Bonni Stachowiak [00:00:00]:

Today on episode number 573 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, how to facilitate enriching learning experiences with Tolu Noah.

Production Credit: Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.

Welcome to this episode of Teaching in Higher Ed. I’m Bonni Stachowiak, and this is the space where we explore the art and science of being more effective at facilitating learning. We also share ways to improve our productivity approaches so we can have more peace in our lives and be even more present for our students. What a joy it is to welcome back to the podcast, Tolu Noah. She is the instructional learning spaces coordinator at California State University Long Beach, where she facilitates professional development about teaching and technology. Previously, she was a senior professional learning specialist at Apple, helping educators nationwide explore how they could use iPads and MacBooks to enhance teaching and learning.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:01:17]:

Tolu also has sixteen years of teaching experience in both higher education and k through 12. She was an associate professor in the undergraduate teacher education program at Azusa Pacific University, where she was honored to receive the university wide teaching excellence faculty award in 2019. Prior to becoming a professor, Tolu was a fifth and sixth grade teacher in Los Angeles. She’s incredibly passionate about teaching and always enjoys helping educators explore how they can effectively integrate content, pedagogy, and technology in support of student learning. She frequently presents workshops about a wide range of teaching and technology topics, and she was recently named by EdTech magazine as one of 30 higher ed IT influencers to follow in 2023. She is here today to talk about her first book, Designing and Facilitating Workshops with Intentionality, a Guide to crafting engaging professional learning experiences in higher education. Tolu Noah, welcome back to Teaching in Higher Ed.

Tolu Noah [00:02:33]:

Thank you so much, Bonni. It’s great to be back.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:02:36]:

I love how much I get to learn from you, and I’m curious something that you’ve tried or learned in the past year or two that was new to you.

Tolu Noah [00:02:47]:

Alright. So I’m gonna share something that I started trying and then I actually kinda have to put it

Bonni Stachowiak [00:02:52]:

on the back burner until after my book is published and I have a

Tolu Noah [00:02:55]:

little bit more free time, and that is learning Yoruba. So, my parents were born and raised in Nigeria and they immigrated to The US where my sisters and I were born, And our tribal language is Yoruba, but it was really difficult to learn as a kid and my parents thought that it might cause confusion to try to teach us both languages at the same time. So they really wanted us to just kind of focus on fluency in English so that we could succeed in American society. But learning Yoruba is something that’s always been really, really important to me because language is such a huge part of culture, and I think I’ve just felt like I’m missing this deeper connection to my culture because I can’t speak the language. So last year, I started making some more intentional moves to try to learn Yoruba. So for example, I started listening to a podcast where they do these like ten minute mini lessons about different topics. I also started looking into online courses that I could potentially take in the future, and I ordered some Yoruba books as a gift to my future self. So I told myself, like, once my book is officially out and I have more time on my hands, I’m gonna shift my focus to studying Yoruba.

Tolu Noah [00:04:00]:

So that’s that’s what I’m focusing on learning at this point.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:04:03]:

I just have the best mental image of you being so kind to yourself in the future, future self. It’s just like

Tolu Noah [00:04:10]:

I kinda do those things. Right? Where you’re like, okay. I have this big thing I’m working on, but now I have something I

Bonni Stachowiak [00:04:16]:

can look forward to after the fact.

Tolu Noah [00:04:17]:

So this was, yeah, my little motivation to self of sorts.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:04:21]:

If you haven’t wrapped them in some way, even just to, like, I I kinda want yeah. I love that idea. Uh-huh. That’d be Christmas.

Tolu Noah [00:04:29]:

To myself but in July.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:04:32]:

Yes. Or a book birthday. Well, speaking of celebrations, you celebrate the work of Priya Parker and specifically mentioned her book, The Art of Gathering. When you design a learning experience, tell us how you draw from Priya Parker’s work.

Tolu Noah [00:04:50]:

I absolutely love the book, The Art of Gathering. I know it’s really, really popular in the education development community and in other spaces too. And I would say that her book has been really influential in terms of my mindset whenever I’m designing a learning experience. So I’ll just share a couple of the principles and how I’ve applied them to my work. One of them is make purpose your bouncer and this is the idea that whenever we are gathering, we want to have a clear purpose for the gathering and the reason why is because that will help us to determine what should go into the gathering and what should stay out. So whenever I’m planning a learning experience, I start by identifying a clear goal for the experience. So in other words, what I hope people will know or be able to do by the end of the experience and then that goal helps me to determine which content and activities I should include in the experience and then what I should leave out. Another one of her principles is never start a funeral with logistics and this is the idea that we want to avoid starting a gathering with a bunch of logistical information like housekeeping and announcements and introductions.

Tolu Noah [00:05:53]:

This is something I see all the time in higher ed. We will start a meeting or a workshop with five minutes of reading someone’s bio or five minutes of sharing announcements. The issue with this approach is that it doesn’t make the most of those prime opening minutes when people’s attention is really high. So when I’m designing a learning experience, I typically try to start with an opening activity that gets people immediately involved and I save any logistical information for later in the session. And one last principle I’ll share for now is ending gatherings with time for what Parker calls looking inward and turning outward. And this is the idea that we want to give people time and space to reflect on what happened during the gathering and to connect with each other for the final time. And we also wanna help them think about how they’re gonna take what they experience in the gathering with them. And so whenever I’m designing a learning experience, I always include some type of formal reflection or action planning activity at the very end.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:06:49]:

Oh, of your intentionality of not not just using the word experience here, but throughout your book and and really in your mindset through just throughout everything I’ve ever gotten to witness you do. And it’s so powerful when you think about her work and and and your work and just that idea that we leave that, and it truly is an experience, and it’s embedded as a memory for us. And one memory, I’m not sure if we would share, Tola, because I think that we’re quite different in age. Did you ever learn how to drive a stick shift car, a man like a

Tolu Noah [00:07:25]:

I did not. No.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:07:27]:

I recently Jose Bowen was coming in to Orange County to speak, and we were gonna try to get together. And it turned out that the easiest way for us to get together was for me to pick him up at the airport. So I kinda, like, became a little taxi driver just for the day, And we both shared that experience of learning how to drive a stick shift. And so it it like, you it’s a skill that as you’re learning it, it’s kind of fine if you’re on level ground. But as soon as you’re on a hill, I was just convinced as a teenager that I was not gonna get and I thought I always thought I was gonna hit the car behind me, and I never did. But so much of life when I think about trying to find some kind of a balance between some kind of tension, I think back to that that experience of driving a stick shift so much, and that’s how I feel about structure. I think about that sometimes I overplan, and it’s kinda rigid, and I’m I’m rushing us when something so powerful is emerging. And then I can also be scatterbrained and not great if I don’t plan.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:08:34]:

Tell us a little bit about what you think of as far as managing that. And I’m also interested how universal you think your advice is, because do some of us maybe lean more toward being planners or more toward being spontaneous? So how much can we, like, how much should we be thinking about our own tendencies as we consider strategies here?

Tolu Noah [00:08:54]:

That is a really great question, and I fully agree with what you said, especially at the very end about the fact that different people will approach us in different ways. Right? So some people like to have super detailed plans, others have more of, like, a general outline that they work from, Then there are others who have even less structure than that. So I don’t think there’s necessarily one right way to approach planning, although I do think it’s helpful to have a plan for sure. And I will say that I am personally in Camp A where I do like to have really detailed plans, but I also hold those plans loosely, meaning that I’m completely willing to adjust things in the moment based on what’s happening with the group. And I would actually say that my detailed planning helps me to be flexible because when I’m in that planning process, I’m also making notes to myself about what I can cut or change if needed. It’s like the pre thinking helps me to be flexible in the moment because I’ve already thought through how I can be flexible, which I know sounds like a super type A thing to say. I’m like, I need plan my flexibility. But, yeah, it helps me to actually think ahead about what decisions I might make in the moment.

Tolu Noah [00:09:58]:

And then the other thing is when I’m facilitating, I’m constantly monitoring what’s happening with the group so that I can respond accordingly. And so this might mean spending more or less time on a topic or activity or dropping or adding an activity in the moment. And so I think this is a really important aspect of facilitation is where, yes, you have a plan, but you also need to be flexible with that plan and be willing to take a rest stop or a detour if needed.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:10:24]:

A couple of years ago, I was invited to keynote at the Lilly conference in San Diego, and I know you’ve done the same. You talk about it in the book. And I it was the first time I had gone and presented to a group of that size

Tolu Noah [00:10:37]:

Mhmm.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:10:38]:

Not on Zoom, you know, since since COVID had struck. And and, boy, talk about a reminder of how different a context is. And I I speak of this in two ways, a context whether I’m delivering on a platform like Zoom where when those breakout sessions are supposed to end, I have a lot of control over those those suckers coming back. You know? And then also the size of the group too. So I’m thinking of modality and also size of group. How did those two elements change how detailed you think we need to be? I mean, larger, more structure? You know? Where where where do those two things or do those two things kind of also gear you toward a different kind of planning?

Tolu Noah [00:11:23]:

That’s a really great question. So definitely in terms of the modality is definitely gonna impact things quite a bit. And I think especially when it comes to virtual facilitation, people tend to feel more comfortable in on-site because that’s been around, you know, that’s that’s what’s been kind of the the dominant mode of facilitating professional learning for so long. And interactions do need to be more intentionally planned in a virtual setting. Because in on-site, you can just be okay, turn to the person next to you, and virtual, you might need to set up breakout rooms in advance and things like that. While both definitely require intentionality in terms of what you’re going to be doing, I do think that we do need to be even more intentional with virtual, especially like how we’re going to foster those interactions because otherwise it can easily become something where we’re more broadcasting information rather than creating space where people can contribute as well. And can you remind me of the second part of your question?

Bonni Stachowiak [00:12:16]:

Oh, size of

Tolu Noah [00:12:17]:

group. And

Bonni Stachowiak [00:12:18]:

Size of group. How large the group is how large the group is that you’re speaking to?

Tolu Noah [00:12:22]:

Oh, the group size. Yeah. And so that would also impact your decisions as well because if you’re gonna be speaking to a really large group of people and also incorporating interactive activities, then you’d wanna think through, okay, how am I going to break people up into groups? How am I gonna bring people back? How what am I gonna do in terms of timing? And so, yes, I I would say that we do wanna pay a lot of attention to modality along with the size of the group when we’re making those decisions about what we’re gonna do with our plans.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:12:49]:

I’m reflecting. That’s so fun. By the way, thank you so much for inviting me to get to read the book along the way. I got to give some feedback on it. So I’ve been getting to nourish on all this good stuff for a lot longer than other people will have when they listen to this, but we’re preparing right now to I’m do gonna do a session at our accreditors conference, and it’s another thing where it’ll be a large group. And I was reflecting I I think I already knew this, but but you just really helped stress so many things to remind us of and then give us approaches. But we were talking about because the game is ideal with a certain size of people to play.

Tolu Noah [00:13:27]:

Mhmm.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:13:27]:

But, also, I didn’t wanna start with a bunch of logistics. Like, oh, you can only have this many people. You know? So we’re talking about how and it does draw also back to Priya Parker’s book, but, like, how to set things up so that the environment invites only if there’s only, like, five decks of cards or five sets of cards sitting out on the table, and you’re that sixth person and there isn’t materials, you might just naturally go to the next table. You know? And so the Right. Trying to think of that such a good reminder for us to have planned in advance so that we can be present for the moment. Right. That’s wonderful. So another tool that you talk about is a macro workshop plan.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:14:07]:

And since I really am more of a big picture person, I love things like this. Tell us a little bit about what this tool is and how it can help us.

Tolu Noah [00:14:15]:

Yeah. So a macro workshop plan is basically like a high level outline of the workshop, and it’s really helpful for ensuring that everything that you’re planning in the session is aligned with the goal. So going back to what we talked about with Priya Priya Parker’s notion of make purpose your bouncer because oftentimes when planning workshops, I don’t know about you, but it can be really easy to want to start by thinking about the activities because that’s like the fun stuff like, oh, what am I going to have people do? When we start with the macro workshop plan draws on a few common frameworks from the educational field like Wiggins and McTighe’s backward design model and then Fink’s taxonomy of significant learning and his integrated course design model. It really involves thinking through six key topics which are relevance, circumstances, goals, assessments, activities, and impact. First, you reflect on relevance, which would mean things like who are your learners, what’s their context, what’s the specific topic that the workshop is going to be focusing on. Then you want to outline the circumstances of the workshop, so things like how long is the workshop going to be, what’s the modality, how many people are you expecting because all of those factors like we talked about earlier will shape your design of the session. Then after that, you move into more that backward design piece of mapping out the goals, so what you hope people will know or be able to do by the end, the assessments which would be how people will demonstrate their progress towards those goals, and then the activities which would be the content people will learn and the activities that they’ll do. Then finally, we want to think about how we’re going to evaluate the impact of the experience.

Tolu Noah [00:15:59]:

This might be asking people to complete a feedback survey at the end or even doing something like asking people to submit evidence of how they’ve implemented what they learned in the workshop. And so by outlining those six areas, you’ll kind of end up with this high level map that can guide your design and facilitation in the session in a much more purposeful way.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:16:18]:

One of the things I’ve gotten to see you do is be absolutely excellent, but without making it look hard at timekeeping. So tell us what are the some of the strategies that you use as the planner that you are to help keep yourself in check with time.

Tolu Noah [00:16:33]:

Yeah. And there’s a lot of things we could talk about when it comes to timing because it’s definitely one of the probably the one of the most important aspects of facilitation. One thing I will say is that we wanna think about what types of things we’re having people do during our session, right? So, I like to think of this in terms of what I call the facilitator zone and the participant zone. The facilitator zone would be times when you are explaining content or modeling skills and then the participant zone would be times when participants are actively engaging with the content and each other. Ideally, we want to break up any long periods of simply talking to participants with meaningful opportunities for them to engage throughout. So, a helpful rule of thumb that comes from Sharon Bowman’s book, Training from the Back of the Room, is the ten minute rule. This is where you try to limit times when you’re speaking to about ten minutes at a time and then you intersperse that with times when people are doing activities or engaging with each other. Some of these activities might be super short like having them respond to a poll or doing a turn and talk, while other activities might be longer like analyzing a case study or creating the first draft of a resource that they can use in their work.

Tolu Noah [00:17:44]:

Another aspect of timing that I think is important to think about, kind of like what we talked about earlier is how much we want to stick to our agendas because once again, we can have the sensation to be like, Okay, I planned all these things so I need to make sure I do all the things on the list. When we stick to our agendas like that, we can often end up either speed talking because we’re trying to cover everything as fast as we can and get it all in, which can actually make the learning experience more difficult for participants because they’re just trying to keep up with the pace. But you also might realize in the moment that what you plan to do isn’t exactly what people need. If we stick with our agenda no matter what, then that can actually impede us from being responsive to learners and ensuring that they’re getting what they need from the session. So I think it’s really important to just once again be attentive to what’s happening in the moment. So when I’m facilitating experiences, I’m keeping an eye on the content, I’m keeping an eye on what participants are saying and doing, I’m keeping an eye on the time, and I’m making decisions in the moment about what’s like a need to know or need to do versus a nice to know or nice to do. So that way if we’re running short on time, I know what I can skip if needed. Then the other important thing to remember here is like if for some reason you’re not able to address everything you hope to address during the live session, it doesn’t mean that the learning has to end there.

Tolu Noah [00:19:01]:

You can always send a follow-up email with additional resources or create a Loom video or make a webpage with additional information. So I think those things can also help us to free ourselves of this pressure to do everything on the list and go really fast when there’s not time to actually do that. And then one last thing I’ll briefly share is just timekeeping strategies and I’ll just share a few that have been helpful for me. One thing that I do is I have my iPhone on a stand and I typically have an index card below it that lists the start and the end time of the session, That way I can easily like monitor exactly how much time I have and where we are in the session. I also like to embed timers on my slides for different activities so that participants know how much time they have for a task and it also helps me to kind of keep things moving along at a good pace. But just like with the agenda, I don’t stick to those timers 100%, so if people need more or less time, once again, I’m just kind of paying attention to what’s happening in the moment so that I can adjust that accordingly. One last thing I’ll share that helps the timing too is rehearsing the session beforehand. For any workshops or other learning experiences that I’m doing, I always will dedicate some time to rehearse it beforehand because that gives me a sense of how long things will take, if I have too much and need to cut it out, or if I just need to make a note to myself of what I could drop in the moment if I needed to.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:20:18]:

There are two things that I want to dig a little bit more in with you on having to do with timing. First one has to do with apologizing. Second one has to do with transparency. So when it comes to apologizing, I got trained really early in my career not to over apologize. Now, of course, I grew up. Little girls are supposed to apologize and be sweet and nice and all the things, but I thought it took a little while. And, actually, I would say, in my fifties now, I still have to retrain myself sometimes. But, like, talk talk a little bit about how your or any thoughts that you have about maybe not always apologizing when it has to do with time.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:20:58]:

Like, oh, we got behind, so I guess I’m not gonna be able to deliver what I said I was gonna deliver for you. What’s going through your head when things do get off track, specifically as it relates to potentially apologizing or not?

Tolu Noah [00:21:12]:

I think that’s another really great question, and the first thought that popped into my brain was, like, is this something I need to say, or is this just something I need to think to myself? I personally tend to keep those thoughts to myself because here’s the thing, the people in your session don’t necessarily know in advance every single thing you’re planning to do, If you have a lot of moments where you’re like, oh, no, we didn’t get to this, oh, no, we didn’t do this, it can almost make it look like you haven’t done the careful planning or things aren’t as what’s the best word? Like they’re they aren’t as designed well as as they could be. And so I, yeah, personally on the side of not verbalizing all of that even if that’s what I might be thinking in my head. Like in my head, I might be like, oh, no. But I don’t I don’t necessarily think that that’s something that we need to directly share with participants. Once again, it’s it’s something where we can always adjust accordingly. So if we know that we didn’t get to something that we wanted to get to in the session, maybe that’s a good impetus to create a new learning experience about that or to communicate it in another way, maybe in an asynchronous fashion or through other materials. The other thing I would say too that’s helpful with this is when I’m even sharing my agenda, I keep it pretty high level. It might be like opening activity and then the names of the key topics we’re going to address and then closing activity, but I’m not getting into the nitty gritty of naming every single activity or naming every single topic.

Tolu Noah [00:22:42]:

And so that also gives me the flexibility to adjust things if needed in the moment because I haven’t been super detailed about super detailed to participants about exactly what we’re gonna be doing at each and every step.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:22:54]:

Yeah. And I think what you just shared does have to do with the transparency. So I think you actually answered both of my questions at once. Yeah. I when I present, a lot of times, I’ll have a printout of the slides in a grid format. Mhmm. And I actually use whiteout so that because if my slides are too dark, I can’t write on the slide. So I’ll put whiteout on top of the slide so I can indicate timing.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:23:19]:

And then I set a gazillion Apple Watches, which, timers. And it’s funny because they’ll things do get off track for me, and I really do my absolute darnedest to never mention that things are getting off track. So I got I’m just constantly getting buzzed on my on my wrist, and I may not know what that means. But it’s at least enough to quickly look at my watch and then look at those milestones that are on that printed grid for me to be able to get myself back on track. And I only mentioned that because when I went out to Louisiana State University a few months back, someone had seen my piece of paper sitting there, and he’s like, that’s such a good idea. So if anybody if that’s new for anybody it also helps, by the way, anticipate if you’re gonna have technological problems, then you kinda can run even if all the technology were to fail. A piece of a piece of paper is not gonna fail unless you lose it, but it’s really super helpful. But, yeah, my watch timers, it’s really funny because they don’t often mean something.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:24:16]:

Oh, I was gonna say one other thing. So this is a little bit more I guess this would apply in classes, but but a little bit maybe more workshops. A lot of times, if if you’re being brought in externally to do a workshop, people just expect there to be a q and a at the end. And I now am almost exclusively saying I’m happy to address people’s questions. That’s an enjoyable thing for some people to do, but I reserve the last ten minutes because ending on a q and a, you’re rolling the dice for if that’s gonna be a good ending or not. So I try to, like, not roll the dice and instead really plan a really structured where I can slow myself way down. You mentioned speeding, and one of my weaknesses is speeding when I’m afraid or when I’m giddy or happy. All sorts of emotions cause me to speed, but to slow way down and be really fully present in that moment, I have to leave myself that margin at the end.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:25:12]:

So I don’t know if you have anything else you wanna add about timing or about endings or anything like that before I ask you my next question.

Tolu Noah [00:25:19]:

I think you brought up a really great point about questions and, like, how to navigate that, and that’s something I also address in the book. And I’ve seen people, like, address this in different ways. So some people will include, like, a few different q and a pauses. So they’ll have a slide that says, like, q and a, and they’ll kinda check-in with people regularly throughout the session. Another strategy that I’ve seen is having people submit their questions via a polling tool like Mentimeter or Slido or Poll Everywhere and enabling the upvoting feature so that way it’s not just like the first person who raises their hand, who is able to ask the question, but people are actually able to like you can you can basically address questions that are really top of mind for a lot of people like what’s really bubbling to the surface based on which questions have the the most upvotes. And then another strategy that I’ve tried and also seen work really well is creating a parking lot. This can be really great for those questions that will pop into your mind, but they may not be directly applicable to what’s being addressed in the moment. People can post those questions in either a physical or digital parking lot, and then you can pause either throughout the session or at a specific point near the end and address the few that are there that you think would be helpful for the whole group.

Tolu Noah [00:26:33]:

But I definitely don’t feel like we need to feel pressure to address every single possible question within the time period because sometimes there may be questions that are outside of the scope of what you’re doing or would take much more time to address or they’re very specific to one person’s situation. And so we we yeah. We would need to be mindful about, like, yeah, what do we wanna address with the whole group versus something that we might follow-up with later. That’s something else I’ve seen too is you can also collect those questions and then let people know that after the session, maybe you’re going to make a web page and include some of those key questions there and address them that way. So I think there’s definitely lots of different ways that we can navigate the question piece because like you said, we want to I think ideally, we want to end by having people think about what they’re going to do with this information moving forward. And so even if you do wanna include q and a, maybe not making it the very last thing, maybe it’s like a a small portion before that, and then you’re gonna have them reflect an action plan and end on a on a really strong note.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:27:28]:

I am so glad that you mentioned those digital tools and the benefit of having the upvoting. That makes a huge difference to being able to quantify the value of some of those questions and adjust timing accordingly. And during our new faculty experience, we well, it’s it’s throughout a week, so that’s a little bit different than maybe other environments that people may be in. But we would have these posters up there that would say notice and wonder and then burning questions, which burning questions would be the ones that they they can’t like, they don’t have easy answers that, you know, there’s no, like, quick fix to them, and then we would have parking lot, which tended to be a little bit more logistical in terms of those between those categories and stuff, but Mhmm. I’m a little bit scarred by the parking lot because it seems like nobody knows what that is anymore. And then I we couldn’t one year, we could not get people to stop putting up there, like, things related to literal parking. Like, well, where do I get the parking? Pass and brush just because they’re new to the university. So I’m like, we still have that poster.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:28:36]:

I kinda wonder if we’ll be using that come August. We’re like, are we actually gonna go back to try and, oh, by the way, sometimes prepopulating things can help guide people along. So maybe we should prepopulate a couple things on the parking lot to give people the general idea. So funny.

Tolu Noah [00:28:51]:

That’s a great question. I’m also wondering if maybe even just, like, renaming it to something else that’s a little bit more maybe a little bit more clear would also be helpful. I just question

Bonni Stachowiak [00:29:00]:

a lot. So question a lot. I love it. Alright. So well, by the way, it totally doesn’t help that we fully had, like, a picture of a parking lot on there. So I get it. And there’s, you know, different languages and cultures being represented. So I was like, metaphors, they can get you into trouble sometimes.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:29:16]:

Alright. So one thing that people will often get confused by are handouts and slides. In fact, most people tend to think of slides as their handouts.

Tolu Noah [00:29:28]:

Mhmm.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:29:28]:

And that’s both their notes for themselves, but also the notes for anyone that might want to reference them in the future. Why is that maybe not a great way of thinking about the purpose of slides, and what do you have to recommend to us instead?

Tolu Noah [00:29:41]:

Yeah. This is another really common thing that I see where people slides are just walls of text. And I think this leads to a few issues. One being that when you have all that text on your slides, you can feel tempted to just read the information to your audience which is just not as engaging for participants. Then along with that as a participant, when you’re encountering these walls of text, it’s just a ton of information to try to process at once. So I definitely suggest limiting the amount of text on your slides to keywords and short bullets that you can expand on in the moment when you’re speaking. If you want more detailed notes, those are things that can go in the speaker notes section or you can even create a separate handout for participants that has much more detailed information on it. Ideally, we want to avoid overloading our slides with a bunch of text.

Tolu Noah [00:30:30]:

And I think it’s helpful here to think about, like, the multimedia learning principles from Richard Mayer along with accessibility when we’re designing our slides and our handouts. And so when we’re designing slides and handouts, we want to be thinking about things like including relevant images to accompany the text on our slides. So that can also help us in really thinking about what are the key details that need to be there and what can be conveyed in another format like through a visual. We also want to be thinking about visual cues. So like are we including things that help participants know what’s important on the slide? So that might be having arrows that point to specific information or bolded words. And then with with regards to accessibility, we wanna think about things like making sure that any images that we have on our slides or handouts have alternative text, that there’s good contrast. This is another thing I see where there’s a lot of text and then there’s like a background image and sometimes it’s hard to read. So we just wanna make sure there’s good contrast between those foreground and background elements.

Tolu Noah [00:31:30]:

And one last thing I’ll I’ll kind of point out here that I’ve been noticing more more regularly in terms of accessibility is including emojis on handouts and slides. I don’t know if you’ve seen this as well where there’s like emojis as bullet points or emojis kind of scattered throughout the the text on the slide and that can actually really interfere with comprehension for anyone who’s using a screen reader. So we want to just be be really intentional about once again what’s going on our slides and how is this going to affect the participants’ experience both from an accessibility standpoint, but also from the amount of information we’re asking people to process at once.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:32:03]:

I have not seen that as much, although I do know that on social media, at least, we’re told not to put our 30 crying laughing emojis in a row. Like but we’re we’re still allowed to have one. I mean, but

Tolu Noah [00:32:14]:

it’s They’re still helpful every once in a while. That’s it’s more when it’s, like, repeated. And Yeah. And once again, if this is gonna start interfering with understanding the organization of the information and the flow of the information. So if it’s like one or two to add some spice from what I’ve under from what I’ve read, one or two is like fine, but it’s when it’s a bullet point type of approach or it’s scattered throughout the entire document that that can make it more challenging.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:32:38]:

I already recommended this, so it’s not today’s recommendation. But I just wanna point out in case somebody missed that episode where I shared this, you taught me about how in Padlet, which for those listening not familiar with Padlet, it is a virtual corkboard. And I love using Padlet, but you taught me how to link. They call them breakout rooms, which, yes, that’s confusing because that’s also what Zoom calls their breakout rooms. But on a Padlet, you might have a board with, you know, books people wanna recommend or songs or things. You can have different categories, and you helped me so much because we can link just to one of the categories if we’re using a grid format, for example, sectioned out like that. And in the middle of presenting, I learned something else that you I already knew you could embed a Padlet in many of the presentation software in my case. I mean, if it takes embedded content, it’ll take it.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:33:36]:

But in this particular case, I was using Beautiful.ai and had embedded the Padlet breakout rooms there. But what I didn’t realize until last August is that picture in this particular case, we use Bryan Mathers’ permission slip. You draw a little self portrait, and you say, I give myself permission to draw things and not care what anyone thinks. And so people are all adding that to the board. But if you’re presenting a big room, they can only just see whoever just posted, and it start if you’re it’s a large group of people, there’s a lot of people putting their self portraits up there. And if you click on one of them, it builds a slideshow for you.

Tolu Noah [00:34:16]:

Yep.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:34:17]:

And it’s all of it. I was like, oh my gosh. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. So, I’m curious if you have any other things that come to mind because it almost like that becomes a way of your slide decks becoming a character in the room or at least focusing on different characters in the room. It really expands what’s possible through there. So is there any other things that are coming up? I you talked about embedding timers, which is one way we can do that. I just shared an example of embedding a Padlet breakout room. Anything else cool that kinda changes up the dynamic of what’s possible with slides?

Tolu Noah [00:34:55]:

Yeah. So I I’ve been exploring a lot of different I love technology, so I’m always like, oh, what can I do with this thing?

Bonni Stachowiak [00:35:02]:

Me too.

Tolu Noah [00:35:03]:

Like, recently, I even I’m I was inspired by one of your episodes that you did with Todd Zakryzek around the classroom assessment techniques, and so I incorporated, like, spinners into a session recently, and that was

Bonni Stachowiak [00:35:12]:

a lot of fun too.

Tolu Noah [00:35:14]:

So what’s great is, like, yeah, there’s so many digital tools that can really make learning even more engaging. And I’m gonna jump on the Padlet love train because another feature of Padlet that I’ve really been enjoying using lately is their new Padlet sandbox feature. So if you’re familiar with regular Padlet, it’s, yeah, like you said, a corkboard and people can add different posts, but their sandbox feature is more like a digital whiteboard. So if you’re familiar with Jamboard, which is sadly no longer a thing, Padlet is like that but it’s much more robust than what Jamboard used to be. So you can have a separate card for each participant and I actually did this using your I was inspired by your Bryan Mathers drawing activity and I’m trying to remember which workshop it was. I think it was I think it’s about transparent design and Oh, no. I can’t remember what the workshop topic was unfortunately, but I used this in the previous workshop where I had a Padlet sandbox and there was a card for each participant in the group and I actually had them sign to say that they’re giving themselves permission to draw things badly and not care what other people think. And so they were all able to like draw on the digital whiteboard and we could see everyone’s drawings at the same time.

Tolu Noah [00:36:21]:

Wow. So, Padlet Sandbox is really great for, yeah, doing that type of digital collaborative digital whiteboarding where you can add sticky notes and drawings and text, but you can also add things like audio recordings and videos and polls and so it’s helpful for fostering collaboration and interaction and creativity in sessions. Another tool that I use is the Headliner app, and Headliner allows you to take a podcast episode or a clip from a podcast episode and then add a nice little visual background to it and you can edit the transcripts and have them appear as the podcast clip is playing. And so I use this to bring in other voices and perspectives into my workshops. So during a workshop that I did about designing inclusive syllabi, I used the Headliner app to play a clip from a podcast episode where Kate and Niall is talking about her personal journey and making her syllabus more kind and inclusive. Even that simple act of just like them getting to hear Kate’s story in her own words, right, it adds another level of depth to the conversation and can also be a great way to spark conversation because you’re using that as a discussion starter of sorts. One last tool I’ll share for now, this is one that I haven’t yet used in an actual workshop but I’ve been tinkering with it and I’m planning to use it in the future. It’s called Butter Scenes and it’s basically this interactive presentation tool where you can have your slides and your activities all in the same place.

Tolu Noah [00:37:42]:

So If you’re familiar with tools like Pear Deck or Nearpod or Mentimeter, it’s kind of like that, but this tool was specifically designed with facilitators in mind. You can either create your slides in the platform or upload yours to the platform and then you can embed interactive activities throughout like a multiple choice poll or then an open ended question and so on. And then as participants respond to the questions, you’ll see their their answers appear on the screen in real time. And they also have some really fun, like, interactive elements where you can clap and you can, like, hear the sound effects and things like that. So, yeah, that’s just another another fun one that I’m currently exploring with the potential of using it in a future session too.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:38:20]:

Oh my gosh. So much fun. I also every time we get to to talk, I have so much fun listening to you share. Well, this is the time in the show where we each get to share our recommendations, and I wanted to share that I I had sort of alluded to it earlier, but I do sometimes have my natural tendency is to be a pretty scattered person. But I know I can be better with help with tools with help from tools. And one such tool is called SessionLab. And I discovered SessionLab maybe a year and a half ago, and it was the tool that so many of us on our team didn’t realize that was even possible all this time. We had been planning our agendas using Microsoft Word for our, for example, for our new faculty experience, and there’s all these different presenters and all these different time slots, and then somebody would need to move things around.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:39:14]:

And Microsoft Word is a beast when it comes to tables and formatting and section breaks, and and not as many people know Microsoft Word as well as I do. So they come in and they break the next page, and then there’s I mean, just like, what a mess. Instead of that, we have session lab. And on session lab, you can tell it, this is when the session starts. This is when the session ends. And, Tola, you had mentioned doing that, like, with your index card for the, being next to your iPad to remind you. So that that can happen within session lab, and it treats everything almost like Lego bricks. And so you can say, okay.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:39:53]:

My introduction is gonna be this long, and then, you know, this activity is gonna take this long. And it will you can color code things, and so you can really fulfill the advice that Tolu gave us earlier when she was talking about making sure we’re not talking too long until we get to some kind of an activity or help people synthesize things or test for understanding. It does all of that. And then if you wanna change your mind and switch things up, you’re just dragging those Lego bricks around, and it will literally adjust every other time. And so, it it that thing is incredible, and you can export every way you could imagine. You can export into Word. You can export as PDF, and there are you can print it out, hard copy, lots of options for you. So I’m a huge, huge, huge fan of SessionLab.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:40:41]:

One feature I haven’t played with yet, I’ve tried to and then I get distracted, and I totally forget. I just need to play with it when I’m not presenting, but it will actually time you while you’re giving the presentation. And so if it was a workshop, Tolu, I’m thinking about you. You I’m guessing you sometimes repeat your workshops. You would be able to have the record of go, oh, you know what? That activity actually took way longer than I thought it was going to. So the next time I do it, I better add in an extra five minutes so that it, you know, works out okay. So it was really, really cool. So that’s my first recommendation.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:41:14]:

My second recommendation is to go play with the Padlet sandbox that told us about earlier. She’s the one who told me about it. I just wanna make sure everybody knows, like, you gotta go play with that thing. And it’s it’s, as you mentioned, such a great replacement for those of us that have used other types of whiteboards. By the way, do you know off the top of your head how many people you can get on there to be, you know, typing into a sandbox at one time?

Tolu Noah [00:41:38]:

That is a great question. So I did I I like to attend some of their, like, Padlet session webinars. I remember attending one a few months ago. I don’t don’t quote me on this. Mhmm. I think at the time, it was, like, a hundred people, but it it may start to slow down.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:41:53]:

Yeah.

Tolu Noah [00:41:54]:

But that was also early on in the process, so I don’t know if they’ve been able to boost the capacity since then.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:42:00]:

And I would imagine that most of our limiting factors would be the Internet connectivity for wherever we are and as well as people’s devices and that sort of thing. So the last thing I wanna recommend will be no surprise to anyone hearing my voice and how giddy I am to talk to Toto today is to recommend your book, Designing and Facilitating Workshops with Intentionality, a Guide to Crafting, Engaging Professional Learning Experiences, and Higher Education. And there’s two things I really want to stand out there, just the way that you exude intentionality in your writing. It’s so beautifully written such that it feels like we’re having a conversation, and yet there’s so much practicality there. And it’s all so organized that for someone like me who has sometimes trouble keeping myself organized, everything’s right there, and you’ve given us all these ways to plug in to community if we want to, go explore digital resources. You’ve just thought of everything. And the other thing I wanted to share about what stands out to me is just how engaging it is, both engaging as a read, engaging with the additional resources, and also just helping us be more engaging in our facilitating. Thank you so much for this wonderful book and for I feel like now a continuing conversation over a couple years now, and I’m gonna pass it over to you for whatever you’d like to recommend.

Tolu Noah [00:43:22]:

Well, thank you so much, Bonni. I’m I’m honored that you recommended my book, and I also wanted to plus one the recommendations that you shared too. I actually used session lab session planner. It’s either last semester or early this semester for a workshop for instructors at my university and everything you said about how easy it is to create an agenda for your session. I also love the fact that because I can color code different blocks, it’s easy to see like, okay, do I have a bunch of blue which might represent me just talking? Do I have too much red where it’s, you know, active activities that participants are doing and I can easily see at a glance, like, where I might need to break things up. So I just wanted to plus one that recommendation as well. And my recommendation is to check out another great podcast that’s specifically geared towards anyone who’s interested in facilitation. It’s called Facilitating on Purpose, and it’s hosted by Beth Cougler Blom, who I believe was actually a a past guest on your podcast.

Tolu Noah [00:44:18]:

What I love about Beth’s podcast is that she includes interviews with facilitators from different industries and she also does these solo episodes where she takes a deep dive into particular aspects of facilitation like how to choose which activities to use in a session and things like that. And so I’ve really enjoyed listening to her podcast, and I think it’s a fantastic resource for anyone else who wants to learn more about the art of facilitation.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:44:39]:

Alright, Tolu. Thank you so much for coming back on Teaching in Higher Ed. Such a great conversation. I love the ones we get to have off air and the ones on air and can’t wait until the next time we get to connect.

Tolu Noah [00:44:50]:

Thank you so much for having me.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:44:55]:

Thank you once again to Tolu Noah for joining me on today’s episode and sharing about your new book. Thanks also to each of you for listening. Today’s episode was produced by me, Bonni Stachowiak. It was edited by the ever talented Andrew Kroeger. Podcast production support was provided by the amazing Sierra Priest. If you have been listening for a while and would like to share the podcast with others, I encourage you to either rate or review it on whatever service it is you use to listen. Thanks for being a part of Teaching in Higher Ed, and I’ll see you next time.

Teaching in Higher Ed transcripts are created using a combination of an automated transcription service and human beings. This text likely will not represent the precise, word-for-word conversation that was had. The accuracy of the transcripts will vary. The authoritative record of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcasts is contained in the audio file.