AEIN is encouraging our network schools to participate in "mini-networks" around a theme. A mini-network facilitator from AEIN will help keep the min-networks focused and engaged. We are just beginning the process of developing the team of mini-network facilitators.
Todayat our staff meeting I facilitated a 45 minute session on online faciliation. As I designed the session, I was aware that I did not know everyone's prior knowledge and experience with facilitation in general and online faciliation in particular. I had to access that prior knowledge in the meeting and then tailor the activities on the fly to meet the needs of the group. I also knew that there would a couple new people to our team there... a couple of faculty members who are going to be facilitating mini-networks for us.
Understanding by Design guided my thinking as I designed the session. My plan is set up in the UbD framework. I wanted to get people thinking about what facilitation is and what it is not. I also changed the plan after I developed it, adding the brainstorm at the beginning.
I started the session with introductions and then got right in to a brainstorm about facilitation. We started with the prompt, "To facilitate is to..." I wanted verbs that would describe aspects of facilitation. The brainstorm set the tone that all answers are ok and thus encouraged everyone to participate early on. It achieved the goal of establishing a sense of community and inclusion in the group.
The KWLS chart that we each worked on for a few minutes was a great way for me all of us to discover the prior knowledge of our colleagues. We filled out the columns, "what do I know" and "what do I want to know" in regards to facilitation. I kepts copies of the charts that everyone did so we can use this information as we think of the next steps for this group.
A weakness of the session was that we didn't establish the difference between faciliation and online facilitaion and the difference between facilitator and teacher. I also forgot to make my goals and the agenda explicit at the beginning of the session. It was, however, a positive start to our work together as online facilitators.
In the session I tried to model good facilitation: making sure everyone was included, soliciting input rather that telling them my opinion, summarizing discussions, balancing keeping the focus of the session with letting us go on "birdwalks", and encouraging evaluation at the end of the session. I was conscious that I had opinions on several topics that I did not state. I want the group to discover and own a sense of facilitation. We also need to figure out how we each put wat we learn into practice as we faciliate. How do we grow our skills as facilitators?
No comments:
Post a Comment