Lead to the Answer

If you've been here for a bit, you've probably heard me talk about facilitation before. Facilitation is one of the most powerful tools that you can use as an educator that allows you to help your students on a more personal level. 

This is because as a team you are determining the goal or outcome of what is going on in the classroom. In fact, that’s the definition of facilitation: to reach a predetermined goal together.

Facilitation is something that started in classrooms and has expanded to businesses.  Most of this is because of teaching adults.  For people over the age of 21 knowledge becomes more of a discussion than a memorization of facts.  Connections have to be made while working with others to find the best ideas because conversation and application help adult learners make lasting connections.  

If an adult learner can have a conversation and a solid discussion about what is going on they are going to be more willing to learn new information, and they are also going to want to contribute more to the classroom. These are big bonuses for facilitation.  

One of the hardest things about facilitation is that you can't give them the answer. you have to lead your students to the answer.  When you lead you have to guide them along the steps to reach the answer for themselves.  If they are struggling, you may have to help them create a few more connections before the group reaches the goal.

The important part is getting your students to reach the conclusion on their own through interacting with one another or the information that they are learning.  This may not always happen, but it is always the goal.

Give students a chance to acclimate to the knowledge they are gathering and to facilitate. For the first few weeks, you might have to guide them to the answer. 

Don't get too frustrated and don't worry. This is all part of the process! 

To guide people you have to get them talking about the right information. This means using discussion questions, strategies, all sorts of things in order to get people to move their brains in the direction of the topic at hand.

• What information do the students need to make the necessary conclusions?
• How intense is research going to be for your students?
• What connections do you want your students to make?

The reason this is an important part of facilitation is that you must find ways to emphasize the impact of the knowledge that you're sharing. Once you have figured out what the connections are, prepare guiding questions that get your students thinking critically.  

Guiding questions are the heart of facilitation.  They help people reach the same conclusion by having fruitful discussions which allow them to come together in a safe environment to discover the final idea. Your students may not be at that point and that's OK! That doesn't mean that you are failing, and it does not mean that they are failing.

Once you have some guiding questions that get students actively thinking, get ready to guide conversations as they start to make the connections.  Usually, at this point, conversations can get a little bit out of hand and students can sometimes get a little rowdy. This is because they finally found ‘it’. They finally understood the connection because you gave them enough information at the beginning of the session to determine what they needed to learn. 

We have to be careful about not giving our students enough credit for making connections.  Not everyone can create those connections with ease.  This doesn’t take away from the specialness of the connecting moments and it also doesn't take away from how important those moments are.

As with any facilitation, don’t forget to praise your students for making those connections.  Until next time!