My Experience with Online Facilitation

As my facilitation week grew closer, I approached the assignment with a mix of emotions. On the one hand, I was excited to have an opportunity to experience the facilitator's role. On the other hand, this was one more thing to add to my schedule, which is already very full. I knew that being the discussion facilitator was going to be time-consuming; reading the instructor's diary had given me a new picture of the load that is put on the online instructor.

I don't like to do things half-way, so as the week approached I began to research the topic of Issues Facing an Online Facilitator. Using resources from the University of Phoenix Online (Managing Conflicts in the Online Cooperative Learning Environment:A Discussion of Recent Trends in Pedagogy and Practice) and from Penn State University World Campus (Best Practices in Online Teaching - During Teaching Deal with Conflicts Promptly) as well as information provided in the learning module from our class, I was able to put together a powerpoint that enhanced the class discussion. I forwarded my work to Sue, my facilitation partner, and asked her to add her ideas. Finally, I added graphics and color to keep the presentation visually engaging for participants. I enjoyed the creativity involved in this part of the process.

To prepare for facilitation, I attended the Wimba Live training. I found this to be extremely useful, and I became excited as I realized all that I could do on Wimba. Sue and I met on Wimba earlier in the week and rehearsed our presentation. To our chagrin, we both had connection problems so were only able to do a brief rehearsal. However, we both agreed that we felt confident for the final presentation.

A challenge we faced was the timing of our presentation. We had not realized that it would fall on the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Sue and I discussed how to plan so that the time would be most convenient for us and for the participants. Finally we agreed on Saturday morning at 11:00 a.m.; we hoped that this time would catch people before they got involved with family or shopping.

I was gratified that 3 of the 5 other students and the instructor, Bonnie, chose to join us. Luckily our connections stayed strong and Sue and I delivered the presentation as a well-balanced team. I enjoyed engaging the participants in discussing this very interesting topic. The time seemed to fly by, and I was pleased that we managed time in a way to cover everything without going longer than an hour. Participant feedback was very positive!

The asynchronous discussion proved to be most challenging part of assuming the facilitator role. The group members had eight topics to discuss. This was a lot to monitor! Sue and I tried to balance our input so that the group would not be “over-facilitated.” In addition, I saw that the group members were asking questions of each other. As facilitator I was pleased with this and observed where this was going rather than add to the questions. As the discussion continued, I could see that the participants were winding down, so my remarks tended to be encouragers or general comments rather than questions to stimulate new discussion.

I went into this experience feeling confident that it would go well. I have trust in Sue, and it was nice to have her as my partner. It was good to have had such good models from the previous student facilitators. I knew we could count on our fellow students to be supportive and engaged in the process. I was surprised, though, how much I enjoyed the Wimba presentation, and found myself thinking of how I can incorporate this into the classes I currently teach!

Graphics sources:
Circle:thankingcustomers.com
Wimba:http://www.wimba.com/
Turkey cake: http://www.coolest-birthday-cakes.com/

Developing an Identity as an Online Facilitator

As I learn more each week in this class, I find I am beginning to create a more accurate identity of myself as an online facilitator. In the intro course I felt a bit lost and wondered if I would be able to learn everything necessary to become an effective online designer and teacher. I am now beginning to feel more confident. It has been helpful to look at this as a step-by-step learning process, rather than expecting I will be an immediate expert.

I am a constructivist at heart, so this type of teaching and facilitation feels natural for me. I like the discovery learning process, and I find that I learn from my students’ discovery while they learn from me as well. Moving into an online environment will give me an outlet for my creativity and I am looking forward to moving ahead in my learning.

Many of the readings have been instrumental in helping me make the shift toward my own competence. A helpful reading was from Dr. Knox regarding The Pedagogy of Web Site Design (http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/magazine/v1n2/knox.asp). He described his own learning curve as he learned how to develop and facilitate the online course. I thought it was interesting that in his desire to apply constructivism to teaching online he forgot that he still needed to teach! Knox also gave guidelines on how much text is enough/too much. I like how he equated the total number of words in his essays to the equivalent of a textbook. Similarly, he questioned the value of having too many links to online resources in a class. Too many links can be frustrating to students and can lead them on a course that can take them away from the primary purpose.

One of the questions people have about the online learning experience is “How can I create a sense of community when I can’t see other participants?” Our sharing of ice-breakers helped to address that issue. As I shared on the discussion board, I think it is very important that any ice-breaker is relevant to the topic being taught. I have been to many workshops in which an icebreaker is used, then the instructor begins to discuss the topic of the workshop, and makes no connection to the subject matter. Thus, any icebreaker I choose will be useful and relevant to student learning.

While I am becoming more and more eager to facilitate my own online classes, I admit I was a bit daunted after reading the diary of the online teacher. What I learned from this is that I must understand what I am getting into as a teacher, but also that I need to create clear boundaries for myself as an instructor, so that I have a life outside of the online classroom! With help from the other class members, I was able to develop a clear idea of what I believe is reasonable class management. Together we identified management tools that address the needs of both instructor and students.

Finally, it is always helpful for me to see good examples of effective online facilitation. It was a great exercise to look at existing sites and to critically evaluate them. What was also interesting was to read the different perspectives from students who visited the same sample classrooms. It shows that, just as f2f instructors differ in their approaches, so do online instructors! As a result, I feel more freedom and look forward to expressing my own creativity in designing my classes.