facilitator

When working with or managing any party, it is critical that the facilitator be asked to analyze his or her role as a facilitator (Witte 300). The appraisal is crucial in developing a clear optimistic sense of self in relation to facilitation practice. Furthermore, after doing such a study, the facilitator would be able to quickly recognise areas that could need change (Gray 496). The primary goal of an ability development program is to assist in identifying the importance of knowing and comprehending the personal purpose for using facilitation. It also aids in the realization of the ideals and standards that one takes to every given community function. Working in groups is not neutral, and no single facilitator does not have their own set of beliefs, opinions or attitudes (Korthagen 390). The most important thing for a facilitator while working with a group is to acknowledge that his/her beliefs and work towards empowering the groups towards achieving its primary objectives (Körkkö et al., 200).

The role of a facilitator in groups does not involve striving for neutrality. The role of a facilitator involves working with all shades of opinion within a group, encouraging discussion, and honest expression, respecting opinions presented by other group members and creating an atmosphere that includes all the perspectives. However, this does not imply that a facilitator does not have any opinions. It also does not mean as a facilitator you get to agree with all the opinions or perspectives of the group. Facilitators and group members are expected to work together towards achieving a central expression and understanding of diverse opinions and perspectives.

It is obvious that groups are expected to come to a set of beliefs that characterize and define that particular group. A facilitator is responsible for acknowledging any conflict between their principles and values and those of the groups as a whole (Thomas 340). It could reach a point where both the group and the facilitator would need to agree on whether to continue working together or not. A good facilitator will always use and choose an approach that will suit the general needs of the group members, the roles that have emerged and the present phase of development of the group. Self-analysis and openness to the challenging ways of operating form the basis of developing facilitation.

Group facilitation encourages greater participation and accountability for decisions. It is through great facilitation approach that group members could eventually come to value and develop their skills and proficiency. Facilitation involves various aspects of the interaction between individuals for instance interpretation, planning and conflict management. Facilitation could either be learned or developed through cognitive practice and supervision. Openness to constant learning and development is critical for any individual aspiring to improve his/her facilitation skills or expertise (McLean 9).

Active listening is a skill that an individual could acquire or develop with cognitive practice. It is important to point out that developing active listening skills could be difficult, and could take (McNaughton 235). Hence patient is required. Active listening necessitates the listener to have full concentration, comprehend, respond and recall whatever is being said. Active and genuine listening is a critical skill that helps in building relationships, solving problems, assuring understanding, improving accuracy and resolving conflicts. This skill involves listening to all senses. It also entails giving the speaker or facilitator full attention. It is important that the active listener is perceived to be listening, or else the speaker could come to a conclusion that whatever they are talking about is uninteresting to the listener. There are several ways to which a person could be assumed to be an active listener; this could be either verbal or non-verbal for instance maintaining eye contact, smiling or nodding your head.

Small smiles in active listening could be an indication that the listener is paying attention to what the facilitator is saying. It could also be a way of agreeing or expressing contentedness with the messages being received. A combination of smiles, with nods of the head, could be an affirmation that the messages being conveyed are being understood and listened.

It is normal and encouraging for a listener to look at the facilitator or speaker. However, eye contact could be intimidating, particularly for the shy speaker. Therefore, an active listener always gauges how much eye contact is fitting for any given occasion. A speaker gets more encouraged to continue with their message by receiving eye contact with smiles and other non-verbal messages from the listeners or audience.

The rapid addition of new information and advancement o0f science that take place on a daily basis make it a necessity for a researcher or a facilitator to constantly expand his or her horizons past the simple gathering and reliance of information based on the basic engineering principles. There are several strategies that have been developing to facilitate and enhance critical thinking skills. Critical thinking refers to that process through which an individual reflects on, accesses and judges the basic assumptions underlying his or her own as well as the thoughts, ideas, and actions of others (Yang et al., 286). Socratic questions form the underlying principle of critical thinking concept. There are six primary questions of Socratic questions (Oyler, and Frank 144).

Conceptual clarification questions get a person to reflect and think further about what exactly they are thinking or asking about. It involves the art of proving the underlying concepts of an argument or claim. It also entails the use of basis “tell me more” questions structured to get them to go deeper. Some of the most common types of Socratic conceptual clarification questions include, why are you saying that? Could you please rephrase that, please? What exactly do we know about this?

The second type Socratic questions entail the probing assumptions. It involves the act of probing the assumptions of the facilitator to get them thinking about the presuppositions and under questioned beliefs forming the basis of their argument. It is considered as shaking the bedrock and should get the facilitator talking more. Examples include what would probably happen if…? Do you agree or disagree…? Is there any possible explanation of why/how…?

Probing rationale, reasons and evidence Socratic questions are those questions that get an individual giving a rationale for his or her argument. Such questions make one get into that reasoning rather than making assumptions about what is given. It is mostly used when trying to make use of un-thought-through or the faintly-understood to support the presented arguments. Examples include how might it be disproved? Is there any possible example of the same? Is there any chance that it would stand up in court? How did you come to know about it?

Another type of Socratic question is questioning viewpoints and perspectives. Majority of the presented arguments are from a particular position. Therefore, these type of questions is meant to attack the position. Questioning viewpoints and perspectives aim at showing that there are other, equally valid viewpoints. Examples include why is it better than…? Who are the beneficiaries of this? What are the other ways of looking at this?

Probe implications and consequences Socratic questions assess and evaluate a presented argument for any attached logical implications. This type of Socratic question evaluates an argument to establish whether it makes any sense and whether it is desirable. Examples include how does … affect …? Why is … important? How does … fit with what we learned before?

Questions about the question involve getting the reflexive aspect of the whole thing, which is turning the question in on itself. It is the use of a person’s attack against them. Examples include what does that mean? What was the idea and concept of asking that question? Why do you think I asked the question? What does that mean?

The Socratic approach to questioning is founded on the principle of disciple and thoughtful dialogue. It is assumed that Socratic approach to questioning is a disciplined practice of thoughtful questioning that helps an audience or student examine the presented and available ideas logically and decide on the rationality of those ideas. Through the use of this skill the teacher or the facilitator acknowledges unfamiliarity of the topic to initiate and engage in a dialogue with the students or audience respectively. It is a very effective and guaranteed way of exploring ideas in depth. It is a strategy that can be used at any given level and is a beneficial approach for all teachers. The use of Socratic questioning at any level helps promote independent thinking among the audience and gives them ownership of what they are learning. It could, however, require practicing on both the facilitator and the audience to use these types of questions.

Understanding one’s personality helps in recognizing some of the strengths and weaknesses when it comes to reacting or addressing issues or handling those within the same environment. For instance, for a person who tends to exhibit dominance, he or she is most like to have a habit of taking over a conversation or wanting to make decisions in whatever way they wish without considering the opinion of others. Conversely one could be decisive, confident and a natural problem solver. A good and effective leader is one who understands some of these tendencies and can channel his or her behavior and eventually use it to his or her benefit or the benefit of the team/ group.

Understanding others are equally important as understanding oneself. Everyone is a part of a team, while some are leaders of groups or teams. Knowing and understanding the personality of the team members as a leader is vital in determining the most suitable approach to use when dealing with every member. Moreover, understanding others, particularly in a group is important in identifying the most suitable and common ground when faced with a tough decision. An effective leader is identified and determined by their ability to influence on and getting things done through others. The level of influence a leader has on others is dependent on the ability to connect with others. A good leader has the capacity of understanding themselves and those around them.

Some of the common questions and strategy that an individual could use to conduct a personal assessment would include what style of communication you are comfortable using? What is your preferred way of making a decision? What could personality style shut you down? It is also important to evaluate and determine when the leader and the team lastly conducted a personality assessment.

It is important to teach young people skills such as active listening, self-awareness and responsiveness to help provide them with knowledge and help them in succeeding either socially or academically. In an individual’s work with schools, it is a common place to overhear those in learning chatting about assisting students progress their emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence involves five main areas, self-awareness, self-motivation, empathy, relationship skills and emotional-control. It is vital to always establish good communication with others, which forms the basis of better learning, and academic success. Such skills developed during a person’s developmental and influential years at school create a basis for future habits later in their lives (Melita et al., 22).

It is vital to develop self-awareness in any given situation. Self-awareness would help address cases of oppression and discrimination. When a person is characterized by having low self-awareness they are at great risk of not realizing how they could come across to others. Low self-awareness also results in an over inflated self-image that skews a person’s behavior and social interaction. Metacognitive strategies could be used to help students solve the low-self-awareness problem. In a school setting, a teacher could encourage students to engage in self-reflective questions such as ”what could have I done in a different way?” another way of solving low-self-awareness problems could involve the use of self-communication-evaluation questionnaire. Helping students manage and improve their self-regulation is one of the best ways to support them. Self-regulation refers to the ability to manage one owns thoughts and feelings. Self-reflection and reflecting back the other person’s perspective is one way through which another person could feel understood, hence increasing the possibility of support and collaboration.

Work cited

Gray, David E. ”Facilitating management learning: Developing critical reflection through reflective tools.“ Management learning 38.5 (2007): 495-517.

Korthagen, Fred. ”Inconvenient truths about teacher learning: towards professional development 3.0.“ Teachers and Teaching 23.4 (2017): 387-405.

Körkkö, Minna, Outi Kyrö-Ämmälä, and Tuija Turunen. ”Professional development through reflection in teacher education.“ Teaching and Teacher Education 55 (2016): 198-206.

Melita Prati, L., et al. ”Emotional intelligence, leadership effectiveness, and team outcomes.“ The International Journal of Organizational Analysis 11.1 (2003): 21-40.

McLean, Michelle. ”What can we learn from facilitator and student perceptions of facilitation skills and roles in the first year of a problem-based learning curriculum?.“ BMC Medical Education 3.1 (2003): 9.

McNaughton, David, et al. ”Learning to listen: Teaching an active listening strategy to preservice education professionals.“ Topics in Early Childhood Special Education 27.4 (2008): 223-231.

Oyler, Douglas R., and Frank Romanelli. ”The fact of ignorance revisiting the socratic method as a tool for teaching critical thinking.“ American journal of pharmaceutical education 78.7 (2014): 144.

Thomas, Glyn. ”Difficult groups or difficult facilitators? Three steps facilitators can take to make sure they are not the problem.“ The handbook for working with difficult groups: How they are difficult, why they are difficult and what you can do about it (2010): 339-352.

Witte, Erich H. ”Toward a group facilitation technique for project teams.“ Group Processes & Intergroup Relations 10.3 (2007): 299-309.

Yang, Ya-Ting Carolyn, et al. ”A blended learning environment for individualized English listening and speaking integrating critical thinking.“ Computers & Education 63 (2013): 285-305.

Appendix

Dealing with young people could be challenging. However, I successfully managed to work with a group of young people with the help of incorporating various self-awareness and skills learned from the module. For instance, I had to develop a better understanding of myself, which helped improve my capacity to understand the thoughts and feelings of those around me. I was able to enhance my perspective taking from developing a better understanding of myself. Sometime back I had significant issues with self-understanding, however nowadays particular when dealing with the young group and my colleagues it takes me less time to identify at least five personality traits of a person I just met. The first impression when I meet a new person that I develop is based on something like ”she is a nice person.” Although my first impression about the person involves a deep understanding of their personality, to the level that I might realize some things about them that those close to him do not know.

Active listening was a powerful tool in dealing with young people. I was able to strengthen my communication and improve my relationship with the young group of people. One reason why I decided to use the active listening skill was to show the effectteam that I was interested and cared about whatever they said, making them trust me and talk. It also helps me learn and understand more about what was going with the group. Through the use of active listening skill, I did not have to talk much. It presented me with a better platform and opportunity to come up with answers and solve the presented problems. I realized that through active listening there was a higher probability of the group seeking to my views.

During class-based group work, most of the discussions were Socratic. The Socrates within the group often asked a group member to define a generalized and confusing concept. Once a reply was given to the posed question, the Socrates followed up with another question with the aim of revealing a contradiction in the response given. I also noted that the Socrates posed another question with the aim of adding an exception to the response or trying to identify something else that was problematic. The questioning and answering then continued until any of the group members did have the impression that there were no clear answers. The use of Socrates questioning skills was useful in improving and helping the group members think quickly. The questions that were posed during the group discussion were designed to determine an understanding of the issues in play during the meeting. For us the group members, we were able to have a wonderful experience of being put on the spot which required one to think quickly to come up with a response. The method and approached challenged me as an individual to be a quick-witted and challenged me to at all times carefully articulate my thoughts. I also managed to develop critical thinking skills through the use of Socrates questioning technique.