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Accredited Nature-Connecting Holistic Degree Courses On Line: Natural Career Education Personal and Professional Whole Life System Training Grants and Jobs.
Co-Facilitating: The Guiding Spirit of Project NatureConnect Programs and Courses
Project NatureConnect
Institute of Global Education
Organic Psychology
Special
NGO Consultant, United Nations Economic and Social Council
Practical distance learning to increase person/planet well being.
CO-FACILITATING INSTRUCTIONS PROGRAM
DESCRIPTION: Educating Counseling and Healing With Nature Supportive Degrees, Career Training Courses and Jobs On Line Project NatureConnect offers nature-centered distant learning that enables you to add the benefits of nature-connecting methods and credentials to your degree program and/or your skills, interests and hobbies. We honor your prior training and life experience by providing grants and equivalent education credit for it. You may take accredited or professional CEU coursework and/or obtain a Nature-Connected Degree or Certificate in most disciplines or personal interests. A partial subject list is located at the bottom of this page.
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complete information Co-Facilitating Psychological Elements of Global Citizenship: The Science of Connecting With the Web of Life The Art of Thinking With Nature Thank you for your interest in the extended learning and livelihood opportunity offered by becoming a co-facilitator for a course offered by Project NatureConnect. Because this key position provides you with the chance to additionally help nature and individuals mutually support each other, you have the opportunity to gain more from a course as a co-facilitator than you did when doing it as a student. This parallels how nature grows by "parenting." Even minerals help crystals organize and grow by setting an attractive example. You can do the same by strengthening the aspects, below, of the online course and the Educating, Counseling and Healing With Nature process (ECHN) at any level. Your ability to facilitate ECHN successfully is a fundamental attractiveness for others to seek your services. It is also far more influential than your "degree" after your first job. To strengthen the co-fac process, you are encouraged to invite course participants, along with your reader, to visit this co-fac page and begin to learn the co-fac process with you since they will be engaged in it as part of the Eco 501, or other course they take that follows the Orientation Course. Experience is the best teacher because it is multisensory. 1. Use attraction fulfillment as a guideline. You know you are co-facilitating successfully when participants are doing the work correctly and are caring, happy or appreciative about the way the course is going for them and others in it. This indicates that they are successfully learning how to create moments that let Earth teach and being emotionally rewarded in return. This is happening even if all you are doing is making the course possible for them by assuming the challenge of co-facilitating it. You are helping participants gain natural attraction fulfillment rewards for their involvement in nature-connecting. Thank you for helping them and PNC achieve this major goal of the courses. 2. Like nature sustains itself by communicating its attractive value to the web of life, the course/program does the same thing with regard to itself. It sustains itself by connecting strangers to the attractive outcomes and values of ECHN. This is why PNC has, and needs, no tuition or budget for public relations or advertising or paid personnel. Instead, ECHN participants voluntarily help the value of nature-connection reach others...simply because its a good thing to do. This is why students and staff social and media network attractive connection statements and outcomes that they feel are worthwhile. They obtain these statements from the books, web pages and interactive email sharing of their nature-connections on their courses. As a co-facilitator, one of your roles is to encourage course participants to share the attractions they find on the course via Facebook, Twitter etc. This also fulfills the requirements of ECO 751 and 791 towards completion of the program. A tool to this end is at http://www.ecopsych.com/socialnetwork.html You and course participants are also welcome to design press releases about values you discover in the program. Any individual's discovery of an important, often overlooked, value is certainly a newsworthy "event." You can Google the phrase "design a press release" for all kinds of information about how to write one. Contact Mike to have your press releases appear in the news. <nature@interisland.net>. 3. Each course participant's familiarity with you on the course helps you to become a trusted and thereby effective friend and mentor/guide for the participant with regard to them continuing their course work and program. The more familiar you and they become with how the program works, the stronger becomes the program and each of its participants. This parallels nature's way of cooperatively self-organizing so that all parts of nature grow through supportive self-correction and purification via transformation. You can help yourself and them do this by numbered steps via http://www.ecopsych.com/communityprocesscalendar.html In general, the most efficient way to complete the program responsibly is to start with ECO 800 (continually collecting and reacting to attractive quotes) and 751 (Social networking attractive quotes and reactions to them) before and during ECO 500. You then continue to do this while completing ECO 508 and 501 for the 6 month period that follows ECO 500. This total of about 9 months leads to Level One Certification and/or Bachelors Degree equivalence. It makes you eligible to Co-Fac ECO 501, as well. http://www.ecopsych.com/iupsbachelorequiv.html Guidelines Regarding a Co-Facilitator's (F's )Role: Co-Facilitators are interns or professionals with experience and expertise in the content and process of this Orientation Course described at http://www.ecopsych.com/facilitate.html The course instructions (they apply to most courses) at http://www.rockisland.com/~process/5grnchainstruct.html and index/scheduled at http://www.rockisland.com/~process/5grnchaindex.html and alternatively at http://www.ecopsych.com/5grnchaindex.html All this is also located in Pages 1-41 and 121-131 in The Web of Life Imperative book. INSTRUCTIONS FOR "READERS" ARE FOUND BELOW Co-Facilitators (F''s) Please re-familiarize yourself with the above web pages so you may assist the interact group with them when necessary. UPDATE 1: F's should remind participants that those applying for the Certificate or Degree program should send their CO-OP Contract in by the time Part/Chapter 5 is completed in the Orientation Course. Otherwise, they must pay the $100 application fee to continue with the program. (although we seldom enforce this at this time) UPDATE 2: On page 20-22 there are two series of questions that should be answered before the course starts. Students should store the numeric answers to each or write them in the book. On the Evaluation page 106, OPTION 6 is no longer an option. It is now required that students do pages 20-22 at the end of the course and report the changes they note between the beginning and end of it. UPDATE 3: The Petition serves as -a review of the course, For
these reasons, to complete the course a participant is required to
either sign the petition with a supportive statement, or simply share
with their study group the rationale for why they do not want to sign it. -a check to see what areas may need further study and -a means of gaining publlc understanding and support for ECHN and each student who uses it. UPDATE 4: As part of PNC's accreditation, all students who plan to obtain certification or a degree or its equivalence are required take an open-book Comprehensive Exam as part of their ECO 800 course. The exam is most easily completed if students start it with or before the Orientation Course and update it as they continue in the program to have it be the strongest it can be. The exam is located at http://www.ecopsych.com/eco800.html and it may be started at any time but earlier is simpler. PURPOSE: Co-facilitators (F's) help the webstring sense of reason, especially in the new brain, respect and enjoy the reasonableness of learning how to consciously experience webstring sensory attractions in nature and people, and verbally share them to help improve relationships with people and Earth. F's further master the Natural System Thinking Process by teaching people how to learn from it. F's help the official course Instructor organize the course mailing list, schedule and administrative needs of the course. A most important challenge is to get the group to either accept the default schedule or agree on a changed schedule that meets their needs. It is helpful to send a calendar-of-posting schedule to the group and discover why it may have to be modified for some. This is not easy to do by email, so the quicker it is accomplished, the better off the group. F''s help people trust the course and its participants by helping them determine and consent to the course schedule and painstakingly meet their commitments to it. No better way to undermine an interact group than by urging folks to trust each others words and then have this trust broken by people breaking the commitments they make to the group. F''s help participants find answers for themselves through attractions discovered through the course procedures and conscious contact with natural phenomena. They support participants' efforts and experiences in this regard. The goal of a facilitator is to help participants learn how natural systems work by enabling the participants through their attractions, to self-organize the course community to meet its goals through consensus based on webstring contacts. The major goal, of course, it to learn how to create moments that let Earth teach. Co-Facilitators (F''s): F"s help course participants learn from unadulterated webstring contact with Earth and each other. They refrain from bringing in stories, questions or points of view that swing the course focus on their personal outlooks and beliefs instead of on the reconnecting process itself. Remember, names attached to the webstrings, other than the names that label sensations (hunger, thirst, gravity, smell, etc) tend to draw the senses out of the web of life model and into becoming pawns of Industrial Society and its nature disconnected stories. This process is often embraced and unchallenged in most disciplines, it offers common ground. Other names risk siphoning off or triggering resistance from other belief systems and conflicting schizms and institutions (labels such as: indigenous science, spirit, Christ consciousness, relations, energies, God, chakra, etc) and for this reason I discourage their use on the course, even though each student may integrate them into his or her belief system privately. It is the scientific, objective, process of learning how to make nameless webstring contact with Earth/nature in natural areas that nurtures the strings. It brings to mind what we biologically and psychologically hold in common. A facilitator's familiarity with an article about knowing our natural selves as non-literate nature knows us is of help in this regard. F''s recognize that, like nature itself, the course is most effective when the facilitator is not needed because the participants have been attracted to engaging in the responsibilities assigned to the facilitator. F''s help participants stay within the course guidelines, especially with respect - to not saying one thing and then doing another, - unwittingly becoming attracted to nature negatives (Please familiarize yourself with Chapter 13, Reconnecting With Nature) - quoting outside expertise rather than owning information and beliefs. - placing disconnective cultural names, labels or values on webstrings that represent them as creations and properties of contemporary society rather than as nameless attraction essences that pervade nature. F''s may - participate as students and engage in the course activities and discussion. This has proven to be the most effective and safest way to facilitate a group. Guidance then comes from webstring attraction contact, shared knowledge and community spirit. It reduces the tendency to see the facilitator as a teacher or wrangler. - choose to limit their participation to that of a guide when help is needed, - express their attraction to and appreciation of people participating in the course by saying thank you or giving other encouragement individually or collectively for participants' posting to the group. - or find an attractive balance between the three. Most groups report that the facilitator who particpates in the activities is the most helpful. Some facilitators save their, or others, posted activity experience descriptions from their coursework and share the same material again with new groups they facilitate. This gives them the capacity to work with many groups at a time. F'' are encouraged to follow their attractions with regard to requesting and receiving information about how they can be most helpful to the course and other evaluations of interest to them. Suggestions for ways to constructively communicate with participants and not be seen as a wrangler are located in Well Mind, Well Earth, Chapter 17. A safe, effective way to facilitate is to do the activities along with the the group and use that common relationship as a source of supportive communication through activated webstrings. F''s agree to help update the course description if weak areas are found in it. F''s are encouraged to reaquaint themselves with the course and changes in it before they start with the group. They are also encouraged to join discussion and news groups and introduce the webstring process to others there who are ready for it. F's are encouraged to encourage promising students to continue learning the Natural Systems Thinking Process via additional courses and the degree programs. F's are encouraged to keep on the supportive attraction trail or risk being seen as wranglers/authorities/parents on s Facilitator should remind students of the part of the original mailing that states "It
is required that you complete the questions on pages 20-22
and save the numerical responses. You can then do the questions again
at the end of the course and compare your" before" and "after" scores
as a good means to help you evaluate the course and your growth in it." Facilitators help students fill the following assigned roles in their group and cover a role if the student is having difficulty with it. These are the assigned roles: A: Group Consciousness and Communication Supporter: This person notes if all particpants are online and in communication by helping participants make a group address list. Using the group address list, one letter goes to all in the group, including me, and all responses to it go to all in the group, including me. The "GCC person" also observes during the course if the time schedule is working OK or if it should be modified by group consent. If you've had experience with making group addresses, your help with this is most welcomed by less experienced participants, no matter what role you assume. B. Participation Supporter: On the agreed upon due dates for sharing activity experiences, notes whether all participants have sent their activity responses to the group or made other arrangements. If a participant is missing, the Participation Role person lets the group know this and tries to help the missing participant get their responses posted to the group C. Agenda Supporter: We all carry a tendency to get into side issues and experiences that may take so much time and energy that they ennervate or dissolve the group. We also have a tendency to want to teach what we think we know. The Agenda Role person keeps track if this is happening. He or she helps people get back to the interact group goal of helping each other learn by sharing what has been learned **doing the course activities and readings and then sharing what we learned from the sharing.** D. Coordenation Supporter: This participant observes if and when help is needed by the other support people or special areas where she or he can be helpful to group members or myself with the course. For those who want to learn how to facilitate groups, this is an excellent growing opportunity for one or more people. If you let me know you want to play this role I can refer you to some articles and Chapter readings in RWN that will helpfully provide guidelines. Sometimes a co-facilitor will be part of the group to help with this as well. A stipend of $25.00 is optionally available to a non-student person who co-facilitates a course after having served as an intern facilitator for that course. The course starts at http://www.ecopsych.com/orient.html and with instructions sent by email. Course participants do not normally receive the web address of the course schedule until the course commences. Facilitators are invited to re-aquaint themselves with it as it may contain updates since they were last a participant. Facilitators recognize that the Course philosophies, methods and materials are copyright and registered as property of Michael J. Cohen, Project NatureConnect and the Institute of Global Education and they are used by the facilitator with the expressed permission of these parties. Do you have additions? Questions? Contact Mike Cohen at 360-378-6313, or email nature@interisland.net . Hello Co-Facs! This checklist is a review of the philosophy of your role and includes a list of start-up tasks that could be a handy guide to keep on hand for use when you co-facilitate future classes. Barb Co-Facilitator Checklist by Allison Ewoldt Help class choose name for group by consensus Day 1:
INSTRUCTOR: Mike Cohen is the course Instructor for all groups. He is on every group list, and is available to answer more in-depth or expert questions about the course material, and to consult with about tensions or concerns in the interact group. To contact Mike: Email: write MIKE at the beginning of the subject line of your email to him, as he receives dozens of emails every day. Phone: (360) 378-6313 Skype: mjcohen6313 PROTECTING WEBSTRINGS: Courtesy, consideration and care in conversations will protect the delicate webstrings of your Interact Group relationships. Only share someone else's words with others if that person has given you permission to do so. Because we are functioning by email without the benefit of our many senses to help us know how the other person feels, we must be more careful than usual in our choice of words, and more generous than usual when someone has misunderstood our intent. As you practice bringing NIAL into your Interact Group, you will discover how strong and meaningful the group relationships can become. These relationships are places where you can explore the application of the webstring model and how natural attractions can help us resolve problems, overcome challenges, and maintain balance and harmony in all our relations. Enjoy this opportunity. COMMUNITY ROLE OPPORTUNITY: READER Role Description: The Reader does not generally participate directly in interact group discussions or respond to posts. The Reader reads the Orientation interact group posts and is available to support the Co-Facilitator in leading the group to grow a relational web based on mutual attractions and working together via consensus. Questions or situations sometimes arise in which the Co-Fac appreciates being able to brainstorm about approaches which will serve to protect and nurture the interact group web. Examples: - One student begins to post irregularly. The Co-Fac and Reader collaborate on how to support the student to come back into consensus with the group about their posting schedule, communicating in a way that all of the students feel appreciated and understood. - A tension arises in the group discussion. The Co-Fac and Reader collaborate on how to bring more NNIAL in and facilitate a conversation that nurtures mutual respect and appreciation. - A question arises that the Co-Fac doesn't know how to answer. The Reader may supply the answer to the Co-Fac, or the two may contact Mike to get the answer. - The Co-Fac falls ill and is unable to post or respond during a given week. The Reader stands ready to either step in temporarily or get help from Mike in finding a replacement. Co-Fac and Reader collaboration discussions happen privately between the two, with the Co-Fac remaining the direct leader of the group. The two include Mike in the collaboration. The relationship between the Co-Fac and Reader is an opportunity for these two to deepen their webstring leadership skills. Academic and Work/Study Credit: This volunteer position can be used to satisfy your requirement for ECO751 Field Studies in Educating and Counseling with Nature, or can be used as a Work/Study job for those on financial aid or scholarship. Commitments: Regular Readers are placed into a rotation pool and Read for a group every three or four months (almost continually functioning as a Reader) One-Time Readers volunteer to be a Reader on a one-time or occasional basis. Please let me know if you'd be willing to Read for one of the groups beginning tomorrow- or if you'd like to join the pool of Readers for future groups. PERSONAL PROTECTION SUGGESTIONS WHILE LEADING ON-SITE WORKSHOPS collected by Mark Brody Don't stray far into "wilderness" or other areas where communication and assistance are not readibly available if emergencies occur Bring immediate first aid equipment and training with you, or have it available through other participants etc. Use sites that are covered by public liability: parks, schoolgrounds etc. for on non-public lands there may be no insurance backup if things go wrong due to the landscape. Carry an emergency cell phone so when help is needed, you can get it. Don't go into areas where cell phones don't work. Have folks sign a liability release as part of the program's signup Obtain a personal liability insurance policy for professional services rendered. Its often part of a homeowners policy. From John: Scull 1. Most of my activities are day walks in public parks near town. Even there, I carry a whistle (to find lost folks) and a cellphone (in case of injury or medical emergency). 2. If I were going to do wilderness trips, I would not take responsibility for them myself. Instead, I would arrange with one of the local ecotourism companies to provide the adventure and I would provide only the ecopsychology. These companies have trained staff, licenses, insurance, etc. INSURANCE 1. I carry professional liability insurance as a psychologist and my regular office and homeowner policies. 2. Environmental groups whose chapters do outings or have volunteers, such as the Sierra Club, the Land Trust Alliance, or the Audobon Society, all have group liability insurance and waiver forms. Some of my PNC activities have been as a volunteer for local land trusts. 3. Colleges, adult education centres, elderhostels, recreation centres, etc., all have insurance. They will usually help with some other costs, too, such as advertising and registration, so whenever possible I try to find a sponsor. My word of advice, do not be wrangled by your outside interests. Stay with nature and remain in grace with your promise to facilitate the nature learning of the members of your group. But most of all.....enjoy your interactions with your groups as much as you enjoy your interactions with nature; humans are a truly diverse and wonderful piece of nature that we must not let go of when we reconnect with nature. Reconnecting with nature is also reconnecting our sense of community and love for one another; and each of your orientation classes will become yet another connected community. A sub-system in the larger system of NSTP and PNC. Like electrons spinning around nuclei, and atoms clustered to form elements, which then form the integral component elements which make up the plants, trees, animals, and people who then become the components of your communities. A lovely complexity of the same systemic structure embedded upon itself again and again and again to eternity to make up the larger living orb we call Earth and beyond in the universe. It appears to be a lot to think about when in reality it is truly a very simple thing put together in a simple manner to yield a complexity of life and love. I believe that this is what reconnecting is all about. Discovering the simplicity of our complexity. The intelligence of our universe is incredibly clever isn't it? A C0-FACILITATORS CHECK LIST designed by Allison Ewoldt o Help class choose name for group by consensus o Set up e-list (once class is confirmed) o Set up course schedule (is there a default schedule already suggested?) o Send out calendar of postings to class o Encourage trust by stressing the importance of commitments o Help students fill the following assigned roles in their group and cover a role if the student is having difficulty with it. (Seems like role of F to me!?!?) ¢ Group Consciousness and Communication Supporter *Set up e-list *Make sure time schedule is working or modify by group consent ¢ Participation Supporter *notes whether all participants have sent their activity responses as per agreed schedule or made other arrangements *supports “missing” participants and reports to group ¢ Agenda Supporter *keep focus on personal experiences in nature directly related to lesson, sharing what has been learned, responding to the sharings ¢ Coordination Supporter *observes if and when help is needed by the other support people or special areas where she or he can be helpful to group members or myself with the course o Encourage self-discovery of answers to questions in nature o Encourage self-organization of the course community to meet its goals through consensus based on webstring contacts. o Discourage “names” and “stories” and cultural terms in course reflections while encouraging expression of attraction relationships through nameless webstring contact o Encourage participants assuming role of facilitator… ¢ stay within the course guidelines, especially with respect to not saying one thing and then doing another; ¢ unwittingly becoming attracted to nature negatives; ¢ quoting outside expertise rather than owning information and beliefs. ¢ placing disconnective cultural names, labels or values on webstrings that represent them as creations and properties of contemporary society rather than as nameless attraction essences that pervade nature. o Participate in course as ¢ 'student,' doing activities and postings ¢ guide as help is needed ¢ Affirmation provider (giving appreciations individually or to group as whole) ¢ Do all three above in balance o help update the course description if weak areas are found in it. o get reacquainted with the course and changes in it before starting with the group any changes in WMWE I need to be aware of?). o encourage promising students to continue learning the Natural Systems Thinking Process via additional courses and the degree programs. o keep on the supportive attraction trail or risk being seen as a wrangler/authority/parent on some level. Act
now.
Master
Organic Psychology by doing it. http://www.ecopsych.comAchieve a Degree or Certificate to strengthen your professional interests, or your hobbies or pastimes, by connecting them with nature. Implement your strongest hopes as you increase personal and global well being. Topics, subjects or leisure pursuits can include those listed below or other areas of interest: |
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