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Facilitating
in Face-to-Face Groups
Some
Basic Guidelines and Principles About Facilitation
Various
Tips, Tools and Techniques
Facilitating
On-Line Discussions
Resources
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Introduction
Lecturing,
as a means of teaching, has significant limitations.
Essentially, the model of lecturing is in conflict with
current views of effective learning and with profiles
of what today's learner needs/wants. At the root of
the lecture model lies the notion that knowledge resides
in the head of the teacher, and the student learns this
knowledge by listening to the teacher. Obviously, learning
(while often including lecture) is much more...learners
learn best when given control of the experience, under
the guidance and direction of a skilled instructor.
What
then is the alternative to lecturing? Facilitation is
the "lecture-replacement" process many online and classroom
instructors use to foster learning. This process empowers
learners by placing them at the center of the learning
experience...allowing them to personalize their learning
based on needs and motivations.
Tutorials
What
is Facilitation
Facilitation,
in classroom or online, is a process of enabling groups/people
to work together to achieve goals/objectives. The following
is a list of definitions:
- Facilitation
is the process of enabling groups to work cooperatively
and effectively (Info
Design)
- Facilitate
comes from a word which means "to make easy". In the
context of group work, facilitation is the process
wherein a skilled impartial party supports a group
to identify and solve problems by improving group
members' ability to work together effectively. The
facilitator is called upon to help a group improve
its performance in relation to a particular task or
project. The facilitator, like a mediator, is substantively
impartial and has no decision-making power
- Quite
simply, a facilitator's job is to make it easier for
the group to do its work. By providing non-directive
leadership, the facilitator helps the group arrive
at the decisions that are its task. The role is one
of assistance and guidance, not control (WG
Hill)
- Facilitation
is about engendering an open discussion on a specific
set of criteria, where the participants are taken
through a series of discussions and activities, to
ultimately establish a direction
- A
facilitator is a neutral person who helps a group
focus its energies on its task so that the group can
make effective decisions and promote cooperation among
its members. The facilitator remains neutral and does
not contribute her/his own ideas or evaluate group
members' ideas. S/he ensures that everyone participates;
protects group members, if necessary; and builds trust.
The facilitator works with the group to design the
meeting agenda and format to produce the desired results,
while minimizing disruption and frustration. (Confluence
Center)
Purpose
of Facilitation
Facilitation
can achieve a variety of purposes, most notably:
- Impart new material - this would be analogous to the
lecture. The instructor either knows something or
knows where to find something that the students need
to know. It might take explaining or it might only
take listing.
- Making
assignments - giving the students work to
do, either in groups or on their own, either project
based, reading/research, or test/quiz.
- Answer
questions - questions might be directly
about the material, might be about the medium being
used, or be related to the material but slightly tangential.
Sometimes questions can be anticipated and put in
some FAQ or archive area.
- Interact
with students -- sometimes interaction could
be its own and only reward, like virtue.
- Critique
work or thinking -- looking over what the
students are doing or saying. the critique (positive
or negative) might be directed solely at a particular
student or group or be used as a learning exercise
for the entire class.
- Moderate
and/or enable discussion (this is the role
of most list-serv moderators)
- Introducing
or enabling transactions (the 'Cardinal
Richelieu' model. He rebuilt the Sorbonne in Paris,
supported promising writers and founded the French
Academy. Many French historians consider Richelieu
as the founder of French unity, as well as the person
who released France from its medieval nature.")
- Arbitrating
or mediating disputes
- Summarization
Means of Facilitation:
The
boundaries of facilitation have been expanded with the
development of Internet/technology/collaboration tools.
Prior to the proliferation of tools, facilitation was
typically conducted face-to-face in classrooms environments.
The following lists facilitation means available today:
- Static
text or graphics
- Threaded
or unthreaded discussion board
- IM
or chat (possibly archived for asynchronous learners,
probably according to some type of schedule)
- Live
voice or video, possibly with some white boarding.
- Links
to other materials or lists of materials
- Email
- Drop
box (a place for people to leave assignments, which
could be open to all or just to the person who left
it and the instructor).
- Non-virtual
(office hours, phone support)
Facilitation
as Coversation
The
tacit nature of learning requires a model that permits
serendipitous learning and allows for adjustment based
on learner needs revealed during the process of facilitation.
In this sense, conversation can be viewed as a process
of facilitating by allowing adjustment of pace, content,
presentation, and clarification.
Thought
Horizon provides a good list of various conversation
Types:
- Conversations
for stories and assessments
- Conversations
for clarity
- Conversations
for co-ordination of action
- Conversations
for speculation or possible action
- Conversations
for possible conversations
- Conversations
for relationship
- Conversations
for appreciation / complaint
- Conversations
for second order learning
Online
vs. Classroom Facilitation
Are
there any differences between online and classroom facilitation?
Nancy White offers the following differences:
- No
physical clues
- Asynchronous
- Anonymous/disembodied
- Text-based
- Permanent
record
Tools
Many
software tools are available to enhance the ability
for learners to communicate online. These tools can
be used to develop, deploy, or directly facilitate interaction.
The following table lists some tools that may be of
interest to online facilitators:
|
Tool |
Use |
| Yahoo! Groups |
Popular
community/group service - email based |
| ezboard |
Customized/personalized
online communities |
| Zoomerang |
Create
surveys & solicit feedback |
| Qarbon |
Build
online demonstration |
| Half-Baked
Software |
Software
for simulations/self-testing |
| PalTalk |
Multi-media
-video, chat, voice over IP |
| Profiler |
Cooperation/collaboration
around specific topic |
| QuickTopic |
Discussion
board |
| CommunityZero |
Community
software - multi-featured |
| MimerDesk |
Groupware
- collaborative learning, community |
| Groove |
Peer-to-peer
collaborative software - feature-rich |
Roles
and Functions of Facilitators
A
facilitator plays many different roles beyond simply
guiding students. The following links detail some of
the more critical functions of facilitators:
Morten
Flate Paulsen describes teaching (facilitating)
as comprising of four categories:
- Organizational
(set agenda/pace)
- Social
(create an environment for learning)
- Intellectual
(focus on critical points)
- Assessment
Ed
Hootstein - uses four categories as well
- Instructor
(Consultant, guide, resource provider)
- Social
director (creator of collaborative environments)
- Program
manager (director of agenda)
- Technical
assistant (model of proficiency)
Zane
L. Berge - also four categories
- Pedagogical
(intellectual, task)
- Social
(creating an environment for successful learning)
- Managerial
(organizational, procedural, administrative)
- Technical
(make students feel comfortable with the system)
Facilitation
Techniques
'What
is Online' Facilitation provides the following facilitation
techniques/guidelines:
- Assume
good intent. Remind others of this simple trick.
- Role
model the behavior you wish others to use.
- Practice
and encourage the practice of active listening/reading.
- Be
as explicit as possible in your communication.
- Don't
automatically assume understanding -- ask for clarification
as needed.
- Build
trust by doing what you say you will do. Encourage
others to do the same.
- Trust
is sometimes surprisingly quickly granted, but more
easily taken away. Encourage an environment that values
trust.
- Use
irony and humor with care as it does not always come
across online as you might have intended. You can
always use emoticons to clarify! ;-)
- Think
before you hit the button and a post goes up.
- Be
self-aware.
- Approach
every contribution with curiosity, expecting surprise
and wonder
Additional
facilitation techniques (relating to organization, social,
intellectual and assessment functions) can be found
at CMC
Teachers and Their Functions.
One
of the roles that a facilitator/instructor plays is
the person in charge, which means influencing the students/others
in the class. A person can influence others through
some combination of five different forces:
- Expertise
- sometimes you can influence others because they
think you know more than they do, they trust that
your knowledge or skill will help them.
- Friendship
- sometimes you can influence others because they
like you and/or you have a good rapport with them.
- Authority
- sometimes they grant you authority, because of your
position or seniority. In the armed forces, you salute
the uniform.
- Punishment
- sometimes it's because they know that you can do
something to harm them (bad grades, poor recommendation,
firing, etc.)
- Reward
- and sometimes it's because you can do something
to reward them (pat on the back, publicity, money,
good grades, etc.)
It's
not that any of these are definitively right or wrong,
the most effective people are usually the ones who can
employ any of these at different times, when it is most
appropriate (also known as the law of requisite variety).
Conclusion
Final thoughts on
facilitation from participants:
"I
find in facilitation (both in classrooms and online,
but much more so online) that the most difficult thing
to get students to do is to really be willing to listen
to the views of co-students rather than almost always
relying on me. I wonder to what extent my own resistance
to doing that influences my ability to encourage students
to do it and to what extent I intervene and answer things
so quickly that there is little need to rely on each
other"
"I
think on-line facilitation lends itself to student empowerment
more than the traditional classroom. It's easier to
"be invisible" and let the students create and affirm
their own knowledge."
"All
of our instructors have commented that they get much
more depth in students' comments via the discussion
board (vs. their traditional section of students)."
"I've
had many students comment that they felt they had a
chance to reflect and think before responding which
they weren't as able to do in classroom discussions.
I also agree that my sense is that I get into much depth
with more of my online students then I was able to with
campus classroom students."
"Our
biggest problem is knowing how much "teaching" the facilitator
is responsible for. We have course lectures on video
that presumably deliver the content, but sometimes the
facilitator "teaches" rather than "facilitates." And
to complicate matters, we compensated facilitators differently
than we did teachers (ie adjuncts or faculty). We've
rectified the differential in pay, but we still have
some facilitators who think they are the sole repository
of knowledge. For some, it's a cultural issue that we
may never overcome, we just filter them out of the on-line
sections."
When
gaining an introduction to facilitation, the reader
might best be served to:
- Read
articles referenced from the section Group Dynamics
- Then
read articles referenced from the section "Some Basic Guidelines and Principles About Facilitation"
- Then
refine your knowledge about various types of groups
by reading articles referenced from the section .
- You
can deepen and enrich your learning by reflecting
on your facilitation experiences, including by sharing
feedback with other facilitators. Consider joining
any of the Organizations with Focus on Facilitation
- Ultimately,
the best way to really learn facilitation is to facilitate
- start simple, but start. Regularly reflect on your
experiences as you grow and learn.
This
is a summary of "content created" as a result of Week
5 of discussions using a non-traditional approach to
learning (participants of "elearning
noncourse"). This article is best understood as
a collage of thoughts, rather than a cohesive essay.
Contributors
to the discussion: Jennifer Cowley, Sharon
Chanley, Stephen Downes, Lisa Holstrom, Dawn Ressel,
George Siemens, Mitchell Weisburgh
Source:
elearnspace |
