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/