My first week of simulating the IF process via my facilitation and notetaking for the class discussion went OK. It is a large group (around 40), and I made students responsible for taking turns speaking, building on each others’ comments, and making sure everyone spoke at least once. Since the first few weeks are about generating good questions, I periodically interjected comments about what generating questions involves, about the importance of entertaining all possibilities, and about how I thought the discussion process would evolve over the course of the semester. At the end of the discussion, we discussed how the discussion process went. Students are very excited about participating in small group discussions but are also eager to figure out what constitutes good discussion in terms of content and process.
Part of how students will be assessed includes evaluating each facilitator’s pre-facilitation outline. The outline is supposed to include discussion goals, questions, and notation of key concepts (from the assigned readings) that might get raised. I prepared a pre-facilitation outline for my facilitation of the first week’s discussion, and at the end of the discussion I distributed it to all students as an example for what they should prepare in their role as facilitators. Students liked this a lot. Each facilitator will also complete a reflection paper, which will be graded.
I plan to observe small groups and provide feedback to individual facilitators and notetakers and to each group post-discussion the first few weeks. Students will also get feedback from their group members on their individual participation and the group discussion process each week by completing evaluation forms (which I created for this purpose) and sharing this information with their group. Each group must spend some time at the end of session discussing how to improve continuing discussion, but this information will not be used for grading.
I think using the IF discussion process will be a learning process for us all. While all students will be learning how to participate in and facilitate good discussions, I recognize that this is a developmental process – for some of us more than others on an individual level, and for all of us on the interactivity level.
3 Comments
Debra, I really like your idea of a pre-facilitation outline. Most of the Fellows use Agendas for sanctuary discussion meetings, and this helps both the participants and the facilitator to focus their goals and anticipate concerns that might be raised during the discussion. One doesn’t want to be too detailed so as to lead the group’s discussion in a particular direction, but for students, especially, this sort of tool can give them some confidence as they step up to the facilitation role. Given that you work with more professional students, this sort of role may be less foreign to them, which means you might want to pay special attention that folks who might be a tad on the domineering side aren’t driving their group too much (groups will discipline this themselves, but generally in a passive-aggressive manner).
Hi Deb! I want to echo Sue’s enthusiasm about the pre-facilitation outline. Based on my experiences last quarter, I think this will allow quieter/nervous students to assert themselves in a more effective way. It will also lend more “legitimacy” (for lack of a better term) to the process. I’m curious to see how your continual feedback to facilitators and note-takers will go. I had four groups, so I gave feedback after every session to (1) the facilitator, (2) note-taker, (3) the group. I found it difficult to keep up with written feedback. The students did tell me that they appreciated it. I think your solution of a reflection paper as well as peer-to-peer feedback should lessen the workload for you.
Hi Deb,I have a very similar structure to my facilitation assignment and I am really a big fan of the pre-facilitation materials (outline, questions, etc.). You are brilliant to prepare one for yourself and then distribute that to your students as a model: I wish I would have thought to do that!
I’m curious to hear how your reflection papers go. Mine ranged in quality, which is to be expected, but overall I was pretty happy with the observations they made and the ways in which they were responsive to peer feedback. Sounds like you’re doing some great stuff!