Invitational Education
Instructor Orientation
An Introduction to Invitational Education
Division of Learning Resources
Asheville-BuncombeTechnicalCommunity College
Document Owner:Last Updated:
This document may be modified and used in any manner, with no permission required.
Introduction
What is Invitational Education?
Invitational Education offers a comprehensive approach by which people are cordially, creatively, and consistently summoned to realize their full potential. An invitational strategy identifies signals in the overall learning environment that influence attitudes and behaviors, andseeks ways to reinforce positive messages that encourage human potential and removemessages that tend to defeat and destroy potential.
Positive and negative messages are communicated in many different ways. The educational institution can be seen to consist of five major components, the "five P's": people, places, policies, programs and processes. Invitational Education asserts that the interaction between the student and these components will significantly effect each student's experience and attitude either positively or negatively. The goal of invitational education is therefore to create an environment where the factors of people, places, policies, programs and processes are so intentionally inviting that every student feels supported and encouraged in his or her efforts to develop intellectually, socially, physically, psychologically, and spiritually.
This document provides a brief overview of invitational education and explores some starting points for an instructor who wishes to create a truly invitational learning environment
Invitational Theory
Invitational Theory is based on five operating assumptions that give consistency and direction for action:
RESPECT:People are able, valuable, and responsible and should be treated accordingly. The learning environment should emphasize the inherent worth of all people, respect theirself-directing power, and stress personal and social accountability.
TRUST:Education should be a cooperative, collaborative activity.All interactions within the learning environment should establish and maintain qualities of reliability (consistency, dependability), genuineness (authenticity), truthfulness (honesty, correctness), intent (integrity), and competence (expertise, knowledge).
OPTIMISM:People possess untapped potential in all areas of worthwhile human endeavor. The learning environment needs to recognize and allow the full potential of students, even while the students themselves may struggle with their own limiting self-conceptions.
CARE:The process is the product in the making. A learning process that reflects care will generate a meaningful product.
INTENTIONALITY:Human potential can best be realized by creating and maintaining places, policies, processes and programs specifically designed to invite development, and by people who are intentionally inviting with themselves and others, personally and professionally ("The Five P's").
Let's explore some examples showing how these assumptions can be realized in the learning classroom…
Respect
As an instructor, acting with respect includes taking a cooperative approach with your students to the learning process. As instructorswe do not need to dominate the learning environment – we can obtain student input regarding what constitutes effective learning and can adjust our own participation to support student needs. We can listen carefully and show a willingness to allow students to think independently and find their individual path to achieve the required learning outcomes. It is important to recognize that respect does not mean making things easy for students, but rather helping them to learn in their own way.
Respect means not making assumptions concerning the abilities or potential of any student, making it clear that students from all backgrounds are equally capable of success. Respect means that both students and instructors are expected to behave civilly and with respect for others.
And respect in the classroom means respecting people’s time, looking for ways to provide clear structure that minimizes unnecessary work or ambiguous requirements or expectations.
Trust
Students quickly learn whether an instructor can be “trusted”. Does the instructor treat different students consistently (excusing absences, allowing make-up time, enforcing policies, grading, giving attention). How does the instructor handle questions that he or she cannot answer? Does the instructor acknowledge mistakes? As instructors we can notice and evaluate our own behavior with our classes and with different students and consider how we might increase trust. We can also invite and encourage feedback by asking your students (anonymously) how they perceive our actions and communications in the classroom.
Optimism
It can be challenging to promote a spirit of optimism and possibility in the learning environment when sometimes we ourselves may be feeling tired and burned-out! So it is important for all of us as instructors to take care of ourselves in terms of health, relaxation and lifestyle. It is also important to note that we can all (instructors and students alike) be our own worst enemy when we carry around negative self-images and severely limited notions of our own potential. As instructorswe can help students discover that their self-perceptions may be flawed, and that their potential can be far greater than anything that their own internal scripts are telling them.
Promoting optimism does not mean insisting that a student can be the best in any particular field – it can mean helping a student achieve a C rather than a D grade, or helping a student discover their aptitude for English rather than Math. As instructorswe can actively seek ways to help an individual student discover a greater sense of self-worth, or a more accurate understanding of their unique skills and abilities.
Care
Perhaps more than anything when it comes to instruction, care means providing a well-structured and respectful learning environment. That means careful consideration of the wording and clarity of policies, learning materials, assignments and exams, removing or modifying wording or content that can confuse students or even alienate individual students from the subject matter. That means taking a good look at possible ambiguity, cultural, political or historical bias, jargon, etc.
It is useful to move mentally from an instructor-centered model, where the focus is on how well the instructor can deliver the course content, to a student-centered model, where the focus is on how well each student can comprehend the learning environment and use the tools at his or her disposal to succeed. Note that the student’s “tools” extend beyond anything offered in the classroom, and may include you as instructor, previous courses they have taken, friends and others who may help them, previous workskills and experiences, the textbook and other learning materials that may be specifically associated with the course or that the student may have located elsewhere, the course schedule and policies, the Web, etc. Understanding this help us as instructors to understand that our primary role is to provide the overall structure (key resources, activities, learning outcomes and assessment), and to facilitate the student's progress through this environment in a manner that allows him or her to make best use of his or her available resources to succeed.
Intentionality: people, places, policies, processes and programs
A key strategy of invitational education is to consciously select all aspects of the learning environment, the "five P's": people, places, policies, processes and programs.
People: Invitational Education begins and ends with people. Invitational people embody respect for others, present positive behaviors in their interactions with others, and treat others as competent and capable of significant accomplishments. As an instructor it is important to examine your own interactions with your students and ask what you can do to be a part of a positive learning environment for your students.
Places: Places include the appearance and layout of buildings and landscaping, the wording, appearance and presences of signs and messages, the availability and location of seating and comfort areas, etc. As an instructor, consider the messages that your classroom presents to your students, and your office. Does you classroom encourage learning and research? Does it encourage student participation? Collaboration? Communication? What is on the walls? How is the seating arranged? How often do the students get up and move around? Talk to one another? Conduct a presentation? How active is your classroom?
Policies:Policies consist of all statements, directives, codes and rules used to regulate the institution, and each course. The manner in which policies are selected, written and reinforced has a significant influence on the attitude of students, not to mention instructors and staff. Policies should be fair, inclusive and democratic. If a policy exists then it should be consistently followed, or else it should be reviewed. As an instructor review your syllabus and related course policies, assignments, assessments. What is the tone? How accurate are they? How clear? Do they reflect the course learning outcomes?
Processes:Processes refer to the way that activities and requirements are actually manifested. How do students take assessments? How are lectures conducted? What kinds of learning activities are used to attain successful learning outcomes? How are policies enforced? Are students able to learn in their own way? Can they work in groups? Are they encouraged to communicate and ask for help?
Programs:As invitational educators wetry to make all programs inclusive and connected. We encourage students to see the work in any particular course as a part of a larger effort towards self-realization. As instructors we can help students to continually connect the course to their overall program of study, to their professional goals, to their personal experience and aspiration, and to their personal passions. We can also help students to learn the same things about others and understand and respect difference as well as similarities.We provide students with information about support programs on campus, such as learning labs, writing centers, student activities, and other co- and extra-curricular activities.
How intentional am I as an instructor?
When we consider the "five P's" it become immediately apparent that we are responsible for a broad range of elements that together make up the learning environment in our courses. A powerful aid to help us become more invitational is to consider whether each element of the learning environment is intentionally inviting, unintentionallyinviting, unintentionallydisinviting, or intentionallydisinviting. By categorizing our behaviors and course materials in this way we can more easily see how each element might have a positive or negative impact on student learning, and we can take steps to shift all elements of the learning environment into the intentionally inviting category.
Here are a few examples to illustrate how different elements might be categorized:
Examples of intentionallyinviting elements in our course might include carefully prepared non-ambiguous assessments, or the time that we take to listen carefully to our students and take concrete steps to encourage their active participation. We may be careful to always show up early to be available for student questions, and we may develop strategies that support different approaches to learning.
We can be unintentionallyinviting in many ways that we may or may not be aware of. For example we may display enthusiasm for the subject, or we may naturally enjoy interacting with people. A relaxed manner in the classroom or even the way that we dress may be unintentionally inviting.
We can also be unintentionallydisinviting. For example, we all know how easy it is to get burned out and tired, and when we do a lack of interest in our students or subject can quickly become a dominant feature of the class atmosphere. Or we can simply be ignorant of gender or racial sensitivities in our language or in the examples that we use when teaching. A careless word can sometimes have a significant an impact on a student. And we can be careless with the content of our course materials so that students are confused about learning requirements or assessments.
And we can of course be intentionallydisinviting, for example actively discouraging a student, or applying assessments or learning activities that discriminate among different student populations in our classes.
Where to go from here
As you explore the Instructor Orientation site, it is our hope that you will find that the site itself reflects the qualities of invitational education described here. It is important that instructors as well as students feel "cordially, creatively, and consistently summoned to realize their full potential." The various documents related to Student Learning embody these principles and offer useful best practices and approaches that may help you in your efforts to deliver a truly invitational learning environment.
For more information on Educational Information, start with the International Alliance for Invitational Education Web site ( This site provides extensive material on this world-wide effort.The college expresses appreciation to Dr. William Purkey for permission to use material cited in this section.
1