WISDOM & KNOWLEDGE | VIRTUE | FACILITATOR GUIDE

This facilitator guide presents a short, reflective, evidence-informed facilitated workshop on cultivating wisdom and knowledge in higher-education and student-support contexts. Drawing on the VIA Character Strengths framework, wisdom and knowledge are approached as cognitive character capacities rather than intelligence or academic ability, comprising the strengths of creativity, curiosity, judgment, love of learning, and perspective (Niemiec, 2018). The workshop is designed for tutors, mentors, and student-facing facilitators who support students navigating complexity, uncertainty, competing demands, and cognitive overload. Rather than framing confusion, indecision, or rigid thinking as deficits in ability or effort, the session helps participants recognise moments where learning, engagement, or decision-making are shaped by how students make sense of information, evaluate options, and integrate multiple perspectives. Structured reflection, paired dialogue, and brief cognitive prompts are used to surface how wisdom- and knowledge-related strengths influence students’ capacity for flexible thinking, engagement with feedback, and learning under pressure. Emphasis is placed on supporting the optimal use of these strengths without encouraging overthinking, intellectualisation, or disengagement from action, and on maintaining appropriate role boundaries in non-clinical educational settings (Niemiec, 2020). The guide offers a practical, time-bound (15–20 minute) format that can be integrated into tutor training, mentoring programmes, and broader learning or leadership development initiatives. It contributes an applied, strengths-based approach to student support by reframing common academic challenges as wisdom moments, and by equipping facilitators to foster discernment, sense-making, and learning agility in higher-education contexts. Learning Outcomes For participants By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to: • Recognise wisdom and knowledge as character capacities that support learning, judgement, and adaptive thinking • Identify situations where student confusion or indecision may reflect cognitive overload rather than lack of ability or effort • Name and recognise the five wisdom and knowledge strengths—creativity, curiosity, judgment, love of learning, and perspective—as they appear in student life • Reflect on how sense-making, discernment, and perspective-taking support engagement under uncertainty • Consider how to support wise thinking without over-directing, over-explaining, or encouraging rumination For facilitators By the end of the workshop, facilitators will be able to: • Model reflective and balanced use of wisdom- and knowledge-related character strengths in a non-clinical role • Link wisdom and knowledge explicitly to learning processes, feedback engagement, and decision-making • Distinguish between productive reflection and unhelpful overthinking or rigidity • Use VIA Character Strengths language in a contextual, accessible, and non-evaluative way • Maintain appropriate role boundaries while supporting students’ capacity to think clearly and act thoughtfully