Six stress areas that can enhance or destroy Learning Effectiveness. The secret of Effective Facilitation.
Friday, October 30th, 2009
Facilitation isn’t about leading, teaching, or training. It’s about providing a safe environment or arena for people to make discoveries for themselves.
Within any small-group activity, there are six stress areas that can enhance or destroy learning effectiveness. These revolve around:
Structure. How is the session structured? How is each activity structured? A session needs to have a beginning, middle, and end that makes sense and moves forward so that participants feel that there is a constructive reason for being there. Furthermore, each activity needs to have the same structure, but also needs to address individual motivation and achievement. It’s a bit like the microcosm and macrocosm philosophy. The world (session) is a larger representation of the individual (activity)—both having the same structure on different scales.
Timing and pace. This refers to the timing of the session and the pace of activities. When pacing activities, do you take account of what has happened in the previous one? You may want to proceed rapidly, but the participants may want to go slower—and rushing them could lead to fragmentation of discovery and learning. Usually, groups like to know how much time they have for a task.
Interaction. Here we look at interaction between participants and interaction between facilitator and participants. Competition and cooperation are both beneficial. What you don’t want is for the participants to develop a sense of competition with you, as the facilitator. They need to know you have the authority, but not the control.
Focus (individual and group). By this, we mean how well (or badly) the participants are focusing on the sessions and the activities. Some activities can press personal buttons that can lead to a shift in individual and group focus. If appropriate, you can use the change in dynamics to make a more in-depth explanation. Some individuals, although they may be interested in the subject, feel uncomfortable in a group work situation, leading to difficulties in productivity.
Needs (individual and group). Although you will be aware of group needs prior to the session, some unforeseen needs could emerge during it. Equally (though less likely), you may be aware of individual needs prior to the session, but these will probably manifest themselves during an activity. Up to a point, individual needs should be observed and (if possible) quietly worked on with the individual concerned at the time. It might be necessary to remove the individual from the activity and to one side, or to talk to them after the session. It is helpful to respond to group needs immediately, as this may well tease out areas for further discovery.
Control and authority. Who has control? A facilitator has ultimate authority in terms of holding the session/activity together. The participants have control because the session must work toward fulfilling their needs.
The secret of effective facilitation is to maintain a balance between any two extremes of stresses.
