Carolyn’s Story
I am an educational developer and English instructor, which means I support faculty in their pedagogical and curricular practices, as well as students in their learning about writing and literature. Since my main faculty role is in educational development, I facilitate many workshops, such as the Instructional Skills Workshop (ISW), the ISW Facilitator Development Workshop, Great Teachers Seminar, Course (re)Design Institute, and others.
However, when Christina asked me to participate with her in Appreciative Resilience Facilitators’ Training, I was initially hesitant, as I don’t have a strong Appreciative Inquiry background like she has, and I was concerned I’d be lost, or, worse, that I’d hold up the group. However, what I did know about Appreciative Inquiry fuelled my curiosity, as I’d been an advocate for strengths-based practices in teaching, and I’ve used several such strategies in my own classroom. Because our former director of the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT), the teaching and learning centre where I work, used Appreciative Inquiry concepts to support departments through program review (such as using a SOAR process instead of a SWOT analysis, focusing on strengths, opportunities, aspirations, and results instead of weaknesses and threats), I was hopeful that engaging in Appreciative Resilience Facilitator Training (ARFT) would help me better support faculty in institutional initiatives. Also, I knew of Joan McArthur-Blair and Jeanie Cockell’s impactful work in this area and was interested to learn from them (I still recall Joan’s keynote talk at the Educational Developers’ Caucus Conference in 2014).
Not long into the ARFT workshops, I realized that the Appreciative Resilience framework and the ALIVE model are perfect tools not only to support faculty, but to support student learning as well. I also realized that some of the activities I already was using in my classroom aligned well with parts of the ALIVE model. For example, here is a small sample of an in-class writing activity I assign in class on the day students hand in an assignment:
- What part of the assignment was most challenging for you? How did you manage that? (Venture)
- What part was most interesting to you? What made it interesting? (Appreciate)
- What part of the assignment are you most proud of? Why? (Appreciative/Love)
- If you could do the assignment over again, what would you change? (Evolve)
This activity helps students think through how they have approached the assignment and overcome challenges to succeed as writers, and I realize now that these questions also (inadvertently) walk students through a cycle of despair, forgiveness, and hope, the core of the Appreciative Resilience model. I started to see how I could create workshops to help faculty use these tools to foster students’ metacognitive skills to help them learn.
For the first workshop, I was nervous. Christina and I have different facilitation styles, and I knew we didn’t have as many registrants as I’d hoped for. We included some of the information Joan and Jeanie shared with us (with attribution, of course), but we also integrated additional literature about student learning and connected it to the ALIVE model, including some discussion of wellbeing and growth mindset, both of which are important for learning. While there were only three participants, the discussion was insightful and deep, as they were vulnerable in sharing their hopes and fears for students, as well as their concerns that they might not be able to adequately support those students who might be in despair after re-entering the classroom after lockdown. Even as we were discussing DESPAIR-FORGIVENESS-HOPE, I witnessed its full cycle over the course of the workshop as people moved to sharing their strategies for supporting students and eliciting articulation of the best learning possible.
Part way into the workshop, I realized we had included too much content and couldn’t discuss it all, so we all agreed to pick up on some of the concepts at the second workshop. We also agreed that forming an ongoing Appreciative Inquiry/Appreciative Resilience community of practice could afford us as much time as necessary to delve into some of the topics we wouldn’t get to in the workshop.
I was much less nervous for the second workshop for two reasons: first, Christina and I had already co-facilitated the first workshop, and second, while I’d hoped for more participants than we had, having experienced the rich and compelling conversation with the small group during the first workshop, I was less concerned about how the workshop would unfold. Again, the discussion made it feel like we had a full room, and although I knew we had included too much content (again!), for topics that we couldn’t get to, such as meaningful and productive ways to respond to student resistance, we’d already decided we could leave those for future community of practice meetings.
For the third gathering, which was not a workshop but the inaugural community of practice meeting, we were surprised to have completely new participants—none had attended either of the workshops—but two of them were very familiar with Appreciative Inquiry, so they’d registered to further their use of AI in their teaching practice and to learn about Appreciative Resilience. We’d arrived prepared, though, with some of our slides from the previous workshops to provide a summary of the what had been discussed at the earlier gatherings and why the group had opted to form a community of practice. The participants discussed a way forward as a community and how we could further institutional goals, support student learning, and develop our own Appreciative Resilience personal practice.
Looking forward, I can imagine developing future workshops about fostering resilience in the classroom, in academic departments, and within Faculties and Schools. I began the process feeling a bit of despair about whether I was ready to participate in ARFT training, and in developing and delivering the workshops, I moved to self-forgiveness as my commitment to the process grew. With an emerging community of practice, I am hopeful for what might be next. The possibilities are endless!
While I have learned a lot through these experiences so far, I know my learning about Appreciative Resilience will only deepen as the community of practice continues to meet and as I have opportunity to apply my learning in future workshops about teaching and learning.
Christina’s Story
I am an educator, a leader, a team member and given the choice would rather view the positive than dwell on the negative. Don’t get me wrong–I can find myself feeling defeated and demotivated by problems, ambiguity, and unpleasantness but, in the end, only for so long. I am aware that this ability comes from having been raised in an environment that had security and a hopeful view, something I am aware not everyone has had.
Appreciative Inquiry resonated with me as soon as I started working with this theoretical area of practice and research. As I did, I needed to move beyond what I felt was a Pollyanna view, that is, a manner where no matter how bleak a situation is, you can always find something to be glad about. To those unfamiliar with Appreciative Inquiry it may seem to be a bit of this; however, practitioners know it is a deeper practice of finding what is working within a particular situation or system and creating an environment where what is positive can grow and develop. From David Cooperrider’s and Suresh Srivastva’s foundational work, looking at a situation/system with an appreciative eye to Jeanie Cockell’s and Joan McArthur-Blair’s development of Appreciative Inquiry to Appreciative Resilience, I’ve learned to understand how to use this appreciative lens within an organization, in a post-secondary environment in particular, and in life in general. That is, when faced with bureaucracy, poor oversight, stress, problems, etc., we find ourselves in despair. To move out of that despair, we need to forgive. We may need to forgive others and usually ourselves for deficiencies in knowledge, information, skills, time, energy or whatever has caused the situation. If we can do this, we can move to a hopeful view, with hopeful energy to improve the situation and move it forward in a better way. And, with strength and support we can learn to use Appreciative Resilience to serve our students, team and help ourselves survive, ideally, thrive at work and in life.
My understanding/practice of Appreciative Inquiry (AI) dates to my undergraduate degree completed in 1990 as I was a student of Gervase Bushe at Simon Fraser University. At the time, I completed several courses with Dr. Bushe, including two directed studies. This work gave me the underpinnings of Appreciative Inquiry in an organizational behaviour context. As AI began being explored within the Instructional Skills Workshop community by Jeanie Cockell and Joan McArthur-Blair, I became an active participant and went on to do several conference workshops using the Appreciative Inquiry model. Through this connection with Jeanie and Joan, I purchased their books, Appreciative Inquiry in Higher Education and Building Resilience with Appreciative Inquiry, read, and sought to incorporate their discoveries and models in my own practice. However, it wasn’t until I took the Appreciative Resilience Facilitator Training that I began to use the models of Appreciative Resilience directly in my thinking and now in my practice.
This delve into Appreciative Resilience facilitation came on a sunny September morning as I braced myself for another busy Fall term and academic year as an associate teaching professor and program coordinator. Further, I was cognizant that it felt like we were emerging from the pandemic hold and its necessity to focus on educational technology skill development and retooling towards an ability to look beyond directly how am I going to teach this course online to other areas of interest/practice. With thoughts towards what scholarly work I could delve back into, I thought, “what’s happening in Appreciative Inquiry” and came upon Jeanie and Joan’s facilitator training. Then, I thought, who might want to do this with me, and I thought of Carolyn Ives in the TRU Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT).
As I was a previous CELT Teaching Fellow in 2017 – 2019, Carolyn and I knew each other, and I have participated in several of her workshops; however, we had never facilitated together. There was some initial exploration of how to complement each other’s approaches. Additionally, Carolyn and CELT as a whole work with pan-university faculty, something that I enjoy, but I need to adjust to since my day-to-day work is in my program, my department, my Faculty.
As Carolyn mentions, we needed to adjust our timing of our first workshop. We had too much material as we had originally planned for the workshops to be two hours, but we changed them to one-hour workshops because of the time commitment for faculty. This was a good adjustment since we discovered that several of our participants only had, and in some cases, barely had, one hour to spare between other meetings/classes.
I remember Carolyn and I were somewhat anguished about how we didn’t end up having time to unpack our P (positive), Q (question), S (positive statement) and that the end of the workshop felt, to us, abrupt. Then, when Carolyn sent out the PowerPoint and suggestion that we would have time in the next session to explore further the valuable input from the PQS we were delighted with the feedback we received that suggested our participants had received value from the workshop.
Our second workshop ran more smoothly, as Carolyn and I had learned how to blend and complement each other’s styles. Further, I believe, we had grown to understand the application of Appreciative Resilience and were using it more comfortably as a practice.
As Carolyn mentions, we have now begun an Appreciative Inquiry and Appreciative Resilience community of practice at Thompson Rivers University (TRU). In our third session where we made this shift, we had colleagues in attendance that are both new to TRU and others that have a long history of working with the complexities of this particular post-secondary institution. Very quickly as a group we began to explore how we might collectively apply AI and AR to explorations like reconciliation together with indigenous peoples.
As I go about finishing this academic year while deep in the preparation of the next academic year, I find that strengthening my resilience and supporting the resilience of those around me with wisdom from Appreciative Inquiry and Appreciative Resilience allows us to see the good and the positive to give us the strength to offer grace and gratitude when problems arise and move forward and grow.