Teaching and Learning Notes

1. AFAN Methods

The simplest method for staff using AFAN material is to take your existingfacilitating/ teaching skills, select topic(s) from the Big Questions, listen to thestudents and yourself and see what happens - that is it really. AFAN is anindicative, facilitative process. AFAN also uses the theoretical framework of Co-Director Prof. Andy Wright called critical spirituality.  Here are somepointers we learnt from running staff development days at various collegesaround the country and my own learning from running young person andfamily retreats for Buddhists.

Benefits - the AFAN Approach can:

• Confirm your confidence and competence to handle AFAN material with students
• Develop the ability to express clearly and openly to a group
• Generate a deeper sense of caring for other people among learners
• Increase empathy, understanding and respect for diversity amongst learners, staff and other members of the educational community
• Create a sense of togetherness among student groups that significantly increases understanding and harmony, and reduces the anxiety, depression, isolation, fear and conflict that can arise in diverse groups

Staff Development can:

• Clarify the value and purpose of the AFAN programme
• Provide reassurance and develop confidence in the facilitation process
• Develop skills in taking the AFAN approach to "critical spirituality"
• Experience how the approach can work
• Increase familiarity with the AFAN materials and resources, where to

find and how to use them. compiled with the help of http://www.thelifeproject.co.uk

"... good teaching cannot be reduced to technique;

good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher"

P. J. Palmer: The courage to teach.

2. Big Questions

So how do you transplant AFAN into your 30-minutes tutorial time, orelectrical engineering session on radio waves? The answer which AFAN hascome up with is Big Questions, to translate various themes into questionsthat students ask all the time. You can find these elsewhere in this handbookand on line here. In order for this to happen we need to tap into three basicSo AFAN is not asking you to be a knowledgeable teacher about all theworldviews. It is asking you to facilitate a discussion between people withvaried views, some of which will be opposed to your own personal views. Howmuch you bring yourself into the discussion depends on how comfortable youfeel with the situation. As facilitating can lead into chaos, the Boy Scoutmotto (you probably can't say that any more) - Be Prepared - is important.Some simple tips in the guidelines point to ways of closing down a discussion.

Usually this happens when somebody is not heard or something is in the airand is not voiced. Again getting a few facilitation skills might help (have alook at http://www.businessballs.com/ and http://seedsforchange.org.uk/free/resources).

3. Facilitation

Below is a list of some of the words staff have come up with in comparing teaching with facilitation. What we have noticed is that a lot of staff feel more relaxed, more inspired and in touch when they are in facilitation mode.

4. Awe

Learning happens when people feel inspired, enthused and interested. Soencouraging students to recognise what awe, wonderment or taking aninterest is, can help them all round as a learner, and will spin off into otherforms of learning (eg electrical engineering). This can be very simple, egstarting with the body, here are a few examples:Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks otherwise it will digest itself.Your left lung is smaller than your right lung to make room for your heart.

You use an average of 43 muscles for a frown. You use an average of 17 muscles for a smile.

The average human produces a quart of saliva a day or 10,000 gallons in a lifetime.

Awe for me comes from a playful attitude, and, if you have the time, reading

"The kids are not the problem" from http://ttfuture.org/files/2/members/mm_Kids_Not.pdf  will help

5. Using the Materials and Asking the right questions

If your learners don't have an interest in what's going on in a session, itusually means that teachers and learners aren't addressing the rightquestions. This is where listening comes in. Once we attune to theenvironment of the learner, we can start to see what might help the learnerdevelop. If we listen to ourselves and our students, and try not to override ourintuitive sense of what might be useful, we can usually come up with theappropriate material for that session.

AFAN web-based material offers starters for many types of discussion; manyare video clips and, with a few questions, they are enough to start a session.The direction of the discussion is entirely up to you and the learners. Forexample, to include other worldviews, look together at the summaries or flashthem up on the screen. We suggest using these in small groups, where eachgroup focuses on one worldview. See sample lesson plans below and more online.

This again comes back to the ability to listen to what is happening and nothappening and take an interest in the process of learning. We are not lookingfor clarity, explanation, correctness or conversion, we are looking forrelationships, where learners and staff feel they can explore a theme in a safeenvironment. The theme is usually an important issue that is generally notaired anywhere else in the FE curriculum or environment. In order to supportlearners in exploring the theme, we have provided some guidelines.

Important themes are usually also emotive, so be prepared for someone in theclass to be deeply affected by the theme. It's no-one's fault, it's just whathappens. A theme such as death is always going to mean a lot whensomebody has just died that was known by somebody in the group. Usually,at least one person in the room will be affected by the theme. Many of thethemes AFAN are discussing are raised in a colloquial way in the lunch hallover food (my parents won't let me go with x because of y), often via makingfun of people.They're singing those clap-happy songs again and so on. So making use of

the AFAN approach in an environment like mechanical engineering orhairdressing, the simplest way to see it is to ask questions, what is your clientgoing to look like, what is your supplier going to act like? What AFAN ispointing at is having an appreciation for the other.If all else fails, use some thunks - have a look at http://www.thunks.co.uk/

6. Spaces for learning

The space should be bounded and open and hospitable to silence and speech.

The space should invite the voice of the individual and the voice of the group.

The space should honour the "little" stories of those involved and the "big"stories of the disciplines and tradition.

Adapted from http://www.infed.org/thinkers/palmer.htm

Technology and Space

A circle of chairs is better than rows of desks. Most FE classrooms now have access to video, sound systems, computers and internet. If you are going towatch a clip from the internet you might need to speak with the technical department to allow it through on your local server.

7. Materials and exercises

There are many different types of material and it's worth going through thema few times so you get a clear idea of whether they are suitable for your group.See: http://www.diversityanddialogue.org.uk/
http://sapere.org.uk/links/
http://home12.inet.tele.dk/fil/Guidance
activities for Facilitators and a large selection of resources forempowering students - Reflection Activities at: http://www.freechild.org

Click here for a table of Contemplative Methods that build on Mindfulness Training and their educational benefits.

8. Values Beliefs and Practices (VBP) for Technical and VocationalLearners

Some of the language of AFAN comes from a rather theological/ technicalbackground; one useful way to interpret VBP is through the work of KenWilber (www.kenwilber.com/).By using VBP table above, we could say that arts students will be more interested in values and science students more interested in practices. Hence the initial dialogues/discussion/material can focus on these to start with and can then be broadened into other areas once the group has been formed into a supportive space for discussion.

So for example art students need tounderstand how their values affect society and culture and science students need to understand how their practices affect culture and values. For example:An art student - hairdresser develops a new haircut, their own creation with

its own value. If it fits with contemporary culture it is accepted, it becomes

asocial phenomenon.

In terms of AFAN Big Questions:

Why do some worldviews ask you to do something with your hair?

Does hair have anything to do with being a good person?

A science student - electronic student develops a working wifi-controlled hover(practices), it affects the culture: will people buy it? - what do I think about aproduct like that.

In terms of AFAN big questions:

Why do some worldviews support technology and others don't? Doestechnology help to have a more peaceful society?

10. Dealing with the Blocks

The students won't like it; I'm not capable of doing this; The management won't like it; I don't have the time or space ...and the list will probably go on and on.See the exercises of Byron Katie called ‘The Work'. You can download a worksheet for free at http://www.thework.com/index.asp. It's very simple and effective in helping identify and overcome what blocks learning.