Documentation:CTLT Institute/Facilitator Community/2018 Spring

Overview

The intention behind designing the Institute Facilitation Workshop was two-fold:

1. To develop the Institute Facilitators who are instrumental in delivering professional development opportunities for our teaching and learning community, and
2. To provide a forum for Institute Facilitators to network and connect with one another in building a community devoted to teaching and learning.

Logistics

Location: Rm 2.22/Dodson/Lillooet
Time: Wednesday, April 25, 2018, 1 PM - 2 PM (light refreshment served at 12:30 PM)

Materials

Session Slide Deck
File:Facilitation Workshop - Lesson Plan Template HO.docx
File:2018 Institute Facilitator Workshop Feedback Form.docx
Discussion questions on flip-chart posted around the room to serve as conversation starters:

• What is facilitation?
• How is facilitation similar to/different from teaching?
• What are some skills of a facilitator? (and what does it look like in practice?)
• How can I improve my facilitation skills/practice?

Lesson Plan

Territorial Acknowledgement, Welcome, Introductions & Housekeeping

(Time: 10 min; 10:00)
Thank you for joining us for this inaugural facilitation workshop, developed as a token of thanks to your involvement and commitment to our teaching and learning community as institute facilitators.

Before we start, I’d like to acknowledge that we are gathered today on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Musqueam people.

• Introductions:
  • Name and role of facilitators
  • Participants: Share your name, role, and department in one sentence – share what you’re contributing to and/or wishing to gain from this community of facilitators.

• Housekeeping:
  • Discussion questions posted around the room, feel free to contribute when you have a moment at the end and we’ll digitize them and share them as group-generated resources.
  • Spring Institute is a four-day event, with a total of 22 exciting sessions. We will also have a Space of Connection for you and your participants in front of CTLT.

Learning Objectives

(Time: 1 min; 11:00)
By the end of this workshop, you will be able to:

1. Cultivate a habit of anticipating potential challenges whenever developing workshops
2. Discuss and share best facilitation practices that will support participants in applying and transferring knowledge from the workshop to their (teaching and learning) contexts
3. Provide and receive peer-feedback on workshop ideas and activities
4. Connect with peers and colleagues!

Workshop Planning Activity (& Surprise!)

(Time: 20 min; 31:00)
Working with your facilitation team, draft learning objectives and jot down some participatory activity ideas for your proposed session. The typical turn out at Institute workshops ranges between 16-20 people.

Take 7 minutes to do this. If you have a detailed lesson plan already, think about how you might structure the activity and/or consider alternative activities.

Surprise!(7 minutes)
Hand each facilitator team a slip of paper and ask them to redesign on the fly to address the issue that they are now faced with . The scenarios touches on attendance, audience, disciplinarity, and prior knowledge.

Share & Debrief (6 minutes)

• What was your impression/thoughts/emotions in response to your challenge?
• What were your considerations?
• What was your process in addressing the challenge?

These are some relevant issues that we sometimes encounter in the context of Institutes and wanted to offer an opportunity for you to anticipate challenges and to make your workshop designs more robust!

Snowball Discussion

(Time: 15 min; 46:00)
We’ve had a quick look at incorporating a few design considerations when designing workshops - let’s dig into some details of workshop delivery.

On your own (1 min)
Reflect on your own experiences as a workshop participant, what makes a good workshop?

In Pairs (2 min)
What did your workshop facilitator do that made it a good/memorable learning experience?

Pair of pairs (4 min)
What are some best practices that we could steal from our facilitators to improve our practice?

Share & Debrief (5 minutes)
Deb to scribe some key ideas around facilitation/behaviours of facilitation.

Revisiting Workshop Plan

(Time: 10 min; 56:00)
Take a moment to revisit your workshop plan and incorporate facilitation techniques and/or strategies to make it more robust. Feel free to work in groups to share your rationale for the changes you’ve made and solicit feedback from your peers.

Wrap-Up & Informal Networking

(Time: 4 min; 60:00)
Sharing knowledge and skills is an important part of contributing to our communities - and doing this means the wheel doesn't have to be continually reinvented and creates opportunities for interdisciplinary collaborations. Thank you again for your generosity, presence, and commitment to enhancing student learning.

Please complete the formative feedback form and place it at the back of the room when you’re done.

The next half hour or so, we encourage you to continue sharing your ideas and insights with one another, to contribute your thoughts on the few discussion questions around the room, to consume all the food!

Additional Resources

File:2018 Institute Facilitator Workshop - Participant generated responses.pdf
Facilitation Bibliography
Territorial Acknowledgement resources, CTLT Indigenous Initiatives
A preparation checklist and some practical facilitation tips, University of Kansas

Acknowledgement

The Workshop Planning (& Surprise!) Activity was originally developed by Dr. Shaya Golparian and has been adopted for this workshop.

Sharing Permission

When re-using this resource, please attribute as follows: Developed by Deb Chen, PhD at Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology.