Supporting Others with the MBI:TAC: Cultivating Competence and Connection in Supervision and Training

The Bangor, Exeter and Oxford Mindfulness-Based Interventions: Teaching Assessment Criteria (MBI:TAC) is a system for assessing and reflecting on the teaching integrity of mindfulness-based programmes (MBPs). Beyond assessment, the MBI:TAC has become an important support for both for trainees and established teachers as they reflect on their personal development, offer peer feedback and also for supervisors and trainers as they support the development of skilful teaching in their trainees and supervisees. The MBI:TLC (Teaching Learning Companion – referred to as the TLC for short) is an adaptation of the original MBI:TAC specifically developed to support this process of reflective practice.

Who is the training for?

This training for MBP supervisors and trainers is designed to build skills in using the MBI:TAC as a framework and structure for discerning competence level and giving skilful tailored feedback, whether in a formal mentoring or supervising model, or as a regular benefit of peer and self-engagement and support.

What is involved?

The skill of reliably discerning competence level takes time and practice.

The training begins by first offering the benchmarked competence level (i.e. an assessment point that has been centrally agreed by a team of experienced MBI:TAC assessors) is communicated to the participants in advance of reviewing the teaching clip. The course participants’ task is to discern what features within the teaching have led to this assessment outcome. Participants then progress to discerning the competence level, building up the domains gradually and cross checking against established benchmarks.

Week by week, the training will include audio-visual teaching clips that progressively expand the elements of curriculum and domains to systematically build participants’ assessment and feedback skills. Participants will be given access each week to a benchmarked assessed teaching clip to review on their own between sessions and will subsequently be given weekly feedback on their assessment reliability. In this way participants can gradually fine-tune their skills in assessing in line with benchmarked assessments.

There is a critical “learning dialogue” that happens in this back-and forth. The richness of the groups’ exchanges builds important skills in inner and outer observation and skilful articulation. We will give time both to the content issues that are raised when reviewing teaching (e.g., how to prioritise different elements; distinctions between domains and competence levels; curriculum questions); and process themes (e.g., the vulnerability that is inherent in investigating mindfulness teaching skills; the personal process issues that are triggered by assessing/reviewing teaching, and the implicit biases that we all hold as human beings).

There will also be focused training in ways to skilfully offer feedback to peers supervisees and trainees, which is both accurate and precise, aligns with competence level, and is strengths-based and encouraging.

As we move through the training, there will also be opportunities to view clips together, in the live, online sessions, where we explore some of the challenges inherent in assessment, and the ways we might acknowledge this as we continue to learn and refine our teaching together. In this way, we also acknowledge the evolving nature of the practice of both teaching and training in MBPs.

Key learning objectives:

Refine and differentiate the structure and meaning of the six competence levels within the MBI:TAC
Build skills in conducting assessments reliably, through repeated practice in reviewing teaching practice and then cross-checking scores against central benchmarks
Build skills in offering verbal and written feedback, which enables transparent understanding of how the assessment point was determined, what teaching strengths and learning needs were observed, and how the teacher could build their skills going forward.
Embed understanding of ways of approaching competence assessments, which ensure good practice is followed by the individual conducting the assessment, and by the organisation within which the assessment is situated, especially as it may relate to cultural differences.
Develop and refine comprehension of skilful and sensitive ways of staging the introduction of the tool through the different phases of the MBP teacher training.
Identify the various lenses we bring to teaching (including culture, social and ethnic constructs) and to offering ourselves and others feedback.
Further acknowledge our own biases and blindspots as teachers and trainers, and through dialogue and practice, create pathways of greater connection and understanding.
Pre-requisites for attending:

Completion of level 1 MBI:TAC training.

Experience in MBP supervisory/assessing/training roles. Please provide details of the course you attended in the notes section of the application form.

Participants must commit to the entire online training. Unless there are exceptional circumstances, we are unable to negotiate late arrivals or early leaving. If this is not possible, please contact us to discuss before submitting an application.