Welcome to Episode 145 of the Think UDL podcast: Intentional Workshop Design with Tolu Noah. Dr. Tolu Noah is the Instructional Learning Spaces Coordinator at California State University, Long Beach and is a gifted speaker, facilitator and presenter. Every time I get the chance to talk with Tolu I learn something new, inventive, and helpful for my own teaching and presenting. I am very happy to get a chance to talk to her about her upcoming book, Designing and Facilitating Workshops with Intentionality: A Guide to Crafting Engaging Professional Learning Experiences in Higher Education. I had the chance to be a pre-reader for the book and am so excited to see this out in the world and help so many of us who teach in so many contexts. It is an incredibly thoughtful and helpful guide. You can find out more about her book and how to pre-order on the resource section for this episode at ThinkUDL.org. And you can pre-order the book June 4-24 before its release date of June 25th. Today’s conversation delves into how UDL is such an important part and guiding principle of Tolu’s practice and her book and how UDL can help design really fantastic learning opportunities in the workshop format!
Resources
Tolu Noah can be found on LinkedIn or BlueSky.
Her book is Designing and Facilitating Workshops with Intentionality: A Guide to Crafting Engaging Professional Learning Experiences in Higher Education. Check out the dedicated book landing page on her website that includes links to the different places where it can be purchased. If you’d prefer the publisher’s website, that can be found here.
And please find below some links to the resources Tolu mentioned during the interview:
Transcript
36:43
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
workshop design, UDL principles, facilitation, professional development, inclusive environment, collective learning, active learning, reflective learning, learner engagement, backward design, needs assessment, accessible materials, multi-directional learning, liberating structures, educational developers
SPEAKERS
Lillian Nave, Tolu Noah
Lillian Nave 00:02
Welcome to think UDL, the universal design for learning podcast where we hear from the people who are designing and implementing strategies with learner variability in mind. I’m your host, Lillian Nave, and I’m interested in not just what you’re teaching, learning, guiding and facilitating, but how you design and implement it, and why it even matters. Welcome to Episode 145 of the think UDL podcast, intentional workshop design with Tolu Noah. Dr Tolu Noah is the instructional learning spaces coordinator at California State University Long Beach, and is a gifted speaker, facilitator and presenter every time I get the chance to talk with Tolu, I learn something new, inventive and helpful for my own teaching and presenting. I’m very happy to get a chance to talk to her about her upcoming book, designing and facilitating workshops with intentionality, a guide to crafting engaging professional learning experiences in higher education. I had the chance to be a pre reader for the book, and I am so excited to see this out in the world soon, because I think it will help so many of us who teach in our various contexts. It’s an incredibly thoughtful and helpful guide, and you can find out more about her book and how to pre order on the resource section for this episode at think udl.org and you can pre order the book June 4 through 24th before its release date of June 25 of 2025 today’s conversation delves into how UDL is such an important part and a guiding principle of Toluse practice and her book and how UDL can help design really fantastic learning opportunities in the workshop format. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of The think UDL podcast. Welcome back to the think UDL podcast, Tolu, I am so happy to have you. Thank you. I’m so happy to be here. It is really great. I’m very excited about this project that I have got to see, actually, a little sneak peek. So I wanted to really hear about this book that I think everybody should be getting. There are a couple of books I’m super excited about. Yours is one of them. And of course, my friend Jen, pustiri, who’s coming out with something, but like you two, I cannot wait to get this. It’s so good. We’re gonna have book clubs all over the place with this. Okay, so I’ve already had you on the podcast previously, so I’ve got a slightly different question to start with, besides the usual, what makes you a different kind of learner? So today, I’d like to know why did you write the book, and why now, what spurred this on for you?
Tolu Noah 03:08
Great question. So I wrote this book for a few different reasons. One is that although workshops are one of the most common forms of programming that we offer in higher ed, I didn’t really see any in depth resources about this topic that were specifically geared towards those of us who work in higher ed. So there are lots of great books that focus on other forms of programming, like Faculty Learning Communities. There are great books that have maybe a few pages or a chapter devoted to workshop design and facilitation. And there are great books about workshops that are geared towards other audiences, like K 12, not nonprofit and corporate, but in terms of something in depth that’s really focused on higher ed facilitators, I didn’t really see anything else out there, so I felt like this could help fill an important gap. Another reason that I wrote this book is because of my passion for professional learning. I genuinely enjoy designing learning experiences for adult learners, and it’s one of the main ways that I express my creativity, and so I wanted to create a guide that kind of brings together everything I’ve been learning about facilitation and the resources that I found most helpful my own personal journey, in hopes that this might be useful to others, whether they are brand new to facilitation and want to pick up some tips or their experience and just want to, yeah, explore some other options for how They can do this work. And then a third reason I wrote this book is and this kind of gets at your why now question. It actually was sparked by an invitation that I received to do a three hour workshop about how to design workshops. And so while I was planning that workshop, I also had the opportunity to write an article for EDUCAUSE review about how to design virtual workshops well, and I got really great feedback from the three hour workshop I did. And I also found out that the article I wrote for EDUCAUSE review ended up being one of the most popular articles for the first quarter of 2023 so I was like, Okay, I think there’s something here. Clearly, there’s an interest in learning more about. For workshop design and facilitation. And even in the months and years since I’ve started writing this book, I’ve just been noticing even more that people have been asking, like, Hey, does anyone have any resources about workshop design and whatnot? So I’m like, okay, clearly there’s an interest in this topic, and I’m really excited to help contribute to that conversation. Yeah, your passion really shows and shines. And yes, in everything you do. And yeah, there’s not, we don’t have something, and certainly not as comprehensive as what you have written. Because I’ve had the chance to read through your book, and I absolutely love it. In fact, I remember reading through it, you know, a long time ago, giving feedback and thinking, Oh, she needs to really talk. Oh, there she is. She’s talking about it. Oh, the next thing she should really Oh, there it is. She did it. Every single thing. It’s like, okay, this is amazing. It’s a perfect handbook for facilitators, I think. And you’ve put the unwritten rules and all of the best tips into print, and I am so thankful for this. So I also love it because of the UDL principles throughout the whole book and your first two chapters start with relevant and purposeful as the guiding themes to workshop development. This, of course, is linked to UDL guidelines of engagement and specifically the call to optimize relevance, value and authenticity. So what are some considerations to make a professional development session both relevant and purposeful. So first, I just want to say thank you so much for your kind words, and also thank you so much for being one of the people who read the full book and provided such helpful feedback and made the book what it is today. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you for that happy to do it. I was so excited to read it. I must say it was thank you for that opportunity. I thought one of the UDL people that’s like, yes, so that meant a lot to me. So thank you for that. And as you mentioned, I do use UDL as one of the primary frameworks in the book, but we’re looking at them through the lens of facilitation. So as we’re designing and facilitating workshop experiences, how can we use these principles to inform our design? So in terms of making professional learning relevant, I think it’s really important to start by listening to our learners, whether our learners our instructors or students or staff, because that will give us insight into the topics that are really of interest to them and the challenges that they’re facing. And so you could do something like administer a needs assessment survey or conduct a listening tour to get a sense of what’s top of mind for people, so that you can design future workshops with those topics in mind. And I would also say beyond that, there are lots of really simple moves that we can make to design for relevancy. So for example, if you are designing a workshop for instructors, then you might want to think about things like how you’re naming the workshop, so naming it in a way that will appeal to them and the things that they’re really interested in, instead of using a really generic title. So for example, if I were doing a workshop about Padlet, instead of naming it Padlet 101, I might call it something like creating engaging learning experiences with Padlet, because that more clearly communicates how this tool is going to be of use and value to instructors. You can also have instructors do things during the workshop that directly align with the courses they teach and with the tasks that they would typically do in their work. So if you were doing a workshop about formative assessment techniques, then including time during the session where they can actually plan a formative assessment technique that they will use in their courses over the next couple of weeks. And then scheduling, I think, is another way that we can design for relevancy. So thinking about what, what are instructors really focused on at different times of year? So for example, at the beginning of the year, everyone’s really thinking about their syllabi. So maybe that’s a really good time to actually do a workshop about designing inclusive syllabi, things like that, in terms of making professional learning purposeful, I think it’s really important to start with like, What is our goal for this experience? Like, why are we having this workshop in the first place? Start with the goal. Very No, yes, yes, yes, yes. And one thing I talk about in the book is how facilitators can leverage Wigan and Zimmer ties backward design approach, along with things taxonomy of significant learning to first of all, identify the learning goals for the workshop and then determine the formative assessments that will be used to check for understanding and then the activities participants will do. And I will say that oftentimes when designing workshops, it’s easy to jump right to the activities part, because that’s the fun part. You’re like, Ooh, what are the what are the cool ways I’m going to make this enjoyable for people, and even though I know that, like, the backwards design approach can be really helpful, like, my brain, of course, just naturally jumps to like, what are the fun things I want to do? But I think that when we start with that process of goals, assessments and then and then activities, we can ensure that everything really is aligned, and that we’re not including things in the workshop that are not going to be useful to the people we’re designing for? Nice, yeah, absolutely. So UDL aligned. And I really appreciated, actually, all of the theories and the ideas that kind of shaped the book. I know you brought in Josh Eilers work too, and, yeah, so much great stuff that helped to shape why you’re doing like.
Lillian Nave 10:01
Yeah, all of it makes total sense to me. But you also gave like, this is where it comes from, and here’s here’s why we’re doing it. So I love it. It’s great. Let me also ask you about your emphasis on creating an inclusive environment and collective learning experience, which we see is very related to UDL, because that’s about fostering collaboration and interdependence and collective learning. But what does an inclusive environment with a collective learning experience look like in a well designed workshop?
Tolu Noah 10:31
Great question. So I would say that there are lots of things we can do to design and facilitate workshops with an inclusive mindset, and this starts with the planning process. So one of the practices that I talk about in the book is actually taking a really critical look at our workshop plans and identifying the potential barriers that participants might face in advance and how you can proactively address them. And this is a practice that comes from CAST, which is the organization that created the UDL guidelines. And I think it’s really helpful for designing workshops with variability in mind too, because you’ve taken the time to think through, okay, these are the potential, yeah, potential issues that might arise. And this is what I can do in response. And I think this also really aligns well with the plus one approach that Tobin and billings write about in their book, reach everyone, teach everyone, where you try to determine at least one additional way that you can support participants in their learning. So for example, if you’re designing a workshop that’s addressing a really complex topic with, you know, lots of different parts, then maybe you want to think in advance about how you can create some sort of visual aid to accompany that, like a graphic organizer that helps people see how all of those different components are related. So yeah, I think taking the time to think about those barriers and how to address them, especially using that plus one approach can be really, really helpful. And I would also say that we can’t talk about inclusivity without talking about accessibility. And so here we want to think about how we can design our materials and the actual learning space where the workshop will be held in an accessible manner. So when we’re creating our handouts and slides, you want to think about things like including alternative text for the images. If we’re facilitating virtually, we want to think about things like ensuring the captions are enabled if we’re still facilitating on site, you know, thinking about using mics so that everyone can hear everyone, things like that, and then in terms of fostering a collective learning experience, one thing I talk about in the book is how workshops should be spaces of multi directional learning, where everyone can learn from each other, versus just like everyone’s coming to learn just from the facilitator. But in order for this to happen, I think it’s important to be intentional about fostering three different types of connections, and in my book, I refer to these as facilitator to learner, where we are connecting with them, learner to facilitator, where they’re connecting with us, and then learner to learner, where they’re connecting with each other. And there are many different practical ways we can do this, but I’ll share just a few ideas for that last learner to learner connections piece. So I am a huge fan of liberating structures, and these are a set of, I think, over 30 different strategies that you can use to spark thinking and collaboration in sessions. And one very simple, liberating structure that you can use is called 124, all. So you would pose a question to the group, have them reflect independently in writing, and then they would pair with someone else to discuss their their responses. And then each pair would join another pair to form a group before and talk about the responses, and then you invite each group to just share one insight that they discussed with the whole group. I also really enjoy using the discussion protocols that are available on the Center for Leadership and educational equity website. So one example of a text based protocol is called the text rendering experience, where participants would first of all read a text, and then they would break up into small groups, and they would have a three round discussion, where during the first round, everyone shares a sentence from the text that resonated with them. Then during the second round, everyone shares a phrase. During the third round, everyone shares a word, and then after that, they just kind of have an open ended discussion about the themes. And so this can be a really great way to kind of structure discussions about any text, where you want people to kind of dig a little bit deeper into the meanings and implications of that. And then one last idea I’ll share for now is crowdsourcing activities where you’re kind of leveraging the collective wisdom and experience that’s in the group. So this could be as simple as creating a Google Doc or a Padlet and assigning different topics or different sections to each group and then giving them time to simply populate the document or populate their section with ideas or resources that might be of benefit to other people. So those are just a few ideas for creating a more inclusive and collective learning experience.
Lillian Nave 14:37
Yes, and you make me think of a lot of those techniques are all about learner agency, especially like, yeah, although that collective learning, those last liberating structures, especially whenever we can get our learners to, like, put it into practice, to try it out, right, to participate in. And it doesn’t have to be verbally, right? It could be writing on the document, or even just that reflective part. I know that you were saying, if we give, if we design for that, then we really are offering that chance for our learners to take charge, right, of their own education, which you know the when the UDL guidelines had their revamping this past summer, or the summer 2024 it went from expert learner to learner agency. Right? Like that was the the big shift in language about what a what we want our learners to be, no longer an expert in learning, but that they have agency over what they’re going to be doing. You know, very similar to be an expert, but but just that they’re taking charge of what they want to do. And those are, yeah, really fantastic techniques. And yeah makes it a lot less boring to be in a workshop if you are communicating right? And I know as faculty developers, one of the big conferences people go to is the pod conference. A lot of people go to that, but it’s like, you go there and you’re like, oh my goodness, every workshop, I have to participate like you do not sit in the back, right?
Tolu Noah 16:13
We have to practice what we preach, right? Yes, you are always participating. And I’m like, Oh, wow, this is a lot. It’s good, it’s good, but it helps us to, yeah, to put it into practice for sure. So okay, there are a couple chapters too, where you stress both active and reflective learning in workshops. And of course, those are UDL aligned principles or ideas as well. So I’m asking, What are your favorite ways to incorporate active learning in person or online workshops, or how do you get participants to take time to be reflective during a workshop, which is, you know, an activity as well? So this is a hard question, simply because there are so many great active learning strategies that we could use. I’ll share just a couple that, once again, could really be applied in pretty much any modality. One simple favorite is incorporating polling activities, and this works well, both in on site and in virtual workshops. My favorite polling tool at the moment is Mentimeter, because there’s so many different question types you can ask. So you can do multiple choice, word cloud, open ended. There’s like pin on image ranking and all these other options. And Mentimeter also has some really great features for quickly summarizing the responses and also grouping them. So if you’re facilitating with a really large group, this can be a really great tool to use. And what I love about polling activities is that every person can participate, and they don’t take a lot of time. So it’s really great for incorporating these kind of short bursts of active learning throughout an entire session. Another strategy that I enjoy using are choice boards, where participants can choose which topics they want to learn about or which activities they want to do. And so I’ve created choice boards using tools like Padlet and Google Slides, where I link different resources and then ask participants to choose a certain number of them that they’re going to explore, and then we can have a really fruitful discussion after the fact about what they learned from those resources too. And that can be a really great way to honor people’s autonomy and also tap into that relevancy factor, because they can choose the topics that are of interest to them, that they feel would be most useful in their work. And then something I’ve been trying to do more of in my virtual workshops is incorporating more analog activities where we’re kind of bringing in the physical into the virtual. Because I think sometimes when we’re facilitating virtually, we can feel like we have to do everything on the computer, but there’s something really fun and novel about like having people do something on paper, or grab an object and use that for an activity. So I might ask people to grab a sheet of paper, draw something related to the topic, and then, if they feel comfortable doing so, hold it up to the camera. And then we can have a discussion about that. Or I might do a mini scavenger hunt, where I ask people to grab something in their environment that relates to the topic we’re discussing, bring it back, and then we can, once again, use that as a jumping off point for discussions. And then, as you mentioned, it is really important to incorporate time for reflection, because that’s where people are going to make meaning of the experience. And I do this in a few different ways. So first of all, I would say that during the entire workshop, I kind of have these small doses of reflection throughout the entire experience, where I’ll pose a question for people to either think about or write about or respond to, and then I also always include some type of formal reflection or action planning activity at the very end, and that’s more about what people learn from the experience as a whole. So one of my favorite reflection activities is called, wow, how now? And I learned about this from let these citizen who said that it came from another educator named Kia Turner, so I want to give them prompts for that. And here you ask participants to share their responses to three prompts. So the first one is a wow, which is the takeaway from the experience. The second one is a how, which is a remaining question that they have. And then the last one is a now, which is the next step. So if you are facilitating virtually, you can maybe create a padlet board or a poll where people can submit their responses, or they can just share in the chat. If you’re doing it on site and it’s a small group, maybe you’ll ask people to choose one of those and do kind of like a round robin share, where each person can share aloud, or they can post it on, write them on post it notes that they stick up on the walls. But what I really love about this activity is that it incorporates not only reflecting on the experience, but also thinking about, what are you going to do with this moving forward? So that’s one favorite. Another favorite is called the 555, Action Plan, and I learned about this from a former colleague. So here you have participants generate three next steps, so something they will do in the next five minutes, five days and five weeks, and you could change those periods of time if you wanted to as well. What I really like about this approach is that it includes a mixture of short term and long term goals, so things that people can do immediately to other things that they might want to take a little bit more time to flush out. But those are a few favorites.
Lillian Nave 20:57
I love that you do polling, and that’s actually one of my favorites. And what I think is the magical part for me is that that’s the way that I get to see learning happening, or I get to, you know, see what they’re thinking, see what the whole room is. Is about like when you do that polling, and I I love that. I love it I loved it in the classroom, and I love it in workshops, because there are so many great tools. I love menti and Poll Everywhere is another great one. But I love it when you can, you said you could put, like, a.on a chart, or you can do a continuum or something. And I love seeing like, the whole room can, like, post up, like, where are you on this issue? Are you over here? You know, kind of a Likert scale, somewhat agree. Or, you know, you’re on one side or the other, and then we can see, oh, look, here’s a whole room of people, and we have all these different opinions about it. Or, you know, that’s okay, you know, it’s, it’s great that we have this diversity here. We’re not trying to make everybody have this one answer. And it’s just it’s my favorite thing to do, and it’s so engaging. So we get that engaging part, that active learning part, but also I feel like they’re reflecting. Whenever I get a chance to do that too, I’m like, no way. There’s like, five other people who thought the same weird, you know, even it’s like the weird fruit. I like, I don’t know, you know, you just feel like you are part of the collective. You know that you’re collaborating, even if it’s just something really small. And I can’t believe I didn’t do that for a long time, or I didn’t know about it anyway, and now that we have the technology, I just I do. I love it. I’m glad that’s one of your favorites too, because it’s definitely, yeah, one of mine, that’s a good one. And it’s just, it’s so easy to incorporate that, you know, it’s easy to do a lot of UDL stuff. And you actually, I think you make it so straightforward, especially in the book, and what you do, it’s like, oh, this is what it means when I’m reading all of these guidelines. Like, what does that even mean? Oh, well, here’s Tolu. Is here to explain, you know, what we can do to incorporate that so. And in chapter 10, you talk about something, and I’m going to read a little bit quoting you how our identity and values, beliefs and prior experiences as facilitators shape our distinctive approaches to workshop design and filipi and facilitation. And you’re writing this book during the summer that the UDL guidelines were being updated by cast and in the newly released guidelines, the newly renamed section called emotional capacity, which is, of course, something I’m very interested in, asks us as facilitators or educators to recognize our own expectations and beliefs and motivations and also to be mindful and develop an awareness of others and ourselves. So how do you see that whole part fitting into workshop facilitation? Because I think it comes at, of course, a very important time as the UDL guidelines, we’re also considering that.
Tolu Noah 24:06
Yeah, so I see this fitting into facilitation in the sense that, like, each facilitator is unique, right? So we all have different backgrounds, beliefs, values and experiences that shape how we approach this work, and we’re all also working in very different contexts that impact how we do our work, too. And so because of this, one thing that I talk about a lot in the book is that there’s no one right way to do this work like everyone’s going to have a slightly different flavor when they are facilitating workshops, when they’re designing experiences. So for example, some people like me are like very detailed planners. Other people work more from an outline, there’s going to be a lot of variation within that. And also the way we actually show up when we’re facilitating an experience will look a little bit different. So some activities will work well for certain facilitators. Others would be like, yeah, that wouldn’t work well for me, and I think it’s really important to recognize that and to actually take the time to reflect on who. Who we are and how that shapes what we do. Because I think this can help us to both honor the diversity of ways that people can come to this work, but also learn from the unique approaches that others are using, and figure out, yeah, what can I take from this and apply to my own context? And what might be is not something that’s going to work for me or for the people that I’m working with right now, and I think that’s important to just recognize and celebrate,
Lillian Nave 25:22
yeah. I mean, the more people I talk to in this in this world, and that’s my as a podcaster, right? I get to talk to people all over the world. People are coming from a whole bunch of different entries into higher ed. Yeah, we’ve got a lot of faculty members that are in, at least in my new role that I’ve never taught before, right? And they’re coming in as practitioners, so a professor of practice, or is one of the kind of monikers we have for them. And there’s people that are coming into faculties development from a whole bunch of different roles as well, right? You have faculty that are like, I totally want to do this work, or some that have never taught, they’ve gone right into educational development. Yeah, there’s just so many different backgrounds, and which is great because, yeah, I learned something new from every you know, different way people are doing this. And I think it also seems to be dependent, like on where people are in their comfortability, either in their role or in their career. Like, I mean, did you find a difference in when you first started to where you are now? Like, how? Yeah, how you feel comfortable in doing certain things?
Tolu Noah 26:36
100% Yeah, it’s, it’s one of those things where the more you do it, the more you kind of figure out. Like, this is who I am as a facilitator, and also the more that you are okay with that. Because I think sometimes I don’t know if you’ve ever felt this where you see someone else doing it a certain way, and you’re like, oh, I need to do it like that. Yeah, you know? And there’s Yeah, and so I think there’s this point where you’re just like, I don’t actually need to do it like that, because the way I’m doing it and the way I’m showing up is working for me, and it’s working for the people I’m partnering with. And so I think there’s just this, this gradual process of just celebrating the way that you do this work and recognizing that it’s just as valuable, and,
Lillian Nave 27:14
yeah, just just as valuable as a way maybe other people might do it like it doesn’t have to look like everyone else’s approach in order for it to be effective. And what I really love, too, about the book is that you’ve given just multiple ways to do it. It’s like a UDL choice board, pretty much, you know, for facilitators, it’s like, you know, you could do it this way, like, here’s, here’s some ideas about backwards design, right? But there’s like, 45 ways you could think about how you’re going to backwards design this, this workshop, or you want to do some learner engagement. Here’s 25 different things that. You know, I might be exaggerating on all of those, but you have so many jam there are a lot of there are, yeah, and so I’m just thinking about a reader for this book is going to look at it and say, Well, I don’t think I’m I don’t really want to use techno like a tool to do polling, but I would, I think I might, you know, incorporate that in my small college and my small workshops that I do, and, you know, we’re gonna have a poll discussion and do it with cards, you know, or so, there’s, it’s like, yeah, what works in your context, what you feel comfortable doing, and your identity, like where you are and and where you’re coming from, and kind of, yeah, what position you are, as to what’s what’s going to work. But you provide all of these great options, which, which I love. I learned a lot. And one thing I would add, too, is like, I think this is part of the what I find really fun about this is like, I’ll see an idea or something that I’ve done before, and then I’ll come up with a completely different way of doing that. And it’s like, I love that. Where I’m like, Okay, this is, this is the way I’ve been doing it, but here’s another approach. Or I’ll watch someone else facilitating, and I’m like, Ooh, I like this part, and I’m gonna combine it with this other thing to turn it into something brand new. And so I think just being open to the fact that, yeah, there’s a lot that you can do, and a lot of ways that you could maybe take something that you’re already doing and make a slight tweak to, you know, make it a little bit more effective or a little bit more engaging, and just engaging in that constant process of reflecting on your own practices is so key and so helpful. Yeah, again, reflection super important, because we don’t learn from experience. We learn from reflecting upon experience. Paraphrase there of John Dewey, very paraphrased on that one. So it’s just provided so much like it is jam packed. I don’t know how many pages it’s going to be finally, but it’s got so much in there, which is so great. So it feels like you could read it a number of ways, like you could just, like, zone in on, like, one of the chapters, or you could read it from, you know, front to back, which I enjoyed doing, like, a handbook. I think it might be a really good handbook. Yeah, maybe I’m getting into my final question already, because I’m thinking of. Out all different things. Okay, so when is this coming out? When can we hope to see this book and who would benefit? How do you think it’s going to be used?
Tolu Noah 30:09
Yeah, so the book will be released in June 2025, and it’s being published by Rutledge, and you’ll be able to find it at pretty much any major book retailer. In terms of who would benefit from this book, I would say this book is great for anyone in higher ed whose role entails facilitating workshops for adult learners. So that would be educational developers, faculty developers, instructional designers, academic technology specialists, the list goes on. I would also say, if you’re an instructor who facilitates workshops at conferences, this could be a helpful resource. It just kind of sparks some ideas of things that you things that you can do in your sessions. And then if you work in a completely like different context, like if you’re in corporate or business, or maybe even k 12, even though the book isn’t necessarily written with those contexts directly, I think that there are principles and activities from this that you could easily adapt to your work. And I’ll say in my own practice, I’m not one who says, Oh, I can only read books that are labeled higher ed and get No, I I have so many different books that I’ve read from all different fields and all different contexts, I always am able to take things from there and adapt it to my specific work. And so I would say the same thing applies to this book, that even if you’re not 100% in higher ed. You know, officially, there are things that you can take here and, yeah, adapt for your context.
Lillian Nave 31:26
Yeah, and I can definitely see it like being a book that everybody has, like, in your back pocket, because it’s, it’s almost encyclopedic in its reach, about so many, yeah, so many different things that are really, really helpful in in thinking about engaging thoughtful techniques, is just what I kept thinking about as well. She’s, you know, maybe we’re just on the same wavelength. But I was like, she’s thought of everything. This is really great.
Tolu Noah 31:57
Oh, thank you.
Lillian Nave 31:58
Really, really helpful. Yeah. So I could definitely see it like on the bookshelf of any center of teaching and learning. And to be like, Well, have you read Tolu’s book? I mean, have you, you know, after we don’t, it’s a really great opportunity to be like, hey, check check this out. This has some really great ideas, if anybody stuck or wants to reinvigorate, like, what they’re doing, like, oh, I hadn’t thought about that, because we don’t, we don’t have a book on giving a workshop, and, yeah, some of them are really amazing, like yours. They’re really fun and engaging. But there are also so many times, and I know everybody has had this experience where you’re like, Okay, I know I have to be here or I’m supposed to be here, but I didn’t get much or anything from that, even though it’s important, and I know it’s supposed to be good, but that facilitation part could have used a little bit of to lose magic. That’s what I’m saying.
Tolu Noah 32:59
Thank you. Appreciate your kind words.
Lillian Nave 33:02
Yeah, we and, yeah, we don’t want to turn people off about, you know, what we’re doing by having a kind of an esoteric or just, you know, a non workable workshop. So it’s, it’s really such a win, win, well.
Tolu Noah 33:16
And I would add that, especially for anyone that’s like an educational developer, like, we want to model those practices that we’re hoping instructors will use in their work as well, and they’re watching what we’re doing. Like, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had an instructor like, message me, either in the chat or after a session and say, Ooh, that activity that you did, like, I’m going to try something like that in my classes. Or, Oh, I noticed that your slides weren’t, like, full of text. Like, I need to rethink my slide design, even things were like I wasn’t, but that wasn’t the goal of the session, but they’re still noticing those things. So I think it’s really important to remember that, yeah, we are modeling whether we recognize it or not, every time that we’re facilitating. And how can we model the types of pedagogies and approaches and inclusive practices and everything we talked about today that, you know, we hope that instructors will be able to reflect on in their own work too, exactly, and it’s, it’s those things that, like, you don’t realize were helpful. Like, if somebody gets an accessible document or handout, it’s like, Oh, what’s this whole like layout on the left hand side, like, I can just skip to the part that I need. I didn’t even know I could do that. And that nothing to do with what we’re doing. But here’s the accessible document, so that you you know, you can easily find that information. And here it is. And yeah, and it’s the modeling part where, like, there’s so many things to pick up on and that make it easier for students to learn. When, when they sit there and they’re like, Wow, I got so much out of it. I learned so much. It was easy to learn there were lower barriers. And then like, Hmm, maybe I can do that in my, you know, in my own context. Wouldn’t that be great? Well, thank you so much for coming back on the think Udall podcast. It’s amazing always to talk to you.
Lillian Nave 34:59
You, and I am very excited for your book to come out, so I’m really glad to get the word out. Thank you. Thank you for writing this book. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me, and I hope it’ll be a helpful resource to anyone who picks it up. Great. Oh, I know it well, so thank you. And we’ll have on the resources page, you can find out more about how to get it and be sure to pick it up for your next facilitation. So thanks Tolu.
Tolu Noah 35:27
Thank you Lillian,
Lillian Nave 35:31
thank you for listening to this episode of The think UDL podcast. New episodes are posted on social media, on LinkedIn, Facebook, X and blue sky. You can find transcripts and resources pertaining to each episode on our website. ThinkUDL.org. The music in each episode is created by the Odyssey quartet. Oddyssey is spelled with two Ds, by the way, comprised of Rex Shepard, David Pate, Bill Folwell and Jose Cochez. I’m your host, Lillian Nave, and I want to thank Appalachian State University for helping to support this podcast. And if you call it Appalachian, I’ll throw an apple at you. Thank you for joining. I’m your host. Lillian Nave, thanks for listening to the think UDL podcast.