Facilitation+Skills

=Facilitation Skills= Most of this work around ICTPD facilitation must be credited to https://facilitationstrategies.wikispaces.com which is run by Core Education. In your role as a facilitator you will usually be working with adults. For teachers this is a huge change, working with adults/colleagues requires some different skills to those needed when working only with children. We will address this later in the session. **What skills do you need as a facilitator?**

//If you are working with a new group of colleagues you may need an icebreaker to make people feel more relaxed in the room and with the people around them.//
** Icebreakers ** What's in a name? Ask people to find a partner to discuss background of their name. Were they named after someone? Is their name misspelled often? Do people mispronounce their name? Is their name a nickname i.e. different from their birth name? Does their name mean something in a different language? This icebreaking exercise helps everyone to remember names as the stories provide a memory hook. **Would you rather...** Would you rather find true love or win the lottery? Would you rather be bald or completely hairy? Would you rather tell your best friend a lie or your parents the truth? 'Would you rather deal with a teacher that wants you to fix a computer during class time or try to find where a missing cable has gone from the laptop bag? Ask participants to make up a question like this and then move around the group introducing themselves and asking their question.


 * What type of facilitation do you use in __your current__ role?**
 * I work predominately as a formal trainer with the emphasis on transmitting knowledge
 * I work predominately as a training facilitator drawing on the knowledge of participants and helping to fill the gaps
 * I work predominately as a facilitator where I manage processes but the end result and content is the responsibility of the group.
 * My role involves working in all three roles - formal trainer, training facilitator and facilitator
 * I work as both a formal trainer and a training facilitator
 * I work as both a facilitator and training facilitator
 * I work as both a facilitator and formal trainer.

Having looked at the __three__ definitions of types of facilitation on this page, feel free to add any comment about the way you work. Are there times you are feel pressed into one type of role when you believe you should be working in a different way?

https://facilitationstrategies.wikispaces.com/The+role+of+a+facilitator A facilitator: · Listens · Supports · Summarizes · Challenges · Leads the Process · Creates a safe environment · Trust the group
 * Video – 7 skills of facilitation**

Q: How would your prioritise the seven key skills outlined in the video? Briefly explain your reasoning.

Timperley writes in “Teacher Professional Learning and Development’. “Expertise external to the group of participating teachers is necessary to challenge existing assumptions and develop the kinds of new knowledge and skills associated with positive outcomes for students” (p16). Therefore a facilitator or knowledgeable expert needs to be able to, “…challenge assumptions and present teachers with new possibilities;” (p16).
 * Q: What key skills would you add to the seven as being important in your role?**

· Think about what you believe are important attributes __for yourself as a facilitator__ and what your key role is within your school. · Ask the group that you work with what attributes they value for someone in your role and what they think your role entails. Do the two align? It is important that all stakeholders have a shared understanding of your role.

**The value of brainstorming as a strategy: comment from an NZ teacher** //The video re-iterates that much favoured classroom myth that group brainstorming is a creativity tool – that it increases the quality and quantity of ideas generated. Brainstorming is so common in New Zealand that it ranks as a foundational pedagogy in primary schools. Brainstorming has such iconic status in education – none would speak against it? Yet the, “produce as many ideas as possible; produce ideas as wild as possible; build upon each others ideas; avoid passing judgement of ideas” just doesn’t work. In The Medici Effect” by Johansson we read that in experiments from across the world// “face to face (real) groups have never once been shown to be more productive than virtual groups. In fact real groups that engage in brainstorming consistently generate about half the number of ideas they would have produced if the group’s individuals had pondered the problem on their own. In addition, in the studies where the quality of ideas was measured, researchers found that the total number of good ideas was much higher in virtual groups than in real groups.”p.11 Characteristics of __Teachers__ as Learners/Facilitators As trained teachers, we have many strategies for working with children in the classroom. However, when facilitating sessions with teachers, it helps to understand key features of how adults learn and what impacts on the effectiveness of professional development with teachers.

“The Principles of Adult Learning” by Stephen Lieb is an excellent starting point when considering the needs of adult learners.

He lists the following **characteristics of adult learners that need to be considered when designing professional development.** Finally, he talks about __four essential elements of learning__ that need to be addressed when working with adult learners. · **Motivation** - creating a safe environment for learning and setting an appropriate level of difficulty for the participants. · **Reinforcement** - encouraging participants as they learn · **Retention** - ensuring participants can retain and apply their learning. · **Transference** - helping learners to make connections so that they can use their new learning in other situations. =Task: Personal Reflection= Reflect on a session that you have recently facilitated. Think about these focus questions in relation to that session.
 * Adults are autonomous and self-directed and need to be given some freedom and responsibilities for their own learning.
 * Adults have accumulated a foundation of life experiences and knowledge, which need to be acknowledged and valued
 * Adults are goal-oriented.
 * Adults are relevancy-oriented. They must see a reason for learning something.
 * Adults are practical, focusing on the aspects of a lesson most useful to them in their work.
 * As do all learners, adults need to be shown respect.
 * What does this mean for the way we work as facilitators?**

What were the main motivations for teachers to be at that session? Were these effective motivators? How could you help improve levels of motivation?

How did your session cater for each of the characteristics of adult learners? What improvements could you make if running a similar session to cater for these needs?

In what ways did you consider the four elements of motivation, reinforcement, retention, and transference within the session?

What was the impact of the influences on teacher learning in your session? If some of the impact was negative, how could you change the way you worked with those teachers in the future?