Facilitating a Training or Professional Development any time soon?

Here are 5 facilitation tips based on research by Thinking Collaborative.

1. Opening

Your opening (first 3-5 minutes) sets tone, expectations, and relationship with the group

• Tell people who you are, what the topic is, and why it's relevant to them.
• Credential yourself without bragging
• Go over the agenda
• Address creature comforts like restroom locations

2. Charting

• Charts keep information visible throughout the meeting
• Make charts more legible by:
  • Write in block letters, not cursive
  • Use mixed case, not all caps
  • Use red for headlines
  • Use brown, green, purple, or blue for text. Alternate 2 colors in a list.
  • Use yellow and black for organizing or graphics
• Chart Art (Buckley, 2002) is a series of images that can be traced onto charts

3. Paraphrasing

Why paraphrase participants' responses:

• Create a safe environment for the brain to problem solve
• Acknowledge and clarify a participant's response
• Summarize and organize a participant's thinking
• So everyone can hear the comment

Sentence stems to help you paraphrase:

• "So you're saying ..."
• "It sounds like ..."
• "It seems like there is a theme of ..."
• "So it sounds like there are two things, ___ and ___"

Resource: Three Types of Paraphrasing

4. Posing Questions

Tips for crafting questions:

• Use Plurals to promote openendedness and the idea there may be more than one answer.
  Example: "What are some strategies..." instead of "Name a strategy..."
• Use tentative language like "might" or "may" to promotes openendness and communicate there are not just right or wrong answers.
  Example: "What might be some ways ____" instead of "How do you ___"
• When asking, have your voice end on a high for an "approachable voice" that invites an answer.

Resource: 5 Tips for Asking Better Questions

5. Walk Away Question

Pose a question for participants to think about on their own without answering out loud.

Benefits:

• Offer a chance to reflect and focus on growth
• To give thinking and processing time
• To give participants something to think about as they head back from their break-out groups.
• To close the day or before a break.
• To pose a question when you are running behind on time, but still want participants to reflect.

Resources

To learn more see:

Adaptive Schools seminars

Cognitive Coaching seminars

The Presenter's Fieldbook: