Summary outcomes of the Professional Development for Sustainability Educators Project Stages 1 & 2
A READER FOR
THE GUIDE BESIDE
A Project Developing and Piloting Collaborative and Transformative
Professional Learning for Sustainability
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To Create Sustainable Futures Now
A Strategy for Learning to Live Sustainably in Victoria
© Department of Sustainability and Environment, Victoria, September 2006
The material in this report is an outcome of Stages 1 and 2 of the Professional Development for Sustainability
Educators Project, and forms part of the Learning to Live Sustainably Strategy of the Environmental Sustainability
Framework: Our Environment, Our Future.
The Summary of Outcomes reported here are complemented by: (i) a two page pamphlet promoting the main focus
of the Guide Beside approach & future directions; and (ii) a detailed report on the evaluation of Stage 2 of the project
- both published separately.
The Guide Beside arose out of the need to move beyond do-as-I-say approaches to change, to find ways for those of
us who work as agents of learning and action for sustainability, to learn ourselves how better to facilitate collaborative
transformative processes with others. It was clear early on that the professional development coming out of the project
would look and feel different, and be organised in different ways to the standard do-as-I-do expert sessions, or the runthrough of what has been found to work for some participants. What is needed instead, is a parallel of the collaborative
transformative approaches we want to use with program participants, but applied to our own professional learning.
The key findings coming out of Stages 1 and 2 of the project are listed below, and developed further in this report
– but they do not substitute for the experiences and transformative learning that needs to happen in collaborative
transformative Guide Beside processes.
So in parallel with these outcomes, we are planning to building a learning community of sustainability facilitators to do
just that! – and we invite you to become involved ...
How Stage 2 of the project was organised is outlined on the back cover.
Recommendation from the project are outlined in the back inside cover, and developed in more detail in the “Where to
Next – Follow-on Stages” towards the end of this report.
Key Findings* of the project from Stages 1 & 2 are that:
• Contextual, collaborative professional development designed to enhance transformative learning and change is
feasible, and leads to multiple outcomes. Outcomes can include: deep and practical individual learning, enhancement of
best practice facilitation, planning, implementation and evaluation; establishment of self organising professional learning
groups; and increased scale and strength of networks, partnerships and collaborations.
• There was strong endorsement by all participants of the need for collaborative approaches for effective learning
and change to occur, and for this collaborative learning and change to become consolidated as part of participants’
behaviour. This need was paralleled by a need for those facilitating these programs to also learn how to more
effectively foster collaborative, transformative learning.
• There are underlying concepts and practices of collaborative transformative professional development that can be
engaged with, in orderly, comprehensible and planned ways that optimise this type of professional learning - it will
be possible to organise collaborative learning around these concepts and practices so as to optimise learning while
maximising engagement and flexibility.
• ‘Transformative’ does not need to be all-or-nothing – rather there needs to be a rebalancing between approaches
(i.e. between educating, enabling, and exploring). In moving from transmissive expectations to include transformative
elements requires building relationships and trust, not just with participants, but also with other stakeholders.
• Because of the tendency to default to less effective transmissive approaches when faced with normalised expectations
of learning and change, there needs to be renewed engagement to reformulate approaches and explore ways to shift
transmissive expectations, restrictive cultures and normative practices.
• Outcomes from collaborative transformative learning and change can be significantly more just than individual
professional learning (of the type achieved through conventional PD training). Additional benefits of GB style PD
can include: organisational planning; overcoming organisational barriers; professional relationship building; clarification
of goals; skills in negotiation and conflict resolution; enhanced networking; increased personal positive outlook and
realisations; increased clarity of stakeholder views.
* For full details of findings - see Stage 2 Evaluation Report: Sharpley, B. 2006.
Evaluation Report of Stage 2 Guide Beside Project - available on the VAEE website.
“Be a Guide Beside
Not a Sage on Stage”
...thanks to Vox Bandicoot Inc.
THE GUIDE BESIDE:
What is collaborative transformative learning and change?
“It’s about learning and changing ourselves, working together ... and translating
that enthusiasm and knowledge to others, so that they feel valued and
empowered to take action too ...”
from a participant in one of the Stage 2 workshops of the Guide Beside professional learning pilots.
“We need to recognise that we do not have the solutions for environmental
and social problems. We all need to learn along the path to sustainable
development and particularly how to manage in new ways in a participatory
process.”
Denise Hamu, Chair, IUCN Commission on Education and Communication
“No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it. We
have to learn to see the world anew.”
Albert Einstein
The principles of collaborative transformative learning were identified in detail in Stage 1 of the Guide Beside
project and reported on in the Summary of Outcomes for the first stage – a copy of this report can be
downloaded from the VAEE website – details below. These principles are reproduced at the end of this Stage 2
report – Appendix 1.
When citing this publication please use the following:
Hocking, C. Ray, S. & Day, T. 2006. The Guide Beside approach to professional learning for facilitators of
environmental sustainability. A summary of the outcomes of Stages 1 and 2 of the Professional Development
for Sustainability Educators Project. Victorian Association for Environmental Education (Melbourne, Australia)
supported by the Department of Sustainability and Environment, Victoria (Learning to Live Sustainably Strategy).
Copies of this publication can be obtained by contacting the Victorian Association for Environmental Education
(VAEE) at www.vaee.org.au or via email.
An outcome of the Learning to Live Sustainably
Strategy of the Department of Sustainability and
Environment, Victoria
Key Outcomes in the Guide Beside Report
Note: A brief summary of the Guide Beside project is in the
pamphlet associated with this report. In depth evaluation of the
elements of Stage 2 are in a separate report.
Contents
The key findings of Stages 1 and 2 of the Professional
Development for Sustainability Educators Project, and
recommendations for future stages, are outlined in this report; as
follows:
What is the Guide Beside?
Who & What the Guide Beside is For
Why a New Approach to Professional Learning
is Needed
Knowing How to Do It Is Not the Same as Developing
this Capability in Others
The Core of Collaborative Transformative Professional
Learning
Relationship Between Process & Content:
Who as well as What
The How & Who of Learning Skills
What about Content? What about Process?
Our Tendency to Default to the Transmissive
Who is the Sustainability Facilitator Anyway?
Easing the Burden of Change & Generating Multiple
Outcomes
Getting the Time & Resources you need for PD
Which Content is Best to Start With for Collaborative
Transformative PD?
Personal Dimensions of Transformative Learning &
Change - The Why
Where to Next: Follow-on Stages
APPENDIX 1
APPENDIX 2
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“We need to use amongst ourselves, the
same approaches we use to foster learning
and change towards sustainability in others.”
Professional Development for Sustainability Educators Project
THE GUIDE
BESIDE:
Creating Sustainable Futures Now
Detailed Summary of the
Outcomes of Stages 1 and 2
What is the Guide Beside?
“ The Guide Beside is a Prompt and a
Resource ... “
The Guide Beside (GB) is a new professional
development approach for those who facilitate learning
and change towards environmental sustainability.
• That the professional development needs to be
specifically designed and facilitated for
learning and change in us as facilitators,
rather than be merely being a run through of what we
might do with our participants. To learn collaboration
and transformation, we ourselves have to be open
to collaborative and transformative experiences. As
well as input from research and from experienced
educators and doers, we as facilitators need to be
provided with opportunities to explore how we will
apply, adapt and transform these inputs in relation to
our own work and personal contexts.
In summary, the three key elements of the GB approach
to PD are:
(i) Using GB collaborative and transformative methods
for learning and change for sustainability;
The key focus of the GB is not so much on what we
should be doing with our participants, but rather how
we can better learn ourselves the ways to do this
- although the two are obviously related.
The GB approach has been derived out of two
stages of framing and testing, over nearly two years,
across a spectrum of sectors, levels and degrees of
individual experience. This has revealed three important
underlying elements that animate the GB approach:
• That collaborative transformative methods
are needed for the depth and scale of change
needed to achieve sustainability – for individuals,
communities, businesses, etc.
• That the ability to facilitate for sustainability utilising
these collaborative, transformative methods can
only be effectively
learnt and fostered
in professional
development (PD)
that itself utilises
these methods:
that is: collaborative,
experiential,
reflective, contextual,
transformative
professional
development.
The contents of this Guide
Beside report outline key ways
in which each of these three
elements can be addressed
in professional development
projects. But when reading
through the report, bear in mind
that GB processes and outcomes
can not be fully developed by
reading alone - there is no
substitute for direct experience.
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Facilitating Sustainable Futures Now!
(iii) Specifically designing and facilitating PD for
sustainability facilitators that fosters learning and
change to better use these same GB approaches
with their participants.
The Guide Beside
(ii) Drawing on these GB collaborative, transformative
methods in the PD itself; and
Who & What the Guide
Beside is For
Learning to Live Sustainably
(State Government Victoria
2006) [will] “deliver substantial
learning & behaviour change
for environmental sustainability
[initially] through those
organisations & sectors of society
that have the capacity to pick
up quickly the vision [and] lead
community change.”
The Guide Beside
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Facilitating Sustainable Futures Now!
The Guide Beside approach is intended for the wide
range of sustainability facilitators, across waste, water,
energy, transport, integrated environmental or natural
resource management etc., and also across State and
local governments, agencies, businesses, consultancies,
education institutions at primary, secondary and tertiary
level, as well as those working in the voluntary sector.
The Guide Beside introduces new ways to foster the
professional learning of sustainability educators, that
begins with, and builds on, our individual and diverse
experiences and understandings. The GB approach is
careful to introduce ideas and understandings from
research and consolidated experience in ways that
practically assist sustainability educators to become more
effective in what they do. The approach is both process
and content together. It draws on the notion that how
we learn together, as a community of sustainability
facilitators, will in turn affect what skills and capacities we
develop to facilitate this learning and change process in
others.
The Guide Beside approach also affirms that solutions to
the major sustainability challenges we face will only come
out of collaborative and local on-ground adaptation and
transformation - of what we understand from general
principles, from latest methods, innovative technologies,
and by utilising incentives and regulations. This message
of empowerment and encouragement of creativity
needs to animate our own professional learning, and also
be carried to those we are assisting to make the changes
towards a sustainable world. The Guide Beside asserts
that how we go about facilitating change is as much a
part of the learning and change process, as the messages
of content and principle carried in the facilitation.
Why a New Approach to
Professional Learning is
Needed
The outcomes of Stage 1 of the Guide Beside project
confirmed the views, at both national and international
levels, of what the best and most effective approaches
to sustainability education are: that the current dominant
approaches of awareness raising and information delivery
using transmissive methods are not fulfilling the need for
deep and lasting change (or even first level change).
Current approaches assume a top-down, one size
fits all model. But if we are, as the State Government
Environmental Sustainability Framework says, to
encourage ‘every Victorian ... to take action’, then we
need to learn how to facilitate learning and change on
the ground to
the diversity of
“Education for Sustainable
communities,
Development implies a shift
organisations,
... to the recognition that we
businesses, etc.
who want and
are all learners as well as
need to take
teachers.”
action: in ways
Ahmedabad Declaration on
that are positive,
Education for Sustainable
meaningful and
Development, 2005
productive to
them.
The problem is, we have not had a lot of shared
experience or developed understanding of this
approach. Through the GB project we have found that
many sustainability facilitators, in pockets of activity
and practice, have invented their own versions of
the collaborative transformative approach with their
participants and constituencies on the ground. However,
these facilitators have had limited opportunities to
share these ideas, and learn from one another, or from
research and consolidated experience. And they have
had even less opportunity to sort through and practice
what works for them, using the same collaborative
transformative processes they are wanting to use with
their participants.
The GB approach is committed to building a networked
learning community of sustainability facilitators that
will provide the collaboration and support needed to
learn from one anothers’ experience, and to practice
and explore new and effective techniques for fostering
collaborative learning and change.
Knowing How to Do
It Is Not the Same as
Developing this Capability
in Others
Knowing how to facilitate collaborative transformative
learning is different to being able to teach or foster the
capacities needed for this work in others.
The other half is knowing how to take these suggestions
and adapt them to your own circumstances, in ways
that fit with:
In many
instances, the
“learning for sustainability
‘running through
needs to include ... high-level, what to do’ style
transformative learning that
of PD leaves
addresses not only factual
sustainability
knowledge but people’s
educators
attitudes, values and action
struggling with
questions about
skills”
how to use the
Learning to Live Sustainably, State
valuable insights
Government of VictoriaDevelopment,
they gain from
2005
these exercises,
but without the
time or assistance to make effective use of these. It also
sends an incorrect buried message: that telling others
what to do will somehow result in effective, on-ground
learning and change. Knowing what other professionals
have found to be useful with participants, although
helpful in limited ways, is not the same as knowing and
exploring how you personally will facilitate and foster
collaborative transformative learning.
And listening, or in other ways learning, from an expert
facilitator, will also not necessarily be sufficient: an
expert who knows how to facilitate in this way will
not necessarily have thought through the best ways to
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Facilitating Sustainable Futures Now!
• your particular opportunities and constraints;
• the needs and interests of your participants;
• your personal approach and style, and the approaches
& styles of those you are working with
Getting to the bottom of what does work for
others is part of the GB collaborative approach, as is
transforming this understanding into ways of knowing
and acting that are personally useful for you. The
real learning and change for effective facilitation will
happen in planned, appropriately facilitated sessions
that bring together collaboration, reflection on practical
experience, theory and consolidated experience,
as well as opportunities for transformative shifts in
understanding – these are the characteristics of deep,
effective and long lasting learning and change that we
also want for participants in our programs.
The Guide Beside
There is a tendency, in professional development
for sustainability education, to hold ‘run through’
demonstrations with fellow professionals, of what you
would do with base level participants, and assume that
your fellow professionals will follow suit. But knowing
what might be best to do is only half the picture.
foster this capability in other facilitators. Often expert
facilitators act from their own intuition and years of
experience, and find it difficult to identify just what they
do that makes it work.
The Core of Collaborative
Transformative
Professional Learning
The Guide Beside
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Facilitating Sustainable Futures Now!
“All learning integrates thinking
and doing. All learning is about
how we interact with the world
and the types of capacities that
develop from our interactions.
What differs is the depth of the
awareness and the consequent
source of action. If awareness
never reaches beyond the
superficial events and current
circumstances, actions will be
reactions. If on the other hand
we penetrate more deeply to see
the larger wholes that generate
‘what is’ and our own connection
to this wholeness, the source and
effectiveness of our actions can
change dramatically.”
Peter Senge et al. Presence: Exploring
profound change in people, organisations
and society. Nicholas Brealey Publishing
(London) 2005
It is clear from Stage 2 piloting and evaluation, that
the nature of collaborative transformative processes
are not as well understood in practice as they are in
theory. Even though most practitioners identify with
what is called for, through transformative approaches, it
appears that we are not sufficiently practiced in either
the design or running of these approaches to have them
integrated as part of our day-to-day activities. They
still require more effort to plan and do than the more
commonplace transmissive approaches, and they often
feel uncomfortable to implement. For these reasons, it
is common for facilitators to ‘default to the transmissive’
– see below.
One consistent outcome of Stage 2 piloting is that
most collaborative transformative PD programs
need significant facilitation, of both design and
implementation, to build sufficient capacity for these
initiatives to be self sustaining. There remains widespread
and significant levels of uncertainty about how to
creatively integrate content with process, to achieve
collaborative transformative actions and outcomes.
The diagram on the next page, and the explanation
below the diagram, arose out of discussions in Stage 2
about how best to portray the differences in approach
between transformative and transmissive.
It is clear from the diagram that collaborative
transformative learning depends on establishing positive
connections and flow of ideas between the participants.
What happens in this process appears to be more
complex than in transmissive style learning. But equally
out of this complexity can arise more extensive learning
and change.
At its best, in the transformative type of interaction,
many participants and facilitators describe a kind of
‘letting go’ that needs to happen – facilitating for and
creating the space (or holding the intention) for active
learning and change. This involves thoughtful planning
for the process, but not necessarily knowing the details
of the outcome in advance. To do so would not allow
adaption and creativity to occur – and most likely would
result in a reversion to the transmissive ‘download’.
Some of this process of ‘letting go’ and ‘letting come’ is
described in more detail in a later section on Personal
Dimensions of Transformative Learning and Change.
At its core, collaborative transformative learning and
action needs to pay attention to building trust and
connectivity between people, and drawing on these
connections for new insights and approaches, as well as
sharing the more usual knowledge and expertise in the
group. Getting the balance right between content, group
process and personalised experience takes time to learn,
but can produce high level learning and change when it
is achieved.
As one of our very experienced and honest
sustainability facilitators concluded:
“I started out with the idea that I could
train others to be just like me. I do have
a great deal of experience. But now I
realise it is not like that– and this change
was quite a revelation. I now approach
[training] by working with others so that
they still benefit from my experience,
but being careful always that my input is
relevant to them. It means letting go of
starting with what I know, and instead
starting with what they know, and finding
out what they want to know, and how they
want to know it.”
(Note: Honesty with one’s self, and a network of
supportive peers within which to share this honesty,
would appear to be an important element of twoway, transformative learning & change).
Figure:
What is Collaborative Transformative Learning and Change?
Transmissive# - Sage on Stage (SoS)
real life situations
You need to work out yourself how
to make what I know useful to you
Indirectly addressed
SoS
#I
will teach you so that you will think
and know what I think and know
ON
Theory and
expertise
mostly comes
to you through
my filters
What you know
to begin with is
not that relevant
My teaching will alter your
behaviour in ways I want
=> ineffective change
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real life situations
You feel assisted in learning and change
to develop your expertise
GB
Directly addressed
*To
understand your situation
and help to plan action
O
TW
AY
W
You can assist learning
and action also - your
expertise is valuable
Learning is
collaborative and
creative
My facilitation will alter
our outlook as to what
is possible and how
=> effective change
Facilitating Sustainable Futures Now!
Transformative* - Guide Beside (GB)
Theory and
outside expertise
can also help us
The Guide Beside
Learning is
individual and
reactive
AY
W
E
Essential differences between the two approaches can be summarised as:
The Guide Beside
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Facilitating Sustainable Futures Now!
#Transmissive:
*Transformative:
“I will teach you so that you will think
& know what I think & know”
“I can facilitate you to understand your
situation & help to plan action”
Your existing expertise and knowledge is not
that relevant or useful - we can mostly ignore
it, or assume that somehow you will make the
connections between what I tell you and how
you might make use of this.
Your existing expertise and knowledge is very
valuable – including what you already know
about this type of work, where you are starting
from, what circumstances you are dealing with,
and your knowledge of yourself and how you
best operate.
Your increased awareness and understanding
resulting from what I tell or show you will lead
to changes in your behaviour (now shown
comprehensively to be a very ineffective
model for learning and change).
Your understanding of yourself, how you are
currently behaving, how others are thinking
and acting in similar circumstances, and
encouragement for you to act in new ways, will
together alter your self perception of what is
possible and lead to effective change.
Most of what you learn about theory and
frameworks as a result of my presentation is
interpreted through my understanding and
ways of explaining.
What you learn about theory and frameworks
comes from the multiple interpretations and
explanations derived from all those involved in
the collaborative transformative process.
I feel comfortable because this is mostly the
way I was taught (and I was successful in
this teaching mode) – I feel in control and
reassure myself that others are learning,
because I understand what I am saying.
I feel less comfortable initially because a lot
of interaction is going on. I need to negotiate
between what I know and what and how
others want to know and explore. This is
different to most of the ways I was taught:
Assisting is more appropriate than keeping
control.
I assume that you will learn a lot from this
session, but I am unlikely to learn very much.
We are all involved in learning better how to
facilitate learning and change – I will learn a lot
by understanding your contexts and issues.
Collaborative transformative professional learning needs to occur as a coherent whole, within which the various
personal, collaborative and experience sharing elements interact and support one another - if attention is not paid
to each of these parts, then the whole process can suffer. You can find a set of Key Principles for Collaborative and
Transformative Facilitation in Appendix 1.
An effective process requires facilitating for people (the who) as well as for ideas and concepts (the what) – see next
pages. It builds on what we already know about learning and change: that the processes of learning and change are not
entirely logical. This is as true for professional learning for sustainability facilitators, as it is for facilitating change in the
wider community. So we need to apply the same principles and practices for change to the development of our own
facilitation and leadership, as we do to those we are facilitating for learning and change towards sustainability.
For sustainability facilitators involved in professional development, there will be changes in understanding, changes in
outlook, changes in identity, changes in practice – the same types of change for sustainability we would expect in the
wider sphere, but for us this will be around how to facilitate others towards sustainability, rather than how to learn and
act for sustainability – this is why this type of learning and change is referred to as ‘transformative’. It is why PD needs
to be transformative, to parallel the collaborative transformative processes we anticipate in the participants in our
programs.
We all know that change is not easy. So what can we do to foster this process of
change? Read on!
Relationship Between
Process & Content:
Who as well as What
When we think about learning and action
for sustainability programs we often tend to
think firstly of the WHAT - What are our
objectives or anticipated outcomes? Will they
be achieved?
This is what we call the WHO of sustainability
facilitation. The who comprises the needs and
interests of the whole person, and the group
interactions of which they are a part. Likewise
our own development as facilitators, our
capacity to become more effective, to learn in
ways that go beyond individual logical thinking,
are dependent on our capacity to create
experiences in our sustainability programs
that are at once educative and transformative
- based in the who, or whole person approach
to us as facilitators.
This capacity comes through PD that facilitates
connectivity and shared purpose within and
between professional learning groups, and
design of PD programs that leads progressively
towards the conditions of trust and
collaboration that allow these shared purposes
to emerge. These processes for PD parallel the
types of connective and shared purpose we as
facilitators want to develop for the participants
in each of our sustainability programs.
Some of the key elements of facilitation for the
WHO (whole person) are listed in the table on
the next page.
Some of the key ways of facilitating the how and who are
described in the boxes on the next page, including:
• Arriving
• Introductions – Establishing Trust
• Networking
• Valuing Participant Experience
• Comparing and Reflecting
• Planning for Change Moments
It is easy to become complacent or dismissive of the human
dimensions of learning and change. This is partly because the
majority of our experience of learning has been via transmissive
‘down-load’ style education – see: “Our Tendency to Default to the
Transmissive” later in this report.
Yet the time taken at the beginning, and periodically throughout,
professional development sessions, to pay attention to this
human element, can add in multiple ways to the productivity
of the learning and change process itself, and to other multiple
outcomes of the collaborative transformative process. These
benefits include: increased morale and positive outlook, sense
of shared purpose and support, benefits derived through
networking, etc. - see later in this report.
We have consistently found that participants in PD programs
enjoy, appreciate and benefit from these human oriented
elements. We have also found that these elements need to
be appropriate to the participant group: what is positive and
engaging for one group might be experienced as too confronting
for another group, too frivolous to a third, and perhaps too old
hat to some groups already familiar with this style of learning (in
which case more creative activities are called for).
These design features can be dealt with by considering
beforehand (assisted by a few intending participants if possible)
what is likely to be of most benefit to those in the PD. Also
PD program participants need support and encouragement
to overcome the feelings of discomfort and unfamiliarity
that might accompany them trying these human dimension
approaches for the first time. Participants who are on their feet,
or moving around during the PD, are one simple indication that
transformative style learning is happening. Humour is another
– we learn best through our bodily senses, and the complexity of
human interactions with one another, as much as we do through
our individual brains. We learn more effectively when our whole
brain system is involved, rather than just on cerebral functions.
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Facilitating Sustainable Futures Now!
Professional learning that helps us to better
facilitate sustainability, needs to include
experiences and understandings of the
contributions that peoples’ identity, sense of
fun and community, purposeful contribution,
etc. (to name a few motivators) contribute
to successful learning and change towards
sustainability.
The greatest success in implementing collaborative learning and
change in Stage 2 of the GB program was achieved when we
designed the programs so that participants were deliberately
moved alternately between the content of the program (what
we wanted people to learn about) and the process of human
engagement, that builds trust, connectivity and shared creative
space (paying attention to who was involved and how they
would best learn & engage).
The Guide Beside
But outcomes don’t just happen - people
act to make them happen. And people take
actions that contribute to change for a wide
variety of reasons. And many of these reasons
may not be entirely related to the objectives of
the program, or even based in logic, informed
reflections, or even clear self interest. We know
from research and on-ground experience that
people contribute to sustainability programs for
a whole variety of reasons.
The How & Who of
Collaborative Learning
Some Key Elements
How & Who - Shared
Transformative Learning & Change
Arriving
To come into shared, collaborative & creative
space, participants need to let go of outside
concerns and also preconceptions of what
to address and how. This is as much a whole
person process as a mind one. Activities with
elements of movement, story telling, sharing of
experiences, can be helpful in “arriving”.
The Guide Beside
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Introductions & Establishing Trust
Facilitating Sustainable Futures Now!
Getting to know one another is an important
step towards establishing trust and shared
learning. There are many ways to do this – if
learning is truely collaborative, there will be
opportunities throughout the program to
inter-weave introductions with other learning.
It is not necessary, and can be less effective,
to introduce everyone to everyone else right
at the start. Activities that mix participant
interactions can spread out introductions over
time, as well as building of trust.
Valuing Participant Experience
Early in any transformative process, the
outlooks and understandings of participants
should be made known. This can be done in
more creative ways than a ‘whip’ around the
room. For example, small groups can work
together on identifying what they see as key
understandings and issues, which can then be
shared with the wider group.
Comparing & Reflecting
As the program proceeds, it is important to
building in opportunities for participants to
share and reflect on their responses to each
others’ knowledge, ideas and experience, and
to research and consolidated experience.
There are many creative ways to do this
– including shared writing, art, performance.
Often these reveal aspects of reflection that
remain hidden with conventional methods.
Planning for Change Moments
Networking
In addition to finding out about each others’
knowledge and perspectives relating to the
specific PD program, there should also be
time and opportunity for participants to share
what their current working circumstances
and primary interests are – all part of building
a community of experienced sustainability
facilitators.
Learning and change programs can be
designed to build shared understandings
and trust that lead to new perspectives and
breakthrough insights, for individuals, and for
groups. Program design to achieve this involves
ensuring that the personal, human, non rational
elements of learning and change are facilitated
as well as the logical and knowledge-based
elements.
Example of Arriving:
A PD session on sustainable transport began by asking participants to stand, within in an open space, in a spot that indicated what direction &
distance they had travelled from to get to the session (N, S, E or W with the centre representing the location of the session). They were then
asked to move to where their place of work was, relative to these coordinates –comments were invited on participant travel modes, along
with introductions by name. Participants were then asked to move closer to the people they knew better in the room and further away from
those they knew less. Clumps of people were asked to say how they knew one another. Then the group as a whole was asked to especially
look out for those participants who knew few other people. How different this felt to the standard introductory method of: “Let’s go around
the circle to find out who you are and what you do”!
What about Content? What
about Process?
Although there are a few who would still argue that we
will succeed with learning and change just by ‘sticking with
the facts’, it is also true that an essential purpose of our
programs is to reduce impacts on the environment: water,
waste, greenhouse gases, biodiversity loss.
From:
Most of us have learnt, at school, university and
elsewhere, in ways very different to what is now
called for to foster sustainability. Some refer to
this as a conflict between the transmissive and the
transformative approaches. However, in reality it is
sometimes necessary and appropriate to deliver
information in condensed and packaged ways. After
all, that is what is being attempted in this report.
What is needed is not a split between content and
process, but rather a new way forward.
In the report on Stage 1 of the Guide Beside
process, this shift in focus was explained in terms of
a re-balancing between different styles of learning.
We call these: educating, enabling and empowering.
This explanation has received widespread recognition
amongst the sustainability educators community, and
has been upgraded and reproduced below:
To:
Table: Three roles of the sustainability facilitator - adapted from S. Sterling 2001 Sustainable Education: Revisioning
Learning and Change. Green Books for Schumacher Society, Devon).
Educating
Enabling
‘Learning About Sustainability’
‘Learning For Sustainability’
‘Learning As Sustainability’
More transmissive processes
More adaptive processes
More transformative processes
Informing
Involving
Empowering
Integrating
| 9 |
Facilitating Sustainable Futures Now!
Equally, we need to be attentive to making collaborative
transformative processes as focused and outcomesreferenced as possible. We should be mindful that
outcomes are always about reducing environmental
impacts and equally outcomes are about people making
change and learning to live more sustainably. Collaborative
transformative processes need to ensure that these two
happen together. There will also be many other economic,
social and cultural benefits from the GB approach.
Part of this process will be to address the current
imbalance in the various ways we approach learning
and change.
The Guide Beside
Often the overriding concern to ‘get the facts out
there’ comes from the urge to get environmental
results. Compared with the sustainability tasks ahead
of us, time is short to achieve these quickly. So often
‘process’ gets relegated to second place. But we now
know comprehensively from both research and practical
experience that more facts, more publications, more
strident calls for action alone do not achieve effective and
lasting change.
We need to move beyond the dichotomy between
process and content, between the social and the
environmental, between community building and
analytical, technological solutions. In PD as elsewhere,
we need to explore the ways in which these two
aspects of learning and change for sustainability
can be integrated, or at the least coordinated in
complementary ways.
The Guide Beside
| 10 |
Our Tendency to Default
to the Transmissive
Who is the Sustainability
Facilitator Anyway?
Feedback from Stage 2 of the GB project has revealed
how easy it is for us as sustainability facilitators to revert
to more transmissive modes of ‘teaching others what
to do’ in our day-to-day activities. After all, this has
been the majority of our own learning experience – in
schools, in universities, in our work organisations.
Who and What are we Facilitating?
We justify using transmissive modes, to ourselves and
to others, because it helps us to feel ‘in control’ – we
like to assume that, if we are being clear to ourselves
about what we are thinking and suggesting, then this
same information will be clear to others as well. We are
also aware that sometimes the transmissive approach is
useful and effective for getting ideas across quickly. The
problem is not that the transmissive is never useful, but
rather that it is not balanced with other ways to foster
learning. And we know that transfer of ideas does not
often result in actual changes in behaviour. Knowing
that something needs to change does not necessarily
lead to taking action to change it.
Facilitating Sustainable Futures Now!
Many participants in the GB project have pointed
out that the alternative processes, of walking through
with participants how they will use information, and
facilitating them to come up with ideas and actions
appropriate to their circumstances, takes time to do,
and effort to organise. In some ways this is true – but
the transmissive style alternative is usually much less
effective and efficient than this alternative approach
over the longer term to achieve deep and lasting
change. Also, we have found that GB style approaches
can be positively infectious!
We need to create sufficient spaces and opportunities
to develop and practice collaborative transformative
learning, amongst ourselves and with our colleagues,
and amongst the participants in our programs. It is
the experience of the GB project that practice helps
– by continuing to practice designing and facilitating
participant based, collaborative learning we become
more adept, efficient and expert in doing this on a
regular basis. A lot of what the GB project is about is
getting facilitators started on this process of practice,
or perhaps reaffirming this approach. It is also about
reconnecting people with what they may have been
exploring previously, and which had slipped as a
result of the pressures of time, or as a result of the
expectations from participants. Under these pressures,
the sustainability educator, as a paid representative, can
easily revert to the role of the ‘expert’ and to merely
telling the others what they need to do.
The issue of how to find the time and resources to
design and practice collaborative transformative learning
and change through professional development is taken
up below in the section “Where to next?”.
For any sustainability program or problem, there is likely
to be a spectrum of responses from those we want to
engage in the learning and change process; for example:
Early Adopters
Advocates
Late Majority
Early Majority
Antagonists
Reluctants
Note: this spectrum is a simplified version of several
models of sustainability participation – for example, the
‘Diffusion of Innovation’ model.
The participant-based (transformative) approach to
sustainability facilitation, on which the Guide Beside is
based, has framed a new view of how experienced
facilitators need to view themselves in relation to these
groups. This new framework outlined below has been of
value to those reviewing their sustainability facilitation in
the pilot projects of Stage 2.
Current Approaches
Existing approaches can achieve results, and may be
appropriate in some cases. However these results are
often limited in scope and scale, and are unlikely to lead
to the groundswell of participation and change that is
required over the long term, and which is necessary if all
Victorians are to become actors for sustainability.
Here are two common approaches – sometimes they
are used in combination:
(i) Social marketing: aims to use marketing methods to
induce early and late majority to join the advocates
and influencers, by gathering information from
surveys and other research methods, as well as from
advocates and influencers, to formulate plans to
change the behaviour of the early and late majority:
Lead Facilitator(s)
Early Adopters
Advocates/
Innovators
Late Majority
Early Majority
Antagonists
Reluctants
The ‘social marketing’ approach can result in large scale
change, if the early and late majority are already inclined
to shift, and all that is required is the removal of barriers
and techniques for securing commitment and change.
However it does not address the larger scale issue of
how to induce a tendency towards change in these
groups, prior to the implementation of the marketing
program. Nor does it build a base of facilitation for
ongoing change, beyond the actions of the lead
facilitator(s).
(ii) Pull through: building the base and influence of
champions and enthusiasts, with the hope of
recruiting early and late participants into these
groups:
Lead Facilitator(s)
Advocates
Early
Adopters
Early Majority
Late Majority
Reluctants Antagonists
Bottom up as much as top down: The Guide
Beside approach is able to draw on each of the two
approaches above, but is fundamentally different in how
the objectives of facilitation are framed. A key aim of
the GB facilitator will be to assist those in the active,
engaged groups to also become facilitators of change
in the less engaged groups, so that they are able to
make a contribution to learning and change in others
outside their primary group, in addition to this primary
contribution.
To do this, the Guide Beside facilitator needs to be
engaged with each of the groups (as well as with other
stakeholders), and to collaboratively develop and
facilitate in others, an overview of how learning and
change towards sustainability can take place. The Guide
Beside facilitator also needs to know how to foster
capacities for facilitation in others, across a diversity
of interests and outlooks, and how to incorporate
knowledge and understandings from these groups into
an overall plan for learning and change.
The Guide Beside
The ‘pull through’ approach often focuses on developing
strategies and actions to involve potential early and
late majority participants, but usually uses the language
and frames (e.g. interests) of those at the forefront
of change: the champions and enthusiasts. Two
consequences of this can be:
The Guide Beside Facilitator
| 11 |
b.
that the recruitment of active participants is
less than expected, because the interests and
languages of the early and late majority are not
understood or utilised; and
that strengthening the cohesiveness of the
advocates and early adopters runs the risk of
setting them apart from the other groups, so
others find it difficult to join in, or even come
to see themselves directly antagonistic to the
outlooks and interests of highly engaged groups.
In each of these two approaches, there is a heavy
demand on the lead facilitator to do the liaison work,
as well as the capacity building, across the spectrum of
engagement. This is because the advocates and early
adopters are likely to be more focused on achieving
their own purposes, rather than thinking about the
needs and interests of the early or late majority, or
devising strategies and actions that will engage with
these other groups.
Rather than working with just the most
enthusiastic advocates and influencers, the
Sustainability Facilitator needs to work across
the spectrum of outlooks and interests, and
must see themselves as engaged with each
group, and as a facilitator of connections
between groups, if they are to foster a sense
of ‘Trusted Other’ leading to change across
the social spectrum.
The Guide Beside Facilitator(s)
Advocates
Early
Adopters
Early Majority
Late Majority
Reluctants Antagonists
In the first instance, it is likely that these new facilitators
will arise from the advocates and early adopters, but it is
also possible that people in other groups will also make
a positive contribution to facilitating learning and change
- in particular to those in their own group, and in groups
adjacent to them. This is because they are likely to be
closer to the views and interests of those in their own
and adjacent groups, and therefore understand better
what interests and motivates them, and also what is
necessary to remove barriers and provide motivation.
One interesting feature of this approach (documented
many times over in learning and change programs) is
that occasionally the most strident antagonist of change
can unexpectedly flip over completely, to become
an ardent influencer or even advocate for learning
and change. Equipped with GB facilitation skills and
knowledge, these people can be powerful change
agents for sustainability.
Facilitating Sustainable Futures Now!
a.
Why this approach?
The Guide Beside
| 12 |
There are many reasons for collaboratively facilitating
learning and change with people across various parts of
the spectrum for change. People listen to, and ultimately
make changes in their behaviour, based primarily on
people they can trust. This is a key finding of research
into behaviour change. It may be more difficult for
a person up one end of a spectrum of any issue to
influence a person at the other end to become engaged
and take action for change, because they are unlikely
to share much in common. People find it more difficult
to make change based on interactions with someone
they’re not sure they can trust. However, if a person
identifies strongly with someone who tells or shows
them something new, this is more likely to move them
in the direction of change (or engage them in an activity
which shifts their perception of what is do-able and
useful). These are the conditions that can make change
happen - especially primary change that can build
capacity towards a tipping point. In reality it’s probably
this type of communication that is the most important
for the spectrum of outlooks and interests in society
to move in a cohesive way towards more sustainable
actions.
Facilitating Sustainable Futures Now!
Additional benefits of
collaborative transformative PD:
• enhanced organisational planning
• overcoming organisational barriers
• enhanced professional relationship
building
• increased clarity of goals
• skills in negotiation and conflict
resolution
• enhanced and more effective
networking
• increased personal positive outlooks
• increased clarity in understanding and
engaging with stakeholders
Sharing the Burden of
Change & Generating
Multiple Outcomes
As an offset to the time and resources facilitators need
to learn and organise collaborative transformative
processes, Stage 2 of the project has found that,
for each of the pilot projects, the outcomes went
significantly beyond individual learning (of the type
achieved through conventional PD training); additional
outcomes included:
• Identifying and addressing key organisational
relationship issues that can impede effectiveness e.g.
the CERES group identified teacher reluctance to
get involved with students on-site and in schools,
when CERES experts were present (teacher lack of
confidence and permission to engage with students
over sustainability, as a guide beside), CERES resolved
to develop active ways to involve teachers as ‘assistant
facilitators’ in student visits to CERES, as well as in
sustainability work in schools, and to address the
collaborative learning needs of these teachers.
• Developing organisational networks, relationships
and in some cases specific strategies and policies to
foster these networks and relationships e.g. the Port
Phillip Council Environmental Pillar have developed
two reference groups as a result of the Guide Beside
PD program: (1) for ongoing professional learning
within the diverse staff who constitute the core of
the environmental pillar; and (2) for collaboration
and coordination of evaluation across council
improvement and community learning and change
projects.
• Clarification of how individual work fits in with wider
organisational agendas and increased confidence in
influencing wider agendas through two way learning
e.g. at Maunsell, a key sustainability facilitator has
recognised the need to put more resources and
effort into communicating with the managers of the
government units who are sending representatives to
the sustainability training workshops he is organising
– so as to shift the expectation of learning and change
around sustainability from largely formula driven to
incorporating elements of participant based problemsolving.
An example of Trust and Change:
Bob and Mary want to do something about their water consumption, but are not sure what. They know about low flow shower heads,
but have heard some negative reports. Their friends come over to dinner and tell them about a model that really works. Their friends
also tell them the best and least expensive place to buy them, that is close by. Next week, Bob and Mary buy one and have it fitted.
For all of the Guide Beside programs – pilots,
tasters and conversations – participants reported
one additional positive ancillary outcome. This was
an increase in positive personal outlook and sense
of connectivity with other sustainability facilitators.
Judging by the issues identified in both Stage 1 and
Stage 2, assisting sustainability facilitators to maintain
and improve their efforts over time, in positive ways,
in the face of increased conflict and concern over
environmental issues, will be an important part of
professional development. This characteristic of PD links
across the professional and the personal, and across
the individual and broader society within which they
are acting (see Personal Dimensions of Transformative
Learning & Change below).
... GB participant some months after attending some of
the Tasters
The types of ‘value adding’ that we saw were developing
from GB approaches and GB style, which may assist you
to justify to your organisation that it should support PD
include:
• networking across organisational boundaries
• productively managing change & development
• engaging with diverse stakeholders in a positive and
facilitated environment
• building involvement in collaborative evaluation,
including building shared ways to collect data and
otherwise document outcomes
• strengthening teams, including: morale; clarity of
purpose & strategic directions; either to overcome
isolation within small groups, or to provide focus and
purpose within large, complex organisations
• enhanced processes and relationships with customers,
partners & other influencers
Examples of ways to gain
support for GB style Professional
Development:
• Organise a planning day for your
team, and include GB style PD around
planning, facilitating, evaluating and/or
implementing (see next page).
• Seek support from Human Resources
personnel to assist you to design team
building sessions using GB design of PD
• Include GB style PD in sessions on
working with customers, or community,
or stakeholders.
• Identify the primary interests of
collaborators, partners and influencers
and use these interests to design
sessions with stakeholders that relate
their interests to wider policies, as well
as learning and change framework and
skill development.
| 13 |
Facilitating Sustainable Futures Now!
One of the most positive outcomes of the
GB workshops I attended was how upbeat
I felt at the end of them. Normally by the
end of a day long workshop you feel pretty
washed out – but these were facilitated so
that we kept our energy and enthusiasm up
– as well as getting lots done, and sharing our
problems & perspectives.
The report of Stage 1 of the Guide Beside project
identified potential ways in which time and other
resources could be gained within organisations for
collaborative transformative professional development.
The outcomes of Stage 2 pilots, tasters and
conversations affirmed that the outcomes of GB-style
PD go well beyond improving the effectiveness of the
individual and have positive outcomes for organisational
planning and dynamics, professional working relationships,
morale, productive negotiation and conflict resolution
... to name only several (see the previous section of this
report for details).
The Guide Beside
Collaborative transformative learning has an important
part to play in bringing together all those with facilitator
expertise, so they are able to support one another, to
develop further in positive and trusting collegiate ways,
and together to frame the process of change in ways
that are understandable to the wider community of
facilitators, acting from positive, shared purpose.
Getting the Time &
Resources you need for PD
Which Content is Best to
Start With for Collaborative
Transformative PD?
Facilitating, Planning, Evaluating,
Implementing, Identifying Objectives
The Guide Beside
| 14 |
In stage 1 of the Guide Beside, the pilot modular
material for professional development was laid out
according to a linear sequence of simple elements
that would suit most sustainability programs, as these
developed:
1. Starting Questions;
2. Paradigms and Principles;
3. Change Models;
4. Facilitation;
5. Scoping (Forming);
6. Goal Setting (Storming);
7. Planning (Norming);
8. Implementing (Performing);
9. Closure/Succession (Reforming/Dorming).
Facilitating Sustainable Futures Now!
While each of these elements is useful to address as
part of an overall PD program, we discovered during
pilots and tasters that there is a simpler, modified
version of this that is useful to convey the systemic
inter-relationships between various elements of a
sustainability program (see diagram on next page).
Questions about the relatedness program elements
tend arise during PD programs, and can be confusing if
not addressed appropriately.
For example, a PD session focused on Evaluation needs also
to address elements of:
• Facilitation - What processes are going to be used to
arrive at collaborative development of Evaluation?
• Outcomes - What is the evaluation going to evaluate for?
• Planning - How is the evaluation going to be integrated
with other planned elements?
• Implementation - How is the evaluation going to be
practically organised and implemented – who will do what?
How and when?
PD which starts with, and focus on, any one of the key
elements of a program, will eventually need to bring in
aspects of the others, and this interconnection between
elements needs to be recognised and valued. By being given
appropriate recognition, each of the key elements can be
teased out and focused on, in ways that minimise confusion
about their relationship and cross over to the others
elements. In this way, any discrete PD program which focuses
primarily on one element also acknowledges the importance
of each of the key elements to successful project planning,
implementation, evaluation and facilitation.
What we have found in pilots and tasters is that there can be
multiple entry points to the four key major interconnected
themes around which professional development can be
organised. These major themes are related through a
process of collaboratively clarifying the outcomes of any
sustainability program. Without clear statement of shared
outcomes, negotiated across participants and stakeholders,
none of the other elements of a program (planning,
implementing, evaluating) can be clearly defined. As well as
this, collaboratively achieving useable shared outcomes in itself
also relies on an appropriate facilitation process out of which
these outcomes are produced.
A Working Example:
Here is a practical example of the way in which the diagram on the following page can be used to help design and fun PD for sustainability
facilitators
A collaborative transformative PD program organised to provide PD for program planning would ask participants to bring examples from
their workplace of draft plans for sustainability programs, or ideas for programs under development. As for all Guide Beside PD, the program
would begin with arriving, introductions, and people oriented relationship-building for trust and connectivity (e.g. sharing key elements and
issues for planning). Then participants would be asked to consider what the main objectives were of the programs they are planning. This in
turn would lead to questions about the purposes of the program being planned, and to activities focused on clarifying the objectives of the
program, so that the plans under development relate strongly to the intended outcomes.
Identification of outcomes, and key objectives need to be related to who will have a stake in the program: either as organisers, participants,
contributors, influencers or potential blockers. This is as important as what the intended outcomes are from the perspective of those with
primary responsibility to organise and implement the program. So identification of outcomes needs to include stakeholder analysis, which in
turn raises the issue of what the processes of facilitation need to be, to identify who the stakeholders are, and what their perspectives are on
the intended outcomes.
Program planning is also linked to organisation for implementation and evaluation, through consideration of what the objectives of the
program are. These objectives can be clearly identified through the SMART process (or equivalent): e.g. working on objectives so that they
are Specific, Measurable, Appropriate, Realistic and Time-bound. By working on clarification of the SMART attributes of program objectives,
each of the other major elements of a program can be related.
Using this approach within a PD program, which in this example focuses on planning, the other elements of a successful program can be
identified, and some time spent considering these, without sliding fully into any of them: usually the need for allocating time to developing
each of these other elements further is identified as one of the outcomes of the PD program - which starts with planning as a primary focus.
This might in turn lead to interests in developing PD sessions around each of these others: facilitating, evaluating, implementing.
Figure:
The relationships between key elements of a sustainability program
These can be used to plan and clarify focus and content of PD for sustainability
facilitators (see text for details).
* Potential entry points for Guide Beside PD are identified: these are linked because each needs to
consider outcomes (as well as stakeholders and influencers) for their successful completion.
*ENTRY POINT FOR PD =>
*ENTRY POINT FOR PD =>
Planning
How should we engage with
others to enhance learning
and change and capacity
building?
How should we scope
and set plans for learning
and change and capacity
building?
OUTCOMES
for people and
environment
=> SMART objective
Ways that actors and influencers can
help evaluation, design and actions
Implementing
Evaluating
How should we organise
to implement learning
and change and capacity
building?
How should we plan for
evaluation of environmental
and people outcomes?
*ENTRY POINT FOR PD =>
| 15 |
Facilitating Sustainable Futures Now!
e r s an d I n fl u
s
Processes to include actors and
influencers in implementation
ld
ho
ce r
*ENTRY POINT
FOR PD =>
Processes to bring actors and
influencers into strategic planning
en
Stak
e
Facilitation to identify actors and
influencers and outcomes they share
The Guide Beside
Facilitating
*ENTRY POINT FOR PD =>
Personal Dimensions of
Transformative Learning &
Change - The Why
Collaborative transformative PD is as
much personal as it is professional
Why the personal in sustainability PD?
The Guide Beside
| 16 |
Stage 1 of the GB project very early on identified the
need to address the personal dimensions of sustainability
facilitation. This was such a persistent theme that we
made a commitment to follow up this issue in Stage
2. Some key outcomes of these explorations of the
personal dimensions are outlined in the next subsubsection.
Some of the ways in which the personal dimensions
of learning and change apply to the development of
effective capacity to facilitate in an effective professional
way are:
Facilitating Sustainable Futures Now!
• Facilitating for sustainability is more than a job. There
is always a personal dimension to the work, and this
operates regardless of whether you are facilitating
a group of participants, talking to the CEO, arguing
for more resources or policy, or deciding which type
of transport to take home (just in case the ‘devil’s
advocate’ in your building catches you out). Defining
just what the job is can be difficult: in fact it is probably
a combination of setting and kicking sustainability goals,
and at the same time shifting the goal posts.
At the first forum in the early
months of Stage 1, the first point
coming forward from those
assembled to identify issues that
needed addressing was “How do
we sustain ourselves?” This was
soon followed by “How do I deal
with conflict?”, “Where do my
own values and outlooks fit in?”
and “What is my job – changing
the people I work with, the
organisation I work in, or myself?”
• You never go ‘home’ from the environment. The issues,
tasks and needs for change affect us all, and call us all
to action all the time – whether we are at work, at
home, at play, with family, etc. These are the underlying
reasons for the work we do - why we do it.
• Authenticity of values and purpose is an important and
powerful attribute for the sustainability facilitator – it
is part of being seen as a ‘trusted other’ who is sharing
our concern for environmental sustainability with those
we facilitate – so that why we act is shared.
• Personal, practical experience of ways to move
towards environmental sustainability are valuable
aspects of knowledge and experience that can assist
our work capabilities, and not just for authenticity
– trying to move towards sustainability in our own
lives can give us insights into the issues and dilemma’s
of others in adjusting their life circumstances also – it
renders us more approachable, with something to
share in a human way with those we facilitate.
• Our experiences of the concern, negativity, pessimism,
anger and denial of others around issues of
environmental sustainability occurs far beyond our
professional lives. At a party or pub, the question:
“And what work to you do?” with a reply from you, can
lead to you being subjected to an hour tirade against
the environmental position of some government or
other, or a dump on you as an unrealistic greenie, or
a download about whether climate change is really
happening (regardless of your view) ... and all you
wanted was to have a drink and relax!
• There is so much to do to achieve environmental
sustainability, and so many of the issues that affect
sustainability are connected, that sometimes it is
difficult to make clear decisions about what to take on
and what to let go of – sustaining ourselves by making
strategic personal choices, and maintaining effective
effort over the long term, is a key personal issue
around sustainability.
In the forest, there is an
incomprehensible order that to the
mind looks like chaos. It is beyond the
mental categories of good and bad.
You cannot understand it through
thoughts, but you can sense it then
you let go of thoughts, become still
and alert, and don’t try to understand
or explain. Only then can you be
aware of the sacredness of the forest.
As soon as you sense that hidden
harmony, that sacredness, you realise
you are not separate from it, and
when you realise that, you become a
conscious participant in it. In this way,
nature can help you become realigned
with the wholeness of life.”
Ekhart Tolle A New Earth. Penguin Books
(NY) 2005.
• At the same time, collaborative transformative
methods require us to engage with people: whoever,
wherever and however they are at in relation to the
environment. It is important to not be overwhelmed
by the distance between the current position of those
you are facilitating and what you know is needed to
achieve sustainability. There is a personal dimension
to our ability to maintain an effective capacity to
facilitate people (the WHO) as well as help improve
environmental outcomes (the WHAT). We can learn
from one another and from consolidated knowledge
about how to do this, through collaborative,
transformative PD.
Outcomes of Our Explorations of the
Personal Dimensions
Our explorations in Stage 2 revealed that the personal
dimensions of sustainability facilitation are not easy
to discuss, due to a combination of barriers and
negative perceptions. Key amongst these are:
• Negative associations made with what is sometimes
perceived as spirituality and religion, and suspicion of
motivations and historical arguments that relate to
these.
• Apparent contradictions between the proposed
objective scientific and technological approaches to
environmental impact reduction and the essentially
subjective approaches associated with exploration of
our personal dimensions.
• Personal dimensions are highly experiential and
related to the deeper purposes of our lives: this leads
to fear of denigration or suspicion, or being branded
inappropriate or ‘not objective’.
Despite these apparent barriers, we have identified
that, while sustainability facilitators had different types of
practice for maintaining and developing their personal
integrity, and different words and frameworks to
describe the inner personal, there some aspects of the
personal dimensions of sustainability facilitation we can
all agree on:
• The most effective collaborative transformative
processes, where the biggest change often occurs,
almost invariably draws on elements of this ‘inner
personal’ dimension, including a sense of authenticity
and integrity, trust and shared purpose, and letting go
of pre-formed expectations.
• There are numerous examples in written form, as well
as our own practice, which identify that there is some
type of ‘shared inner personal’ that is a powerful force
for transformation, because it is where the energies,
interests and motivations of a whole group of people
suddenly change or shift perspective.
• Moving towards more sustainable lifestyles will take
more than merely adapting our current uses of
water, energy, materials and biodiversity. There is
a transformative, creative element which involves
asking: “What would be more fulfilling than our current
environmentally destructive lifestyles and practices?”
“Instead of being lost in your
thinking, when you are awake you
recognise yourself as the awareness
behind it. Thinking then ceases to
be the self-serving autonomous
activity that takes possession of
you and runs your life. Awareness
takes over from thinking. Instead
of being in charge of your life, the
thinking becomes the servant of the
awareness ...Another word for it is
Presence.”
Ekhart Tolle A New Earth. Penguin Books
(NY) 2005.
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Facilitating Sustainable Futures Now!
We are all on the journey to address these personal
dimensions of sustainability facilitation. No PD program
can or should help us to achieve nirvana (there are
other places and people interested in helping with
this). However, the personal dimensions of sustainability
facilitation are of such importance, and there is now
so much practical experience, reflective writing and
research to draw on, that these personal dimensions
should be included in any collaborative transformative
approach to professional development.
• Fear that the whole process of learning and change
for sustainability might be hijacked from achieving
practical outcomes for the environment, to being
bogged down in process, or the even more frightening
‘navel gazing’
The Guide Beside
• Maintaining ourselves as positive, calm, connected
individuals, not overtaken by the negative energies and
emotions around environmental issues, but at the same
time positively passionate in what we do and want, is a
key personal attribute to foster for effective facilitation.
• Some of the personal dimensions associated with
values, integrity and change are inherently beyond
words: often we do not have the words to adequately
talk about these aspects of our experience - but we
can express and share them in a multiplicity of ways.
We tested these exploratory outcomes with a daylength workshop, as well as in individual conversations,
consultations and subsequent workshop design. Some
key understandings that came out of this testing process
were:
• There is a ‘place’ or set of group dynamics that leads
to high levels of productivity and creativity, that arises
in the best learning and change, and one can facilitate
processes that help a group arrive at this’ place’.
• This place is variously referred to using terms such as
‘shared space’ or ‘shared presence’ or ‘community of
practice’.
The Guide Beside
• There is a need to move from a position which is
merely optimistic and hopeful, to one of positive intent,
when facilitating others to adopt more sustainable
approaches to living.
• By developing a sense of our own personal inner
space and practices to maintain this, we can assist our
capacity to facilitate with others for ‘inner personal
change’ and ‘presencing’.
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Facilitating Sustainable Futures Now!
• While we have a variety of ways of maintaining this
inner personal space, and for many people these ways
are very different to others, we can recognise it in one
another across individual frameworks or words we use
to describe it.
• Groups of people, given the choice to identify how
they practice maintaining wellbeing of this inner
personal space, can find others with similar practice,
and together can practice how to come into shared
presence around this inner space – and this is a
powerful professional learning experience that assists
the ability to facilitate others to achieve this space.
• Some of these ways of exploring personal inner space,
and shared presence, are outside of the dimensions
of professional learning, but equally some of them
are entirely relevant and appropriate to PD for
sustainability facilitators.
• We need to recognise that different groups and
individuals may have differing comfort zones and
personal issues around experiencing and reflecting on
the ‘inner personal’ and ‘shared presence’ dimensions.
• The issues of ‘comfort zones’ is not so much a
barrier to including these personal dimensions in our
facilitation (most experienced facilitators already do),
but rather an issue of developing experience and
expertise as facilitators in how to do this appropriately
for each situation and group of participants.
• There are still barriers to developing the personal
dimensions of sustainability facilitation further ... we
need to explore these barriers and practice revealing
and overcoming them.
The realisations from the Personal Conversations
process and workshop came to be some of the
hallmarks that we relied on to facilitate in the Guide
Beside approach. One of our touchstones was: “The
deepest, longest lasting and most transformative
learning and change is likely to happen when a process
is facilitated of ‘coming into shared space’, sometimes
called shared presence. This involves letting go of
individual pre-conceived ideas, of building shared
knowledge, trust and connectivity within the group, to
the point where everyone is focused on shared tasks
with the intention of identifying shared outcomes.”
Also we came to see that there is an equivalent process
at the individual level for practicing healthy, positive and
productive personal orientations to sustainability. The
practice of being present to the needs of sustainable
living in creative ways with positive intention, however
achieved, is an important practice for sustaining one’s
self personally. It is also important for achieving personal
environmental sustainability, and for facilitating this
capacity in others.
Personal dimensions
- from the Taster:
Sustaining Our Efforts & Ourselves
• Doing it together
• Taking care of the personal
• Looking out for each other
• Beginning and continuing with positive
intent
• Honesty and trust
• Sharing experiences
• Allowing ourselves to see it as more
than a job
• Identifying boundaries for what is
personally possible at any time
Where to Next:
Follow-on Stages
Collaborative Learning Groups as a
Nucleus for Networking
Outcomes from Stage 2 and
Recommendations for Action
The following are key outcomes from Pilot Groups and
associated recommendations for actions that follow on
from Stage 2- these are summarised at the start of this
report:
2. It took only a short lead time for participants in pilot
programs to recognise the value of the collaborative
learning group approach, and especially its advantage
over the ‘standard delivery’ approach of single
workshops that taking in all comers. However, a long
lead time has been required to actually set up pilot
collaborative learning groups and clearly define issues
in ways that are beneficial to participants.
Recommendation: Organise Guide Beside learning
group based programs, and in doing so, to allow for a
significant pre-program set up time.
3. The reasons for the long lead time are varied, and in
most cases relate to the quality, range and depth of
outcomes that this approach helps foster:
a. Issues that each group chosen to address through
professional learning need identification through
a ‘start-up’ reflective process of design meetings,
as well as consultation back with those who
constitute the participants.
b. This approach calls on more significant time
for participants and designers to contribute
to professional learning, so there is a need to
carefully consider the merits of any benefits –
4. There is value also in encouraging collaborative group
participants to feed perspectives and approaches
from these learning groups back into the wider
GB community of facilitators. This requires time
because of the change in approach – most people
and organisations are oriented around the more
transmissive, top down, work to rule type approach.
While recognising and valuing the transformative
approach, facilitators and organisations need time
to adjust thinking and approaches to reflect on, and
come into accord with this approach ... and also find
ways to make adjustments in the more transmissive
organisational structures and processes so that
they can accommodate more of this approach (this
varies greatly between organisations and participant
groups).
What is envisaged for the future of the Guide
Beside PD project is the formation of Professional
Development Collaborative Learning Groups, to work
with experienced facilitators, to design and implement
collaborative professional learning, integrated with their
existing program development. During these stages the
project will also work to develop an active, connected,
community of practice through the development of
assisting materials and resources, and both on-line and
face-to-face networks, as well as updating and upgrading
existing environmental sustainability education contacts
and directories.
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Facilitating Sustainable Futures Now!
Recommendation: take this approach into the next
stages in a variety of ways: especially around the
establishment of collaborative learning groups and
workshop formats – see proposal for follow up stages
below.
c. There are many other benefits that flow from
the collaborative learning approach to PD
- see previous section in this report. However,
facilitation of these other elements also requires
coordination, as well as lead up time to properly
comprehend and design what is required to
address these elements e.g. increased networking
and cross organisational understanding,
collaboration, coordination and alignment of goals
and efforts.
The Guide Beside
1. Engagement has been excellent around the codesign approach in pilot groups – a range of groups
of experienced sustainability facilitators have engaged
with, and see high level value in, this approach.
especially as most facilitators have reported being
time poor for PD. Because collaborative learning
group activities are related more fully and directly
to the practical work outputs of participants, they
are able to make up time for PD by integrating
this more with ongoing work – and contribute
to clarity of objectives, strategy development,
evaluation, facilitation approaches, etc.
Professional Development Collaborative
Learning Groups
These learning groups should span across three types of
interaction:
Focused project, theme or sector group; eg young
environmental leaders, behaviour change network
- Full collaboration to design & deliver professional
development.
Networks /sectors with good practice needing
further strengthening of PD eg CERES education
groups, Waste Management Groups, Agencies
- Exploring and extending the range of methods for PD
development and delivery
The Guide Beside
| 20 |
Network /sector with existing developed PD
elements e.g. landcare, DSE community engagement
- Two way exchange of ideas & resources
Facilitating Sustainable Futures Now!
PD Collaborative Learning Groups should be selected
by a process of inviting expressions of interest. It
is envisaged that details of selection criteria will be
developed in the next Stages of the project, but will
include:
• Capacity to mobilise and engage with a range of
professional learning participants, preferably across
stakeholders in a project
• Understanding of the principles of collaborative,
transformative learning and change principles, as well
as evidence of interest in this type of practice
• Representation across key sectors (waste, water,
energy, biodiversity) and locations (urban, regional,
rural)
• Representation across the three types of collaborative
PL engagement outlined above
An important outcome of this integrated PD will be
the contribution that collaborative learning teams
could make to generic one day workshops which
will be organised to address key issues and topics for
professional learning for sustainability. In addition, the
internet hub for participating individuals and groups
will document best practice PD and facilitation of
sustainability through case studies, on-line postings of
consolidated understanding, and exchange of ideas
between learning groups and the wider community of
sustainability facilitators.
By organising in this way, the expertise and emerging
experience of those in the learning groups supported
by the project will be carried to the wider sustainability
community, in ways that are appropriate to their needs,
interests and contexts. A requirement of being selected
for support as a PD learning group should be willing to
actively participate in these generic one day workshops.
Network Development
Recommendation: Over the next stages of
development, this project should take the first step in
creating a strong, representative state-wide network
by:
• Creating a physical and electronic network of
facilitators involved in the professional development
element of the project
• Piloting the development of physical and electronic
regional networks of educators
• Updating and upgrading existing contacts directories,
so that they contain up to date information of service
organisations involved in environmental sustainability
education and so that these existing networks are
fully searchable.
A diagrammatic representation of how the Guide Beside
team can work with Learning Group representatives
to design and deliver collaborative transformative
professional development is in Appendix 2.
APPENDIX 1
KEY PRINCIPLES FOR EFFECTIVE
COLLABORATIVE & TRANSFORMATIVE
STYLE SUSTAINABILITY FACILITATION
WHICH UNDERPIN THE GUIDE
BESIDE PROJECT
Professional Learning for Sustainability
Facilitators:
Valuing prior knowledge and diverse ways
of knowing: Beginning with the existing knowledge
& understanding of participants, wherever that is, and
finding ways to connect learning & change to the social
and cultural experience of participants, and to the
preferred ways that participants learn & work together,
so the have ownership of the change process, and are
empowered to take action
Valuing both content and process: Fostering
learning of ways to reflectively and collaborative work
together for change, and fostering understanding of
basic ecoliteracy concepts in ways that are meaningful
to the experiences and preferred learning modes of
participants
Learning through doing: Trying out new ways of
acting, as well as reflecting on the outcomes of this new
behaviour, and adapting or changing this, is central to
effective practical learning for change.
In implementing this transformative learning approach
for change towards sustainability we recognise the
importance of:
Group 2: Other Related Principles
The frameworks and processes for using transformative
learning for change in facilitation include:
Group 1. Transformative Learning
Principles
Reflective practice: Critically and supportively
reflecting on our own and each other’s practice, as an
ongoing process; implies facilitation and leadership for
collaborative learning and commitment to contextually
relevant outcomes
Valuing and testing prior experience: Testing
in our practice what we consider of value from others’
experience, both directly from colleagues & from more
consolidated sources (eg. written)
Collaboration: Collaborating together to both foster
Behaviour change is primary goal: Irrespective
of how people change, change towards more
sustainable actions is the primary goal, and ultimately
the behaviour of all people needs to be consistent with
environmental sustainability.
Values and ethics: These are the values and ethics
which underpin that which we want to sustain and
enhance into the future, across positive environmental,
social and economic attributes, locally and globally.
Advocacy as well as implementation:
Recognising that both the setting and achieving of
specific shorter-term achievable sustainability goals
(kicking goals), and fostering change towards longer
term sustainability goals (shifting the goal posts) are
important aspects of change and facilitation; these
longer term goals include:
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Facilitating Sustainable Futures Now!
The frameworks and processes (pedagogies) for
the PL project (learning how to enhance / improve
sustainability facilitation) need to be consistent with the
processes and frameworks for fostering change towards
sustainability – that is, we affirm transformative learning
for change at each level (Group 1 Principles). There
are additional principles that are also important for
effective change towards sustainability (Group 2) which
also apply to broad scale change towards sustainability,
as well as to professional learning specifically. Finally,
there are also specific principles that are important for
those undertaking professional learning to assist their
capacity and effectiveness to facilitate change (Group 3
Principles).
High Level Learning: recognising and building
on the linkages between different levels and types of
understanding – through knowledge and understanding,
skills & capabilities, attitudes and values, action and
participation
The Guide Beside
Note: These principles are primarily based around
facilitating for sustainability, rather than for developing
the program of professional learning – in many instances
these will be the same, or fully consistent. However
there are principles that can be identified for PL for
sustainability facilitation that are distinct from those for
facilitation itself (see PART 2 below).
learning and to facilitate change, and co-learning through
the exchange of ideas and experiences, to develop
common understandings & actions
- Basic Ecoliteracy: Regardless of the program or
approach, over time we need to ensure that
everyone in the community is increasing in their
understanding of the fundamental ecological
ideas that underpin change for environmental
sustainability. This does not mean that programs
should start with these understandings, but that
they are introduced as the program or project
continues.
The Guide Beside
| 22 |
- Speed (and Scale) of Change: Over time, we
need to build an increase in the pace of change
towards sustainability, to minimise the risk that
major catastrophic events overtake us – and
recognise that ecological limits have a time
dimensions that relate to the rate of degradation
of resources and ecological systems, and the rates
at which these can recover or be replaced by
sustainable alternatives.
Facilitating Sustainable Futures Now!
Bottom up as well as top down: Wisdom resides
in the participants and those they are connected to
in the wider community, and this wisdom needs to
be evoked and aligned with the broad requirements
of learning and change toward sustainability – so that
everyone involved comes to see themselves learners,
expert knowledge and skills are integrated with more
general knowledge and skills, and all involved become
more effective facilitators for learning and change
Using practical examples: Exemplars, stories, case
studies and uses of technologies which at once capture
key principles of learning and changing, and the richness
of the contexts within which learning and change take
place
Regulation and Opportunity: Regulation is an
important component of change for sustainability, but
must be developed in conjunction with opportunities
for transformative learning, as well as encouragement,
commitment and incentives for action.
The principles in Group 1 and Group 2 apply to both
facilitation of change towards sustainability, in the
wider community, as well as to the implementation
of programs of professional learning for sustainability
facilitators. There are additional principles that are
specifically relevant to professional learning for
sustainability facilitators, as follows (Note: ultimately
many of these principles will apply at all levels of change
for sustainability, not just PL for sustainability facilitators):
Group 3: Additional Principles for
Professional Learning
Sustaining Ourselves: Because facilitating change for
sustainability involves personal as well as professional
commitment, and deals with changing peoples’ values,
and advocating for change as well as achieving pre-set
sustainability goals, those undertaking this work meet
significant challenges, both personal and institutional. The
work entails a level of personal/emotional risk, which
requires recognition of this risk, and ways to maintain
one’s inner integrity and sense of self and values in the
face of these risks – developing these are a legitimate
part of professional learning.
Fostering a community of experienced
sustainability facilitators: as one of the
key ways to promote reflective and collaborative
learning, including exchange of ideas, information and
approaches, as well as supporting one another through
major change and challenges, personal and professional.
Being able to facilitate learning and
change for sustainability is a necessary
but insufficient condition for being able to
foster learning (PL): the project needs to identify
not only the key elements for successful facilitation,
but the conditions and inputs required for people to
learn to facilitate better and with more flexibility (in a
combination of direct learning from others, background
sources and reflective, collaborative practice)
Everyone is a learner: this requires facilitators of
PL to balance the need to draw on and consolidate
the knowledge and expertise already existing within
the community of experienced sustainability facilitators
(including for example, written material such as
manuals, toolboxes and research papers), with the
need to maintain flexibility and adaptability in the
implementation of this knowledge and expertise
in particular contexts. Also to allow for adaptability
with changing circumstances, opportunities for
new approaches and perspectives to arise, and for
the frameworks and processes (pedagogies) of all
participants, including experienced facilitators, to be
drawn on in grounded and reflective and transformative
ways.
APPENDIX 2
The Guide Beside: To Assist in Planning & Designing
Participant-based Professional Development
WRITTEN
MATERIALS
The ‘Guide Beside’
Professional
Development Modules:
Session Format Suggestions
Content Ideas
Resources
- from consolidated experience
Other manuals,
toolboxes & written
material, as well as
direct experience and
expertise
(generic expertise)
Professional
Learning Design
(includes evaluation
plan)
AND
Professional
Learning
Reference
Group/
Champions
(contextual expertise)
Professional
Learning
Sessions
e.g. workshops,
placement groups,
mentoring, etc.
draws on expertise,
knowledge &
experience of
participants
Evaluation and
Feedback
• In the ‘Guide Beside’ approach, generic professional learning (PL) facilitators and contextual champions together
are in control of the design and implementation of the PL experiences – this optimises their relevance for PL
participants and models the participant-based, transformative approach on which the ‘Guide Beside’ is based.
• The Professional Learning (PL) Modules will provide a key input into the design of Professional Learning programs
by facilitators & champions, as well as into the PL implementation.
• The written material in the Modules (reflective questions, session design suggestions, content, and resource lists) will
support the PL facilitator and context based reference/champion groups in the design of the context specific PL
program.
• The Module materials can also be drawn on directly in the PL program implementation, and in the design and
implementation of the evaluation of the program.
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Facilitating Sustainable Futures Now!
References
Professional
Learning
Facilitator/s
ACTION
LEARNING
The Guide Beside
Reflective Questions
DESIGN AND
FACILITATION
Recommendations Arising From Stage 2
The following is a summary of recommendations and proposed next steps, reported on in more
detail in the section inside entitled: Where to Next: Follow-on Stages
Overall Recommendation:
Establish collaborative learning groups as a nucleus for networking
The following are key outcomes from Pilot Groups and associated recommendations for actions
that follow on from Stage 2- these are summarised at the start of this report:
Recommendation 1: Take the principle of involving participant representatives in the co-design
of professional development into the next stages of the project in a variety of ways: especially
around the establishment of collaborative learning groups – see below.
Recommendation 2: Organise Guide Beside collaborative learning group based programs, and in
doing so, to allow for a significant pre-program set up time.
The Guide Beside
| 24 |
Recommendation 3: In setting up collaborative learning groups, ensure there is representation:
a. across key sectors (waste, water, energy, biodiversity) and locations (urban, regional, rural)
b. across the three types of collaborative PL engagement outlined in the main body of the
report
Facilitating Sustainable Futures Now!
Recommendation 4: Ensure that the collaborative learning teams make active contributions
to generic one day workshops for the wider community of sustainability facilitators, organised to
address key issues and topics for professional learning for sustainability – and report outcomes on
the internet hub for participating individuals and groups – see Recommendation 5.
Recommendation 5: Over the next stages of development, this project should take the first step
in creating a strong, representative state-wide network by:
• Creating a physical and electronic network of educators and facilitators involved in the
professional development element of the project
• Piloting the development of physical and electronic regional networks of educator
• Updating and upgrading existing contacts directories, so that they contain up to date
information of service organisations involved in environmental sustainability education and so
that these existing networks are fully searchable.
Acknowledgements: Who was involved in the Guide Beside project
The ideas, information and developments contained in this report would not have come about
without the involvement and generous contributions of a large number of people, too numerous to
name here. Some key people and groups who made major contributions were:
Glenn Davidson, Catherine Doran, Judith Alcorn, Pat Armstrong, Eric Bottomley, CERES Environment
Park staff, Linda Condon, Ching Ching Ly, Steve Malcolm, Meg Parker, Tara Howard, Lalitha
Ramachandran and the team at City of Port Phillip Environmental Pillar, the Port Phillip Ecocentre
team, Robyn Rattray-Wood, Gilbert Rochecoste, Gayle Seddon, Brian Sharpley, Will Symons,
Sustainable Education Roundtable Working Group, VAEE Council, Waste Management Association of
Australia.
... thanks also and apologies to those we have not had room or recollection to include here.
Cover illustration: Alex Rowland
Document design and layout: Ching Ching Ly (cc.designs@optusnet.com.au)