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Thoughts and ideas on education, culture, psychology, social science and more from our academics, students, alumni and wider community to create lasting and evolving change. Podcasts brought to you by UCL Institute of Education (IOE), the world's leading centre for education and social science research, courses and teaching, and a faculty of University College London (UCL).
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IOE announcer
You're listening to IOE insights. The UCL Institute of Education podcast at University College London.
Elaine Long
We are programme leaders on the UCL Early Career Teacher programme. Why are we in the Staffroom? We are here because this is where the best professional learning conversations always take place. This is where problems faced by teachers and leaders today can be explored critically, and where meaningful connections between research and practice can be made.
Mark Quinn 0:04
Welcome to the Staffroom, David O'Connell and Chloe Morgan. It's been the end of a busy day for you both, I guess. You're in our staffroom, so you get to sit down and I will bring some drinks and some biscuits for you. But before I do that, I also have to invite another person to the staffroom, Nancy Carmali-Belmonte.
Nancy is a colleague of mine. She is not Elaine Long. She's masquerading today as Elaine Long, but she's super sub as far as we're concerned in the staffroom podcast. Nancy, you're very welcome.
Nancy Karmali Belmonte 0:29
Thank you, Mark. It's a pleasure to be here.
Mark Quinn 0:41
So, you can get your drink and biscuit ready as well. If I, if I, if I ask Chloe first, Chloe, what can I bring you?
Chloe Morgan 0:49
Black coffee, please.
Mark Quinn 0:51
All best teachers survive on black coffee. Good. Do you want anything with that?
Chloe Morgan 0:53
No, just as it is.
Mark Quinn 0:56
Just wet as it is. Okay, David, what about you?
David 1:00
Yeah, same, just black coffee.
Mark Quinn 1:02
What is this? What is this? A conspiracy against people who don't drink black coffee, I think. Can I get you a biscuit at all or anything with that?
David 1:11
No, no, I think just the black coffee, just strong, maybe double.
Mark Quinn 1:14
You don't, you don't, you don't, you don't trust our cupboards, I think, is what the problem is here.
Nancy, how about you?
Nancy Karmali Belmonte 1:21
I'm letting the side down. I need some milk and sugar in my coffee. And I'll take the biscuits too.
Mark Quinn 1:27
What you just whatever comes?
Nancy Karmali Belmonte 1:29
Whatever, whatever's coming, yeah.
Mark Quinn 1:30
Okay, fair enough. Look, now that I'll be getting those in a second, but while, before I go, I just, would you like to introduce yourselves to the other stray people who have walked into our staffroom to listen to this afternoon? Can you just tell us a little bit about yourselves, how you came into the profession, what you're doing in the profession right now, perhaps, and maybe, you know, what you enjoy most about the role that you have. Chloe, why don't you go first?
Chloe Morgan 1:58
So I'm currently a lead facilitator for our secondary ECTs for Wandall Teaching School Hub. Alongside that in my day job, I work as a university lead mentor in initial teacher training. I started working in schools as a secondary English teacher 15 years ago. I then moved into sort of school based teacher training and now I'm working in the university side of teacher training and facilitating for ECTs.
Mark Quinn 2:30
Fabulous, and you're missing teaching, I hope.
Chloe Morgan 2:33
I am missing teaching, yes, I really enjoy observing lessons and being in the classroom and it's nice to be there as an observer as well as, you know, when you're teaching yourself.
Mark Quinn 2:44
Yeah, and how about you, David?
David 2:47
So I'm an assistant head in a primary school in West London. I still teach in year six every now and then when time allows it. So I've been teaching for about 12 years. I got into the profession, I was a TA first in Edgware.
Mark Quinn 3:05
Oh yeah.
David 3:07
Kind of at a loss really what to do after coming back from travelling, but my mate's mum was a teacher, so got into education through that route, loved it. Yeah, I went to study and yeah, I've kind of followed the journey along. Yeah, that's kind of where I'm at the minute.
Mark Quinn 3:24
So, so like many in the profession, your inspiration was your mate's mum.
David 3:28
Yeah, so, yeah.
Mark Quinn 3:32
That's the classic route into teaching, isn't it?
Mark Quinn 3:39
Nancy, over to you.
Nancy Karmali Belmonte 3:41
So you've both been very humble and you've not mentioned the fact that you are both advanced facilitators for the UCL ECTP. And that's why you're here today. We wanted to hear from you, learn about your journey from classroom teacher to facilitator to advanced facilitator.
So, to kick things off. Can you take us back to the moment that you first thought, I really want to be more than a classroom teacher and I want to support other teachers to learn? David, maybe you can start us off.
David 4:13
Yeah, I can't say there was any kind of 1 powerful moment where I thought, I want to move beyond the classroom to support teachers. I think the most accurate description of it was I began to notice the kind of spaces where teachers developed best. And that was probably about 10 years ago through a line of professional development we had at the time, and we still currently use, called Lesson Study. And that opportunity to go into a room as professionals, know kind of hierarchy of power and have a conversation that's facilitated by somebody was really beneficial. And when I started to hear about the ECF framework and the MPQ courses, I felt the need or the desire to create those spaces for other kind of teachers because we had worked with schools where I felt that there was a misalignment between how people wanted to learn in the classroom, but then how staff were developed through CPD. So I think it was more than that. It was to recreate the spaces that helped me grow.
and I wanted to be able to do that for other people.
Nancy Karmali Belmonte
And how does that compare to you, Chloe? Did you have a similar sort of emerging desire that came out of your own learning, or was there a moment that really switched things for you?
Chloe Morgan
I think similarly to David, I was really thankful for my own mentoring experience. When I trained to be a teacher, I worked with some amazing teachers and some really supportive mentors. So I really appreciate how important it is for new teachers to have that safety net and that structure and support in the first few years of teaching.
I think the realisation that I wanted to support other teachers to learn, it happened gradually rather than in one single moment. But when I mentored training teachers myself and also when I did observations of them, I found that I was really interested in the conversation that happened after those lessons. And I really enjoyed sort of unpacking the decisions with that teacher and exploring the different strategies that they'd used, you know, what had worked, what hadn't worked, discussing the context of the group.
I've also continued to be really curious about what makes feedback for new teachers as developmental as possible and to think about how we can create real shifts in thinking and shifts in practice. And that's what we're doing when we facilitate sessions for ECTs.
Nancy Karmali Belmonte
And can you tell us a bit more about that, Chloe? The point you were making about feedback and using that to shape ECT's learning, have you come to any conclusions, tentative or less so?
Chloe Morgan
Well, I think in terms of feedback and in terms of sort of shifting practise and thinking, it's all about sort of handing the ownership over to the participants in a facilitated session. So, I think that's where it comes in. You know, it's really important to plan your questioning really well so that ECTs are kind of making those decisions and developing their practise independently, because I think all shifts, whether that's in thinking or in, you know, trialling different classroom strategies, change only happens when it comes from within. So, when someone's come to that realisation themselves, that's when you see, you know, real changes.
Nancy Karmali Belmonte
Thanks, Chloe. And when you were speaking, I was thinking about the session that we were talking about just before we started recording the module 4 session that you've got coming up next week, which is all about questioning.
Lots of people say there are lots of similarities between teaching and facilitating adult learning. And so I was thinking about pupils and the kind of questions that we ask pupils and the way we might plan those questions. And then doing the same for facilitation and planning the questions that you ask ECTs or mentors or NPQ participants and really thinking hard about what you want participants to get out of that section of your session.
So, there are lots of similarities, aren't there, between teaching pupils and facilitating adult learning. But having said that, what are the most important differences in your experience? And I'll go to you again, Chloe, and then we'll hear from David afterwards.
Chloe Morgan 8:41
Yeah, so I think there are lots of key similarities, especially in the planning and the delivery, because, you know, adults need that thoughtful and responsive design in the same way that students do.
I think with adults, the key difference, I feel, is sort of identity. So when you're working with teachers or adults generally, they have sort of established values, beliefs and experiences of education because, you know, our teachers have obviously gone through school themselves and now they're training to be teachers. So, they come with a lot of a lot of preset beliefs and opinions about the classroom.
There's also a varying level of experience when you're working with adults. So, some of our ECTs are entirely new to the profession and it's their first year in the classroom. And others have been working in schools for a long time, either as TAs or, you know, in support roles. So, they're bringing a lot to the sessions.
So in terms of your questioning, I think you're kind of unpacking a lot of that. So, facilitation isn't really about talking at people. I think it's about creating the right conditions for everyone to feel heard so that adult learners can make sense of their own thinking, make sense of their own experiences and share that with others.
Nancy Karmali Belmonte
And David, you might have been listening to that thinking, well, yeah, I was that person. I was a TA in a school before I then went on and did, I'm going to guess, my NQT year rather than ECT.
So how does how does that resonate with you, Chloe's response? And are there any other important differences that you'd like to emphasise between teaching students and leading adult learning?
David
Sure. I think the biggest thing, I mean, I work at primary school, so kids are always asking me 100 times less than why, why, why, why? So, anything I say is challenged with pupils. I think I'm challenged less with adults and I don't know why that is;
It could be for many different reasons, but I think their level of curiosity is different in an adult; they need to. need to understand why this session is important, where children's curiosity can take them anywhere and everywhere. So, I've definitely noticed that. And one of the other differences is you kind of set the culture of your classroom and your school, whereas these adults are coming from lots of different schools with lots of different cultures.
So, I'm conscious how I'm viewed as someone who's supposed to be leading the session and how that I could be a mirror of what the leader is like in the conditions that they work in and I'm very aware of that. So being very delicate around the protocols of the session, what facilitation means, how we speak to each other is always important to revisit, like it is with children, but I think emphasising that a little bit more with adults. I've definitely found that.
Nancy Karmali Belmonte
I'm thinking back to what you said about non-hierarchical learning as well and how that might be really important. Is there a link between those two ideas?
David
Yeah, definitely. Well, I mean, the biggest thing I think is alignment. For me, that's been a missing part of education for quite a long time, depending on the philosophy of the school in which you work. But we work in a space where we encourage exploration, learning through inquiry. But perhaps traditional CPD across the country isn't like that at all, it's the opposite. It's very monologic and direct instruction. So my argument is that how can you get your teachers to create the conditions that you want in the classroom when you're not leading them in the same way?
And you could move it up further through the hierarchy all the way up as high as you want to go really. But so I think that's hugely important for me is alignment in approach and I'm always trying to reflect that in the sessions.
Mark Quinn
I wonder, actually, I do wonder if there's any such thing as a natural born teacher.
No, we often, you know, we're all teachers, we've all met lots and lots of teachers and some, for some it comes easier than others, but I don't know if there's such a thing as a born teacher.
But my question is not about born teachers, my question is about born facilitators. You know, do you think you can be born a facilitator or you know, are there aspects of facilitation which do come naturally to you, or are there aspects which you have to work really hard at to be good at, David?
David
I think you can be born curious and I think you can be born and have a love of learning. And I think that's half the battle in education. If you're a teacher that's not curious and doesn't love learning, I think it's a really hard job.
So, I think that's selfishly, I love these sessions where there is kind of less pressure on you as a facilitator. I don't have all the answers. I don't have a clue. I mean, that's the one thing I've learned from my doctorate is that I don't know anything. So going into a session, knowing that, I think is so freeing. I know the conditions in which we can learn together and we've got this information that we can interrogate together and we, I know what a good question is. But I think, yeah, I think going that is to be a teacher is different to a facilitate. We wouldn't have different words if they didn't mean different things.
Mark Quinn
Yeah, so that's, I've never heard facilitation being described as freeing before, but I do get the point in that obviously you've got, you know, you've got some slides, you've got some stuff you want them to learn, there are learning intentions, but actually a huge amount of responsibility for the learning in that room is going to be everybody else, right?
I'm going to come to you, Chloe, actually. For you, what comes naturally to you when it comes to facilitation?
Chloe Morgan 15:16
See, I think when you were talking about what comes naturally and what requires sort of deliberate practice, I was thinking that I think I'm quite similar in terms of in the classroom as I am as a facilitator. And I've learned a lot from feedback from observations when I was teaching, you know, I've applied again as a facilitator.
So, I think what comes naturally to me is the building relationships element. And that's something that I've always really enjoyed. That's kind of my favourite part of being a teacher is getting to know my students and, you know, getting to know all about them and then planning accordingly.
And I really enjoy that with the ECTs, sort of after the first couple of sessions when you've really got to know everyone, you know their background, their interests, their school context, then you can start making the learning really relevant. So I think that's something that comes naturally that's very helpful to me as a facilitator, as it was as a teacher. But then equally, I think my area for development as a facilitator, and it's an ongoing area for development, is restraint and knowing like when to stop talking, when to step back. And, you know, as David was saying, it is all about kind of letting the participants, you know, do all the thinking, you know, it's passing it over to them.
I think for me, that's something that I'm very conscious of, that I try and, you know, get a feeling when it's time for me to step back, to stop explaining, to stop kind of talking and filling the silence. And I think with facilitation, I've learned, you know, through trial and error that silence is so important, you know, not to kind of fill a gap with talking for the sake of it, but to just allow adults some time to and some peace where they can just really reflect and really think very carefully about something.
Because I think the ECTs, they're all teachers, they have busy school days. And sometimes the sessions are the only kind of space they have where they can just sit and consider something for five or 10 minutes without interruption. So, allowing for those silences is really, really important as is that skill of knowing when it's time to stop talking.
Mark Quinn
What about the skill of knowing when to start talking? What I mean by that is, are there times, Chloe, when you feel you've got an ECT in one of your sessions and they've thought hard about stuff and they're talking away, but actually you think they're missing something or they might have a misconception?
How do you, how do you step in?
Chloe Morgan
Yeah, I think that's a really interesting question because that's something as part of this advanced facilitator unit that we've just completed, that was something, some feedback from the end of an observation was, you know, I spoke to my 2 observers about it and we planned ways of getting the ECTs to challenge each other's assumptions.
So actually resisting sometimes that urge to step in and say, hang on a minute, could we look at that differently? And you instead, you build a culture where the ECTs do that for each other. So, in the group discussion, if something comes up and it sounds like it's very decisive, like this is it, this is my opinion and that's what's correct, you know, what you hope is that you've gradually built the skills and the conditions so that other participants say, well, hang on a minute, I actually have a different perspective, or, you know, let's have a listen to someone else who thinks differently.
So that all voices are heard. And so the challenge is kind of inbuilt and the assumptions are kind of naturally challenged and the ECTs are considering different viewpoints in every session.
Mark Quinn
So getting the ECTs to respectfully challenge each other.
Chloe Morgan
Yes, I mean,, modelling it and then kind of establishing that as a template and a routine.
Mark Quinn 19:05
David, I don't think I extracted from your own area where you feel or areas where you feel you, you know, there's a bit of practise required when you to be a great facilitator.
David 19:25
Well, if you ask anyone from Teacher West London, they would definitely say remembering to do the register. It could be a bit more, right?
But I think, yeah, I mean, mine is..I love a chat, I love just exploring these big ideas, but maybe trying to come to a shared consensus at times, bringing it back together, staying focused, right? What are we going to take away from this section? We've had a brilliant conversation about the philosophy of education, but what's going to change tomorrow? I think I need to be, I'm always working at that.
Mark Quinn
You know that one of the outcomes that we want from our programme is this thing we call revelatory moments. And I think that's often the moment when the facilitator can summarize, crystallise perhaps what the conversation has been to that point. And if nobody else in the room does that, Chloe, you're right, sometimes someone in the room can do that for you. But if nobody else is going to do that, then that can be a role for a facilitator, can't it?
Nancy Karmali Belmonte
Chloe, I'd love to know a little bit more about one thing that you mentioned. You spoke about the power and importance of building those relationships at the start and creating conditions in which ECTs can challenge one another. But
How do you create that psychological safety whilst balancing the need for challenge? What have you done? What practical strategies have you taken to do that?
Chloe Morgan 20:50
So I think both things can happen at once. You can create psychological safety and also have conditions for challenge. And I think they're probably both dependent upon each other, because I think in the beginning, when you build relationships and you create that sense of safety, that's when people feel that they can say; Actually, I have a different viewpoint or I'd like to come back to that response and I'd like to challenge it. And I think that happens through your protocols that we share at the beginning of every session, through the relationships that are built and also through facilitator modelling, I think, because in terms of psychological safety, I think that's about the facilitator modelling vulnerability in some ways.
And I think in lots of sessions, I try to give examples or anecdotes from my own experience of where things haven't gone perfectly for me and that, you know, I've trialled something and it's gone completely wrong. And I hope that that makes ECTs feel really comfortable that they can be really honest and they can say, look, I hoped that this was going to work, but unfortunately it was kind of back to the drawing board. And I think that is that culture is set by the facilitator.
Nancy Karmali Belmonte
Yeah, it's one I see quite regularly, actually. When I go out to sessions, I often see facilitators talking about inquiry projects they've run that haven't gone quite to plan or, you know, teaching approaches they've tried to embed into their practice. Again, hasn't quite worked out how they wanted to. And it is really reassuring that no one is the finished product, no one's a finished product as a teacher, no one's a finished product as a facilitator. We're all just working to continuously develop our practice, aren't we?
But you have reached advanced facilitator status, the two of you. That's why you're here. So, Chloe, you've mentioned a little bit about how the advanced facilitator unit has pushed you or stretched your thinking in terms of your observations. So, we'll come back to you in a little moment to see if there's anything else that you'd like to share. But David, how has engaging with that unit developed you and pushed your thinking?
David
I think the biggest thing it has done is allowed me the space to reflect on my own practice. So in my role as assistant teacher, it's just very, very busy. And there's always one thing and you're often you feel like firefighting and when I was a full-time classroom teacher, I would have considered myself to be the reflective teacher that obviously do having the question dialogues in the corridor. However, as I've become a leader, maybe I haven't allowed myself that space to reflect and extrapolating how I lead my staff is the same way as how you would lead adults at the ECTs or the NPQs.
I think just given that space has really developed me as a leader and thinking about what actually, what is my belief about how adults learn and my role in facilitation with that.
Nancy Karmali Belmonte
So it's been a real opportunity to interrogate your own sort of values and approaches to leading these sessions, it sounds like.
David
I think that's the biggest thing is values in education, because I think they're difficult to shape later. I think, and not enough is work is done early on in a teacher's career. What would you fundamentally believe education should be? Like, we're told what we think it is. I mean, we're often told this is vocation and the adverts are sold to us.
It's like, you can have these big, beautiful moments with children and you're walking out, you know, like getting to teaching those adverts and they're sitting in a science lab and the child's got the Bunsen burner and then they're leaving with them at the end of the day. And that's not the reality of education, especially early on. So that misalignment between how we attract teachers into education and the reality of it, I think is very, very important. So doing work with people early in their careers around what they value and what they think education should be is fundamental to them staying, them enjoying and education as a system improving.
Nancy Karmali Belmonte
And if you as a facilitator haven't spent the time thinking about that yourself, then that would be a really challenging thing to lead in others, wouldn't it? So, it's about having that time and space for yourself as a leader as well. Chloe, what about you? What's really pushed you in terms of your thinking on the advanced facilitator unit?
Chloe Morgan
I think it's pushed me to articulate things that I was doing instinctively and to make the process a bit more conscious and to think deeply about the impact of my choices as a facilitator. So why have I made that choice and what was the outcome that I'm hoping for?
And I started thinking differently about what success looks like in a facilitated session, because I think I became more familiar with the UCL high quality outcomes. I read that very carefully and then applied it to my own practise and had it in mind, you know, when I was planning sessions. And I tried to ensure that the ECTs, you know, did leave sessions with something practical to use in their classrooms, because we want them, you know, not only to challenge their own thinking, but also to be experimental and to learn some new strategies, to have some new tools that they can use in the classroom.
Mark Quinn
And going back to this idea of what we know or believe we know about adult learning, Has that evolved for you, Chloe, as you have been doing more training as a facilitator and been doing the advanced facilitator unit?
Chloe Morgan
Yes, so I think earlier in my career, I think I equated strong facilitation with strong explanation. So going back to that point about, you know, talking and filling silences. And I think I used to think it was kind of leading from the front and having the answers and with experience, that's definitely shifted in my thinking and in my practice. So now I see that there's, you know, a lot more to it than that. And I'm aware of balancing, you know, challenge, reflection, and also structuring dialogue and discussion really carefully so that the work that's happening
is handed over to the participants in every session.
Mark Quinn
Can you think, this is maybe too hard to ask you right now, Chloe, can you think of an example of when you've done that and you've structured the question in such a way?
Chloe Morgan
I've structured the question so that it's passed over the learning. I think in something that comes to mind is a facilitated session that was about assessment and I asked them to consider all the factors, the impact assessment. And something that didn't come up from the feedback was reading ages.
So, I posed a question, is there, are we missing anything here? And then asked them to kind of think more carefully because they had lots and lots of answers and I said, something's missing. And eventually that came up and then it did shift the focus of the session because it was so important to factor that in that we then spoke about reading ages, we spoke about the impact of it. So yeah, it did change the course of the session, but that answer came organically from the participants just from constant kind of, hang on, we're not quite there yet, let's keep thinking.
Mark Quinn
Yes. It's funny that that's setting high expectations, isn't it, of the group that you have in front of you that there's, they might be doing a lot of good thinking, but there's better thinking still to come.
Nancy Karmali Belmonte
So as avid listeners, Chloe and David, you will know that we give every guest on our podcast a post-it note to write some advice on. Now that you have reached advanced facilitator status, we are wondering what advice you would give to someone who's thinking about becoming a facilitator and what would you write on that post-it? David, let's go to you first.
David
Be curious. Stay curious.
Nancy Karmali Belmonte 33:32
I love how succinct that is. I think that summarises a lot of your points very well.
David
Sorry, I just a couple of words. How big is the post-it? No. Stay curious, I think, is more important than be curious, because I don't, you know what it's like. There are some teachers that you lose that curiosity for a million different reasons and they went into education curious, somewhere along the line they lost it, and it's not their fault.
Nancy Karmali Belmonte 34:02
Thanks David and I appreciate your succinctness. Sometimes I listen to these, and I think that the speakers have got very optimistic views on the size of the post-it notes. I think stay curious will fit well.
Chloe, are you similarly succinct or maybe we need a few post-it notes for you?
Chloe Morgan 34:19
I think I'm going to be similarly succinct here. I was going to say design for thinking or plan for thinking, not for performance as a facilitator. I think that's been the biggest change in my planning and in my delivery since going through the advanced facilitator unit has been that I think I used to focus on what I was doing as the facilitator. Whereas now I view the session from the participants point of view, I've kind of flipped.
So, I'm doing both. Like I know what I'm delivering. I know the resources that I'm providing. But now I'm thinking quite carefully about, OK, if I say this question, what's the impact going to be? And like, is it the right question?
Like if I was in this session and I was hearing this question, how would it be shaping my thinking? So, I think it's given me more of a whole view of the session from everyone's perspective. But yes, now I think I plan for thinking.
Nancy Karmali Belmonte
I love that. Plan for thinking and stay curious. I think two really powerful and important messages there.
Mark Quinn
Can you hear that bell over the top of you, Nancy? That's the, I think the caretakers run downstairs and press the button because they want us to leave the school. Chloe and David, thank you for spending the last hour on our soft chairs. I hope you enjoyed the coffee. It wasn't a very special one. I'm sorry.
You didn't want any of our biscuits, but Nancy had them all I noticed. So thank you for coming in. Good luck as advanced facilitators. You'll get plenty of more work, I think, from us over the next few months and years. And I hope from listening to this, other facilitators in our programmes will be inspired also to study that unit and enter themselves to become advanced facilitators like you are. So thank you so much for your time and for your service.
Chloe Morgan
Thank you for having us.
Mark Quinn
Our thanks go to Chloe Morgan and David O’Connel for sharing black coffees with us this week in The Staffroom. Chloe is facilitator form Wandel Teaching School Hub and David is a primary school teacher and facilitator for Teach West London.
Nancy Karmali Belmonte
Please do get in touch if you would like to be part of the conversation, click on the link at the bottom of The Staffroom web page.
Mark Quinn
And if you've enjoyed this episode, there's more where that came from, search IOE podcast from wherever you get your podcasts to find episodes of The Staffroom, as well as more podcasts from the IOE.
Nancy Karmali Belmonte
A quick favour before you go, if you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, we'd really appreciate it if you could give the IOE podcast a rating. Five stars would be nice if you're enjoying the show and that will help us to reach more people who are interested in hearing what The Staffroom is all about.
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