Promoting IF Discussion Methodology in Georgia through Teaching

by Ia Natsvlishvili

I recently taught the course “EU Social Policy and Multicultural Processes” at [the] Institute for European Studies, Tbilisi State University, Tbilisi, Georgia. It was for the first time I taught this course using IF methodology.  [The] Course aimed to introduce graduate students [to] social policy as the use of political power to supersede, supplement or modify operations of economic systems in order to achieve results which the economic system would not achieve on its own.  During one month when I was delivering the course using IF discussion methodology, I was receiving conversation advice and recommendations from IF instructors Mr. Mark Notturno and Mrs. Ieva Notturno via Skype. I found these conversations very helpful for the teacher like me who was teaching [a] course using IF discussion methodology for the first time.

The course was delivered and the discussions were conducted in English and the discussion summaries were produced in English too. It seems to me that despite the fact that English was not the native language of the students, the discussions flowed very smoothly.  All students found facilitation sessions very useful. They told to me that discussion and facilitation sessions helped them to improve communication skills and to feel much more self-confident and self directed.  Even when discussants were tired because of very intensive discussion sessions almost every day, they were participating with the interest. I also noticed that sometimes the sessions tended to transform in[to] a general debate rather than facilitation on a specific issue.

Below are some comments from discussion summaries [the students] had developed after their facilitation sessions:

“…..The discussion was very fruitful. From the beginning I thought that it would be difficult to facilitate the discussion and I thought that I could not find the topic to concentrate on. However, after 5 minutes I already found out the right way and the discussion topics were flowing endless from the participants. I tried to be as relaxed as I could in order to create friendly and free atmosphere for the participants of the group. However, I felt that I could not catch up with their discussion and have underrepresented Flip Charts.”

“…….First I thought that I could not manage to facilitate well, but piece by piece everything was putting in order. I would say that I participants were totally involved in our discussion. They were contributing their ideas and helped me to concentrate on our not so interesting topic. …….I would proudly say that we managed to come up from the situation and which is very important, we exchanged our skills and knowledge, and each of us had learnt a lot about this issue.”

“………The process of facilitation was interesting the participants came up with useful ideas regarding our area of concern… The participants were very productive, however I think that a skilled facilitator could get more ideas from them than I did.”

“……….There were just 4 participants in the discussion group, but in spite of this they all contributed actively and made a huge work. Firstly they were a bit unconfident, but during the discussion this problem was eliminated. ”

I think that IF discussion process revealed the peculiarities in content and procedure of discussion process about social issues in Georgia. First of all, students found [it] easier to think about policy possibilities and the ways of their implementation rather [than] to identify the major concern area. Why it happened so? To my mind, it happened because in transitional countries like Georgia people are much more concerned about social issues than in developed countries and it is very hard for them to identify which one is “the major” and which one is the “minor concern”.  Secondly, the discussion process revealed the “hottest” political issues in Georgia: existence of refugees from the conflict regions of Georgia.  Because of political reasons there are several hundred thousand of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from two breakaway regions of Georgia. One of the major concern[s] was the protection of human rights of IDPs.

After the reflection on the course I conducted using IF methodology, I have learned several lessons. First of all I believe that discussants should have a least one week before the next facilitation session. Students should have time for the reflection on previous facilitation session and writing the discussion summaries.  Otherwise they might find the IF discussion sessions tiring.  Despite the fact that students were interested to [learn] IF methodology, [the] course was quite demanding for them because we were conducting IF discussions almost every day.  [The] course itself required a lot of readings and writings (discussion summaries and discussion notes) every day. To give to the students “a little bit rest,” I decided [that] each student [would] facilitate only once a week.

Secondly, to my mind it would be much more useful to devote more time for the explanation of [the] IF Mission and IF discussion procedure than I did during the course.  Otherwise students might not understand the goals of facilitation sessions correctly.  I found they enjoyed be[ing a] facilitator more than to be a contributor of ideas. I think that they did not [at first] understand the role of facilitator. They thought that their job was to record the ideas on the flip-chart (especially it was so during their first facilitation sessions).  For the second facilitation session, situation changed: they enjoyed be[ing a] contributor of ideas more.

I also believe that it would be much more useful for students to lecture [to them first on] the topics that are directly related to the topic of discussion. I was lecturing the assigned topics from the syllabus that were not directly connected with the topic of discussion.  Of course it was about the social policy but not about the concern areas that were discussed during the particular discussion.

In general, teaching by using IF discussion methodology was helpful for me. I would like to admit that I personally gained a lot of knowledge from the students and from the teaching process itself because [the] IF discussion process improved my communication skills [and] enriched my understanding of teaching methods and the content of the course I teach.

This might be easier said than done, of course.  Most faculty are used to conducting discussions where they serve as an expert arbiter of right and wrong answers. And faculty are used to structuring discussions or lectures to lead toward pre-determined insights or lessons.  It’s another matter entirely to teach in a way that facilitates the discovery of something new and that fosters the social construction of divergent possibilities. To teach in such a way is to be comfortable with not knowing, to be comfortable with uncertainty about which way a discussion will go, and to be comfortable working with others to think of different ways forward.

To engage in such collaborative and exploratory discussions requires one to participate in a certain way, whether one is a teacher or a student. It requires that one act in a certain way, exhibiting a willingness to explore possibilities and generosity of spirit. It requires, in other words, certain kinds of virtue. How can we teach such behaviors? How can we instill such virtues? Students need to see them in action—and they need a chance to practice them. As Louis Menand remarks in his essay on “Re-imagining Liberal Education”:

The Deweyan answer to questions like these would be that you cannot teach people a virtue by requiring them to read books about it. You can only teach a virtue by calling on people to exercise it. Virtue is not an innate property of character; it is an attribute of behavior.

If a classroom is going to focus on student-centered discussion, then students need not only to be taught about what they might be doing and why—they’ll need to see it and experience it firsthand as they are engaged by their instructor. This is why students need to experience faculty demonstration and modeling of discussion facilitation as well as guided practice. Yet in higher education contexts, we’re not always so ready to provide such experiences. Menand notes that while “every progressive nursery school director” can tell you that students learn socially and learn by doing, “American higher education provides almost no formal structure, almost no self-conscious design, for imagining pedagogy in this spirit.”

The first focal point for faculty who’d like to engage in teaching student-centered discussions is their own behavior. What are the attributes that students will need to engage successfully in exploratory and developmental discussions? What are the behaviors of inquisitiveness, sympathy, open-mindedness, intellectual curiosity, and collegiality we’d like to see students exhibit in their student-centered discussions? Well these are the same attributes, the same behaviors that students will look to find in their instructors. Menand reminds us, “For those of us who are teachers, it isn’t what we teach that instills virtue; it’s how we teach. We are the books our students read most closely.”

–Jeff Prudhomme

When you think back on key moments in your life, what would you say has influenced your development more—special books, or special persons?  When you think back on high school or college, which do you remember more—a particular class or a particular book you read?  Which do you turn to most frequently when you need guidance about an important decision—something you read or listen to, or someone you can talk with?

If you’re like most people, I suspect you answered these questions by saying that it’s certain people that make the difference in our development, our education, and our ongoing efforts to make our way in the world.  Teachers, mentors, and advisors, not texts, are what count.

This isn’t news to most of us, nor is it news to psychologists, scholars, teachers, or education reformers.  Teachers are the most important ingredient in educational success.  Good teachers explain why Finland has the world’s best public education system.

This matters to IF’s educational efforts, yes.  But it also matters to IF’s public discussions.  IF has put a lot of effort into developing “curricular” materials for public discussions.  More will be.  But even more important to the success of these discussions is the quality of the “teachers”—the facilitators—who organize and conduct them.  Schools can “enforce” attention to texts in a way that IF public discussion facilitators cannot.  Students have time for studying that citizens often lack.  Hence even the best discussion texts are likely to be forever limited in the degree they can contribute to IF’s public discussions.

What is likely to continue to matter more is the quality of our facilitators.  And here two abilities stand out: facilitators’ capacity to (1) recruit participants with a variety of perspectives and (2) be simultaneously responsive to participants’ interests and push them beyond their comfort zones.

Ask someone who’s participated in an IF public discussion and they’re likely to tell you “It’s the facilitator who made the difference.”

One idea is to continue to modify our reports—perhaps including photos, suggested readings,
more bullet points and white space, and/or a more conversational tone.  These ideas derive
from the point of view that says that the reports are intended for discussion participants.

An alternative approach would be to entirely shift the focus with regard to intended audience of
our reports.  While we might still give a copy of the reports to participants in one of our
discussions, they would really be intended for use by the facilitator.  By this reasoning, we are
hoping that our facilitators will read and understand the report, contact the author for
clarification—if needed, and then appropriate the material to their discussion per their
discretion.  With this approach, we could even set up a system by which there would be a web
page on which different approaches to facilitating the discussion of a particular report could be
posted.  Tools that worked well for a particular group of citizens could be shared, along with an
introduction as to the setting in which they were used.

Consider a couple of recent disasters:  the BP oil debacle unfolding on the Gulf Coast and, before
that, the explosion at the Massey mine in West Virginia.  In both of these situations, there have
emerged some questions with regard to the attentiveness of the regulatory authorities that were
supposed to be manning the switch so as to prevent such catastrophes.  When I watch the
citizens who are directly affected by these events being interviewed on television (say the
fishermen on Dauphin Island or the miners in Rock Creek, WV), I think to myself, “Wow, it
sure would be interesting to facilitate those folks in a discussion of our regulation report.”  And
then I imagine actually facilitating those discussions.  I cannot see how I could effectively do so. 
I think citizens in both of these locations would have a hard time understanding our reports as
they are currently written, and I also feel like I would not have sufficient understanding of these
citizens to effectively interpret our reports into metaphors with which they are accustomed.  This
is where the facilitator’s role is key:  really, both as facilitators of our public discussions and as
participants in our discussions, I think we want to overemphasize citizens who have the ability
to traverse worlds.

As it happens, several of our Fellows grew up in working class communities but then went on to
college and either a Ph.D. or J.D. degree.  Such individuals, including those who have lived in
a different culture for an extended period of time, tend to be better able to interpret ideas and
metaphors across cultures.  These qualities likely make for strong facilitators and for effective
members of a project panel, as individuals with these sorts of experiences are likely better able
to relate to and to be curious about people who see the world very differently than they do.  In
fact, these “travelers” likely have themselves seen the world in (a) very different ways(s) within
their own lifetime.

Years ago, I had a student who had grown up in Iran.  When she wrote a paper, she would, at
scores of places throughout the paper, include large { } brackets with two possible words inside
each bracket.  I found this to be absolutely fascinating in that it suggested that her mind was, 
in effect, structurally designed to see a multiplicity of possibilities.  It was so central to how she
saw the world that it defined how she communicated.  To my mind, that is the IF mindset.

Sorry I’m once again so late posting my blog.  We’re only just finishing the term – final grades are due today.  I’m happy (and a little surprised, frankly) to report that I am an IF convert!  My loftiest goals were not met – students didn’t all decide to become allies on issues of oppression and take over the campus.  However, a bunch of quiet, introverted students spent seven rather intense IF sessions discussing thorny, controversial, hard to discuss issues surrounding racism, sexism, and homophobia.  They didn’t come out with any “product” (other than writing a take-home final on the various issues), but they engaged the material in ways I have not often seen.   They managed to unpack sticky issues surrounding oppression and privilege without simply reinforcing stereotypes or deepening levels of discomfort, all while agreeing to disagree on issues that tapped into deep-seated belief structures.  I think each student was truly challenged (mostly in a good way) on at least one issue, and I learned that the world doesn’t collapse when I’m not in charge.  So, success!

In terms of developing student skills, I tried to focus on the following:

Speaking and contributing to the discussion: given the number of introverts in my class, much of my early work was simply encouraging the quietest students to participate more.   I urged them to bring five discussion points or questions from the reading for each session.  Once they actually started coming in with specific points they had identified, they became more confident about entering the conversation, though a couple were almost always silent unless prompted.  Another piece I found useful was to tell facilitators in their preparation that one of their roles was to draw out the quieter students.  In my feedback to more talkative students (I provided feedback to each student after every session), I also invited them to try to draw out the quieter students, which seemed to help.

Listening:  I had three or four students who were more willing to talk then others, and a couple who had a tendency to occasionally dominate the conversation.  They recognized this in their own reflections, and in our blackboard comments to one another, they commented on the need to listen more and leave more time and space for others to contribute.  When I urged these students to use their comfort level in speaking to try to draw out others, it seemed to help a bit.

Note-taking:  This turned out to be a skill students needed help developing (don’t know why this surprised me).  I didn’t work with this enough, but next time, I think I’ll use part of a class to analyze the first set of notes that are distributed, and we’ll talk about how they are useful and how they might be improved.  In final reflections, several students said they were not sure how to take good news, especially for others’ use.

Facilitating/leading a discussion:   Each student only got to facilitate once, so I was not able to track progress over time for individual students.  I also tried to set up the schedule so that students I deemed most capable and confident would go earlier to set good models (I had distributed a brief survey asking students to rate their strengths and weaknesses on the above skills).   Like others, I found that the shyest students often made the best facilitators.  I think this was in part because they took the preparation more seriously, in part because they were better at directing the conversation than participating in it, and in part because the other students were the talkers.  The two most talkative, highest-achieving students were frustrated through the first half of the sessions, often because they found themselves dominating the conversations but not listening well enough to engage honest dialogue.  As facilitators they had the tendency to take over the conversations, rather than simply guiding them.  They came to recognize these traits, and in their final reflections, both students commented that they had learned the value of listening, though they recognized they weren’t very good at it.  I found it was key to have facilitators share their questions ahead of time so that I could give them feedback.  The students who took this seriously led the best facilitations.  Those who either didn’t send me their questions or sent them too late for feedback struggled the most.

I was initially disappointed not to have the class working toward some major project, but in the end, I was satisfied with using the IF process to generate good, structured discussion of texts that deal with controversial, often hard to discuss topics.  I had too many other mandates for the course and overloaded the course with too much content to do justice to the full IF process. I’m planning to use IF for an upper-level class in the Fall, and I’m looking forward to incorporating all the steps with some type of final project (still to be determined) at the end. I expect this will create more group dissention (I had none this term), but will also push the learning.   We’ll see. For now, I’m happy to report that for this starting skeptic who had way too much packed into a first-year research class, the IF process was a wonderful way to discuss tough ideas and provide an early taste of the facilitation process.  I’m a convert!  

My colleague, Mark, showed me his easel:  a Quartet.  I really liked it– lightweight but solid
aluminum.  He said that his has lasted him four years– also promising!  The one I ordered from
Amazon (cheapest price I could find) ended up being even better– the same lightweight
aluminum but the legs don’t drive from that crappy plastic “blot” most use.  Instead, they just
twist in and out of the top chamber.  Takes a little practice but very nice and one less part to
break.  I had to buy the paper clip separately, but it was also well designed and easy to use (take
up and down) once you figured out the mechanism.  The two together weigh maybe 2-3 lbs.  
REALLY lightweight but very solid.  I used it last night and it worked very well.  You can even
get a handy over-the-shoulder carrying case, which I would highly recommend.  I inadvertantly
stumbled onto pads without the cardboard backing at Office Depot (I ordered the cheaper ones
and was a little ticked at first until I realized they roll up very nicely into a cloth grocery bag so
that I now just have the shoulder case + a cloth grocery bag for everything else; MUCH nicer!).

Here’s the link to the easel– Amazon has the best prices, but if you need any other supplies, you
can easily find a 20$ off coupon for Office Depot, which will allow you to buy the carrying case
(which was in the ballpark of the Amazon price) + the other office supplies (to 100$ or more)
and get the twenty bucks off.

Easel (I compared many of the Quartets and this looked best; now having used it, I really like it):  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0006HUQ5G/ref=oss_product

Clip:  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0006HUQGU/ref=oss_product

Carrying Case @ Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/Quartet-Display-Easel-Carrying-156355/dp/B0006HUP2K/ref=pd_sim_op_3

I spent $100 bucks, about what this adds to, on the last one and got just over a year out of it.

Note that you can also get a carrying case for the easel with cardboard backing:  
http://www.amazon.com/Carrying-100TE-Easels-Interior-QRT100EC/dp/B0006Z0144/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=office-products&qid=1273671405&sr=1-3.

Hope this helps.  Instead of reinventing the research wheel, this will hopefully save others some
time.  Is this the “best” easel?  I’m not sure, but it definitely looks pretty good.

What was interesting to me, having worked at schools in the private and public sectors that aspire
to serve underrepresented students, was that some of the private-sector schools exercise the same
nefarious approaches:  basically, there is a pile of money to be had in federal dollars going to
student financial aid.  These for-profit schools very openly assert that they are going after these
students “that no elite mainstream schools will have.”  University of Phoenix now gets nearly
90% of its revenue from student loan dollars and spends $130 million per year just on marketing.  
Jack Crittenden and I had a long talk the other afternoon about how his own school is trying to
go after these first generation dollars (I mean students) as a means of plugging huge revenue
losses from the state.  

The problem, of course, is that these students need a lot of attention and support if they are
actually to succeed (no that this is the goal).  That’s expensive, and virtually no school is truly
providing this– despite the claims made by these for-profit “schools” and some of their peer 
institutions like Trinity “University” in Washington, DC.  Their president claims to be delivering
to the at-risk students she serves, but don’t believe it:  there is not even a career center to be found
on that campus.  These students are most naive to how higher ed works because they and their
families literally have no experience within it.  These students would be the first in their families
to go to college.  And, while many go, few finish.  All, however, whether they leave with a degree
or not, leave with anywhere from $50,000 – $200,000 in student debt floating to as high as a 
14% interest rate.  We can do better than that, and I think that approaches like Ashoka and IF
could especially be tools that work very well for the most exploited students in the modern academy.

IF has given some thought to creating a facilitation certificate that would allow students to 
document their skill within a realm that is rarely encouraged or assessed in any direct way
within the academy but which is invaluable in the modern workplace.  The question is this:
How could such a certificate be effected?  What might it include?  How could it work in the
typical university setting?  We’d welcome any thoughts or ideas you might have, and so I
wanted to open up a space for faculty to raise any ideas they might have.