CASE 02 / HIGHER EDUCATION + SUSTAINED FACILITATION
104 Learning Labs
Five semesters across 3 colleges & universities
A room is never the same twice.
CONTEXT + PURPOSE
A sustained practice shaped by repetition, observation, and adaptation.
Across five semesters, 104 Learning Labs created a long arc of facilitation practice: 88 at Northern Illinois University,14 at Delaware State University, and 2 at Illinois Tech.
The work asked how clearer instructions, assessment, adaptation, and participant ownership could emerge over time while staying responsive to Fellows in the room.
THE PRACTICE
A facilitation practice built across 104 learning experiences.
Repeated practice made patterns, adaptations, and turning points visible over time.
LEARNING LAB 01 → OBSERVATION → ADAPTATION → LEARNING LAB 104
HEART
CONTEXT
PERSPECTIVE
EXPERIENCE
SYSTEM
REFLECTION
ACTION
EVIDENCE + ARTIFACTS
Time, repetition, and what the room made visible.
Contextual evidence includes 1000+ course completers and a Fellow NPS of 36. These indicators do not isolate facilitation as a cause.
104
TOTAL LEARNING LABS
88
NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY
14
DELAWARE STATE UNIVERSITY
2
Illinois Tech
FACILITATION COMPETENCIES
What changed through repetition.
INCLUSIVE
ADAPTIVE
CLEAR
LOOKING BACK, DESIGNING FORWARD
From facilitating curriculum to facilitating conditions for learning.
WHAT I UNDERSTAND NOW
My practice evolved from facilitating the curriculum to facilitating the conditions for learning. Across 61 Learning Labs, my attention expanded from what I was doing to what participants were experiencing. Fellow reflection data, questions, participation, and other signals from the room became ways of checking whether what I intended to communicate was actually being understood.
WHAT I WOULD PRESERVE
Preparation still matters deeply. The curriculum provided purpose, sequence, and intended outcomes. I now understand facilitation as a cycle of design, assessment, interpretation, and adaptation.
WHAT I WOULD CHANGE
The same observable behavior can mean different things in different rooms. Silence may signal reflection, uncertainty, processing time, disengagement, or lack of psychological safety. I have become more curious before interpreting what I see, using small assessment points and participant feedback to ask questions of the room.
WHAT I’M PRACTICING NEXT
I distinguish activity fidelity from purpose fidelity. Responsiveness requires understanding the design well enough to know what must remain intact, what can flex, and why. I’m building a more deliberate reflective cycle around repeated facilitation: using pre-mortems before launching a Learning Lab, participant feedback and assessment during the experience, and After Action Reviews between facilitation rounds to inform what happens next.
RETURN TO PRACTICE
NEXT CASE
Your Story, Your Superpower →