Facilitator’s Guide
Section Two: The Big 3 of Content & Competencies
Introduction:
The WhyTry Approach is based on answering the question how to create relevancy and how to build educator-student relationships that facilitate learning. There are many instructional strategies and skills we can master as educators; but we have identified what we refer to as the Big 3 of both the lesson tools and the Big 3 of the facilitator competencies in order to focus on what is most important.
Tools
The Big 3 Lesson Tools:
The three tools that make the foundation of any WhyTry lesson are visual metaphors, videos and other media, and activities. Almost every WhyTry lesson that we create will contain elements of all three. Here is a brief description and some ideas to keep in mind about each.
Tool #1: Visual Metaphors
At the heart of WhyTry is the visual metaphors that have been developed to facilitate understanding about a learning concept and mindset. These visuals are used to teach skills of resilience by connecting the abstract concept with a familiar and simple visual metaphor. Through the use of metaphors we are helping students at different levels of learner readiness and understanding access important ideas that can lead to the development of a resilience and a growth mindset. When learning to use visual metaphors focus on the following:
- First – Learn to connect the key concept with the metaphor in your own words. Ask yourself, if I were to explain this image and its deeper meaning to someone, what would I say?
- Second – Learn the prepared processing guide of the metaphor walkthrough. Align that with your own understanding of the metaphor. Practice explaining the metaphor in the sequence outlined in the processing guide.
- Third – Make the metaphor walkthrough lesson engaging with the addition of media and activities. The pre-built lessons do exactly that.
Tool #2: Activities
Learning activities will include object lessons, teamwork games, competitive games, whole group scenarios and problem-solving, tricks and even engineering activities. All of these provide learning opportunities while simultaneously developing a group culture of engagement and trust. The benefits of activities are worth the time to prepare. You will ultimately use every activity to make connections to the learning concepts that you are teaching as well as tap into the experiential learning process. Use the processing questions provided in the activity instructions to help guide you in your discussion about the activity.
Tool #3: Videos and Other Media
Our most common form of media are online videos that we watch together. These videos do a great job of introducing topics, solidifying understanding and creating relevance for students. Ultimately, you are using these videos to tell a story that relates to key concepts and objectives in our lessons. Other forms of media include music, picture books (sometimes digital versions), and other relevant forms of media you bring in. Tell a story with the media. Check out the Tips & Tricks section on Using Video and Using Music for pointers on how to do it effectively.
Competencies
The Big 3 Facilitator Competencies:
Facilitator competencies are skills we develop and use in order to facilitate WhyTry lessons. The Big 3 competencies will impact your lessons more than anything else you can do. Think about them and incorporate the strategies we outline for each:
Competency #1: Surrendering the One Up
Surrendering the One Up is a WhyTry concept that outlines the most important thing we can do to build relationships with students and help them feel value and worth. Ultimately it will help them learn the skills of resilience through your lessons. However you were trained on WhyTry, you went through a segment on what this means. There is also a section in the toolkit we recommend you regularly review. The section on Surrendering the One Up provides examples of what it looks like. However, keep a few things in mind:
- Surrendering the One Up is intentional. We don’t simply hope these learning relationships will form. We are proactive in trying to create them through this principle.
- Surrendering the One Up is individual. While you may have established positive learning relationships with some or even most students; this requires an educator to recognize that each student perceives their own relationship with you in a certain way.
- Surrendering the One Up is ongoing. You don’t simply try some activities or strategies on the first day of school for team building and getting-to-know-you, but it’s something you are consistently incorporating into your practice.
- Surrendering the One Up is unique. Every individual will require certain approaches which means there will be certain students that are more resistant. Some students will require very unique approaches. You never give up.
Competency #2: Framing
Framing is everything we do and say to prepare our students to engage with the content of the lesson. Effective framing is a great way to create buy-in of our material from your participants; we also use framing to help build context for understanding.
- Creating an emotional ‘hook’ for an activity to increase enthusiasm and engagement.
- Communicate conviction, passion, enthusiasm and a strong belief in the principle being taught. Your own attitude toward what you do with students is infectious.
- Personalize your lesson. Don’t read a processing guide verbatim. Find ways to explain in your words, use your stories and examples. Bring in your personality.
- Humor, wit, background knowledge, media and phrasing are all examples of framing that can be used for introducing any of the lesson tools.
Competency #3: Processing
- Know the concepts and ideas you are trying to surface and keep them in mind
- Have points in mind you want to surface with your questions and listen for them
- Use answers to make the connections back to the concepts and ideas
- Refrain from explicitly stating what students should’ve learned.