New Ways of Teaching and Learning

Course details

WeCreate Workspace, Cloughjordan Ecovillage, Cloughjordan, Tipperary, IrelandDevelop your skills in facilitating learning and using new tools to host conversations in your community. This four day training is hosted by Davie Philip, Cultivate Living and Learning and Chris Chapman, the Change Exploratory, in association with WeCreate Green Enterprise Centre.

Who is this course for? This course is for adult and community educators, hosts and facilitators with some experience who want to refresh and develop their skills and ways of working to enable them to have impact and flourish, as we seek to transition to more values-based and collaborative communities.

What will it include? The course will provide an introduction to inviting, active, experiential and place-based learning methods.  It will look particularly at the changing role of the trainer / facilitator, as we become more of a catalyst, rather than just a transmitter of knowledge.  The course will provide an opportunity to look at yourself and how your strengths and vulnerabilities can best serve you.

The course is founded on whole systems (ecological and evolutionary) thinking and pulls on fields such as Community Development, 'The Art of Hosting', Sustainability, Community Resilience, and Permaculture. This course has proved to be extremely popular and inspiring for a wide range of participants from education, community and perse professional backgrounds.

Unique Setting

The course will be held in the new WeCreate Workspace in Cloughjordan Ecovillage, winner of Ireland's national Green Community award and also the UN backed International Award for Liveable Communities. The Ecovillage includes over 50 high energy performance houses on a 67-acre estate with community woodlands, renewable energy production, a wood-fired bakery, research gardens and the Cloughjordan Community Farm. This setting provides participants with an opportunity to see many key sustainable systems in working practice and to hear the stories of people seeking to play their part in the transition to a low carbon society.

Hosted by…

Davie Philip, a facilitator and trainer with Cultivate. Davie directed the 'Powerdown Show' a 10 part TV series and course on how communities can do more for themselves and wrote and directed the Cultivate short film on resilient communities called Surfing the Waves of Change.

Chris Chapman, an experienced independent host and facilitator. Chris has led a variety of emergent initiatives inquiring into the models of leadership and leadership development needed in contemporary Ireland. 

What previous participants have said...

"This training course was not only of benefit and interest to me, but also to the many people who participated when I delivered training in my community. It stimulates you in a practical way to find local solutions to the global issues we all share.” 

Daniel Downey, Director Community and Voluntary Forum, Cavan

"I found this training course inspiring. It enabled me to structure and bring an environmental awareness course to Transition Year students in my county.” 

Claire Byrne, Community Educator, Mayo

Accommodation is not included in the course fee but can be booked at Django’s EcoHostel in Cloughjordan Ecovillage.