Reflecting on Facilitation Techniques

Facilitation
1

Look at the PLIX Facilitation Techniques (or the printed out cards)

  • What stands out to you?
  • What is familiar, new, or surprising?
2

In most of the educational programs Iā€™ve participated in, thereā€™s a strong emphasis on making sure the kids donā€™t get hurt. While injuries should, of course, be avoided, in practice, that tends to mean taking any potentially dangerous tools away from kids, instead of teaching them how to use them safely. It was refreshing to see a focus on letting kids figure things out and giving them an environment to safely learn how to use tools.

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3

Thinking back to my own past experiences interacting with educational programs, I think that student autonomy is very important, especially when dealing with activities aimed to assist future curiosity. To this end, I think some of these facilitation techniques must be tailored to each studentā€™s needs and characteristics. Some students, when facing a roadblock, may find it very frustrating to not be shown explicitly how to do things, so that they may be able to replicate it themselves. Others may prefer to figure it out themselves, or work with peers. I think that adaptability is always something to be emphasized when reflecting on these techniques.

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4

Donā€™t touch the tools as a facilitation technique really stood out to me. We often view helping as modeling or intervening to help the student progress. However, itā€™s important to lead them in the right direction while letting them explore and not interfering with their process. By not directly fixing their problems, you offer autonomy and the potential for more peer learning.

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5

I really like the ā€˜Celebrate process and productā€ and ā€˜Model curiosity and confidence.ā€™ I think they both work well together because if you are modeling confidence as a facilitator, it builds confidence in the kids. It also helps them with resilience and perseverance when things donā€™t go as planned.

6

Encouraging Peer Learning stands out to me. Usually, we rely on the experts to facilitate learning, but giving that honor to peers makes for more helpers. I am curious how to set up this facilitation technique for an upcoming paper circuit lantern event we are doing in November.

Many of the facilitation techniques are familiar to me from hosting many Dungeons and Dragons sessions. Like many of my peers, donā€™t touch the tools was new and a little surprising, but with more emphasis on learners maintaining control of their project, this technique for facilitation makes sense.