knowledge, tools and other resources needed to help us reach and teach our learners, feel better about our work as remote/distance teachers, and handle this rapid change in our roles as educators.
If you are interesting in any one fo the offerings for this week's Conversations to Build Capacity, please register before noon on May 7th.
We are excited to share this and why our works support educator's positive mental health and well being on an upcoming event for Belouga as part of their #SameHere initiative in partnership with this global mental health movement. We know that Conversations to Build Capacity can also help educators work through their learning, talk about their feelings and feel better together.
