As I teach and facilitate various online courses this year, a lot of the theories and concepts I subscribe to are getting some hard testing. The biggest challenge I am finding is the expectation for a teacher or instructor while everyone talks about a facilitator. I don’t think someone can be both, primarily because a teacher inherits a significant amount of power and traditional roles that counter act the more neutral and passive presence of a facilitator. This post will be a series of thoughts about this tension, and some ideas on how I can better manage my attempts at online learning community facilitation.
There’s a teacher at the party
I find it is all too easy to assume the role of a teacher if you are an expert in your field, but very difficult to adopt and maintain the role of facilitator to a group studying your field. Many things stack up against efforts to maintain a neutral and passive position of facilitation:
There is this blog and other artifacts that help to establish me as some sort of “expert” or someone with a few years of experience researching and testing the topic of online learning etc, and so a teacherly presence is hard to avoid, and there is an expectation that my experience and expertise should be used to help people find the answers more quickly and efficiently. Added to that are the student or participant expectations. People engaging in the courses I attempt to facilitate are typically vocational teachers and trainers by profession and people who have enrolled in a formal course, through traditional administration lines, via a professional development cycle and with very little background knowledge of me or the topic I am asked to facilitate, and that they intend to learn … about. And so, through this set up process they are encouraged to expect the familiar presence of a teacher or trainer, a formal learning venue and everything else that is familiar to a person who has been successful in the schooling experience. Ultimately they are unprepared for the facilitated and individually responsible and self motivated learning environment I try to encourage.
I can understand the expectation for a teacher in a course. Naturally a student who has enrolled in a formal course, following traditional administration channels, paying fees etc and who is of an age and professional experience that is very used to the idea of taught and instructed learning, would expect a similarly efficient, industrial strength, structured learning pathway within the course. But this is at odds with my understanding of facilitation and my principals around individual responsibility, networked learning, and a belief in the importance of deschooling.
So I have a problem.
Either I yield to the tradition of schooled learning and assume the role of teacher, instructor and assessor and forgo the role of facilitator, or I invest a lot more time with these courses and develop my skills as a communicator and become more sophisticated in ways of moving expectations towards a facilitated and individualised learning environment. At the moment, I can’t say I have been very successful at that, there are some things I can see I can do better, other things I have no control over, and then there are things that allude me all together. I am myself caught in a twilight zone between teacher and facilitator. I have years of experience being taught and then some teaching. I’m actually quite comfortable being the know it all teacher, instructing people on what to do with their time 😉 I even know a bit about controlling people’s behaviour so as to reflect something I can assess as learning.. but facilitation, that continues to allude me.
When I act as a facilitator I generally ignore all the lead up that the people who engage in these courses go through before they meet me. Mystake number 1. Then I assume an equal role with and between the participants and expect individual responsibility for motivated and expert learning. Mystake number 2. I actively fend off teacherly roles, keeping the structure and prescribed content to a bare minimum. Mystake number 3. Inevitably the frustrations from the people engaging in the courses are expressed, calling for more structure and direction and a more efficient pathway to a learning fix. It is not sufficient to simply establish and maintain communication channels, arrange and negotiate content like guest lectures etc, and assist individuals and groups with their research. The move from teacherly/taught to facilitated learning is complex and time consuming. So much so that I doubt these courses have much of a chance at succeeding at developing a individualised and facilitated learning experience.
Needless to say, teaching and instruction is the much easier path for all involved. Teaching and instruction are well established practices with numerous resources in place to support all involved in the exercise, including implicit and culturally embedded practices like narrative, closure, authority, partitioned knowledge, economy of scale, industrial strength admin processes etc). And almost everyone who is involved has experienced this type of schooled learning so we’re all on the same page in more ways than one. It is very difficult to socially learn in any other way, especially in a formal, traditional, schooled environment. The teach and instruct methods are a safe bet.
But I have been asked to facilitate a learning community. And although I know the word facilitate is being used more than a little loosely by institutions these days, and that the majority of the participants are encouraged to bring with them expectations AND needs of being taught and instructed, I have this idealist expectation to build and facilitate a learning community. All this relates specifically to a course I am attempting to co facilitate at the moment. It is called funnily enough, Facilitating Online Learning Communities. I share the facilitation role with Bronwyn Hegarty and we both struggle with each other and each internally with this tension between facilitation and instruction, cognitive and behaviorist practices and socially constructed ideals… We each have 4 hours per week to do this job, and only a small number of people engaged.
For the most part I think we have been successful given all the challenges. We have managed to move the course out from the limits of the Learning Management System so as to demonstrate the existence of learning communities in online contexts other than managed learning. So far we have looked at discussion forums, email lists, blogs and RSS, wikis and web conferencing. We are beginning to consider social networking sites, virtual worlds and gaming communities… all the participants have a blog, but only 1/2 – 2/3 are active with it, we have curated a series of what we call “10 minute lectures” that include about an hour of discussion, and we have attempted to down play our own presence as experts or specialists.
Unfortunately frustrations are expressed from time to time that relate to the seeming lack of structure and direction in the facilitation of the course, and the apparent over whelming amount of information and technical skills needed to participate. I can’t help but think that a lot of this frustration can be attributed to the confusion between teacher and facilitator, and the expectation of instructed learning that the course admin has encouraged. However, in the apparent absence of a structured course I think it is far to say significant learning is occurring in this online course. Most of the participants had not heard of a blog or RSS before this course, and did not know of the distinctions between social networking sites and blogs and wikis.. etc, none had used a web conferencing facility like Elluminate or Skype, and very few had heard of the world class people we have in for the 10 minute lectures, and we have successfully embraced a number of others late drop ins from around the world who have participated with us along the way. So the learning curve must indeed be steep for many of the participants. There are totally new technologies, new and immature methods, far from mainstream ideals, and very open and transparent communication channels – all 100% online. But dissatisfaction is very present 😦
I find David Wiley’s course an inspiration and a model for those like me who are suspended in the twilight zone of how to teach and facilitate all at the same time. His course is targeted at people who are already experienced with online communication, and David’s reputation attracts a wide variety of people from around the world. His participants are highly self motivated and network learners before they engage in his topics. The course is initially presented instructionally with clearly articulated schedule and expectations in a wiki format. Each topic in the schedule asks the participants to read, reflect and then write to their blog. David then demonstrates facilitation practices once the participants are under way with this. He summarises their work, comments and links people’s posts to each other. It helps that he has some farely well known edu bloggers participating in his course and so the topics and discussions go further and wider than the course participants themselves. I don’t have intimate knowledge of David’s course however, and he may be grappling with his own demons, but it is useful at least for me to see his approach to structure and conduct.
I think, if I am asked to “facilitate” another instance of Facilitating Online Learning Communities, I will follow David’s model initially, and either strongly suggest prerequisite experience, or a pre course for instruction on how to use various forms of core technology, but this doesn’t solve the problem of needing self motivated learners to participate in a facilitated learning environment. It is generally assumed that this ethic emerges after a participant practices blogging and experiences networked connections. This is true for approximately 10 – 20% of the participants I have had contact with, so what of the 80 – 90%? Perhaps this number will decrease as more and more people experience this type of expectation and meet others who have experienced it before.. a bit like the take up of email… or perhaps social networking sites like Facebook or Ecto will replace the idea of blogging and bring us back to group work, which seems to be what we are all schooled to being more comfortable with.. sadly
Plane home to Dunedin is about to board, so I’ll end this here. Just some notes to continue with later.
Learn Online 
56 comments
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October 12, 2007 at 1:42 pm
Graeme
An excellent post Leigh and probably a followup to what you and I were talking about yesterday. I agree with you that we as course participants have struggled with the distinction between facilitator and teacher but I think it is a debate worthy of closer examination. I liken it to clinical supervision which a health professional might engage in, typically with a psychotherapist. The therapist may want to intervene with some theoretical interpretation for a work practice but is restrained from doing so because the supervision process is supposed to encourage the supervisee find an explanation for their own behaviour. There are times, however, when the intervention of someone with a better insight to make an intelligent observation and thus provide guidance.
I think that is how I expect facilitation to happen. I know that you have expertise and sometimes I like to figure something out myself but at other times I need a teacherly hand to provide guidance.
October 12, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Russel Montgomery
Thanks Leigh
You have articulated something that I was struggling with but had not yet put into words myself. I must give this more careful thought.
October 12, 2007 at 2:59 pm
James Neill
Leigh, Can I suggest some summer reading for you “Experience & Education” by John Dewey…addresses this issue with remarkable erudity and timelessness. It’s actually a pretty short, dense book. Summary here:
http://wilderdom.com/experiential/SummaryJohnDeweyExperienceEducation.html
October 12, 2007 at 3:09 pm
Sue Waters
Well as an outsider looking in, and I believe your course is 100 % online facilitation, I am in awe of it — and totally impressed with gains by your community. All my sessions on using these tools are face-to-face, still have the same issues – people feel overwhelmed by learning to use online tools and feeling unable to cope. Strategies that work with one individual will not work with another — each needs different support.
As facilitators we need our participants to stop, reflect and tell us — so I encourage all your online participants to write a post on — What have been the highlights? What aspect(s) caused you the most anxiety? Was there any aspect(s) that surprised you? With the knowledge you now have gained — what would you do differently?
I can honestly say that with all the f2f sessions that I have run — my participants have not gained as much as I am seeing from your participants in this totally online course. Why? Because you are encouraging and stretching their learning! Yes it is uncomfortable — but you have some great learning going on that maybe they do not realise because to learn how use these tools takes time.
Sue
October 12, 2007 at 3:23 pm
dwenmoth
Another great post, Leigh – thanks for sharing in such a personal way the dilemmas you are confronting. For what it’s worth, I have wrestled with this for years also (as have many other educators I know). For me the tension is exacerbated when I traverse the boundaries of pre-school, school and post-compulsory education – where the purposes, paradigms and power dimensions are arguably different. This is reflected in many parenting manuals, where acknowledgement is given to the developmental differences for different age groups, no simply physiological, but emotional and social etc as well. (ie. the times where it is better to give a two year old a direct instruction for the sake of his/her safety, or in dealing with a teenager who, for the moment anyway, simply doesn’t want his/her parent to be a ‘best friend’.)
That said, I’ve come to the point of vascilating between the two roles with some degree of comfort. I think there are times when it is quite appropriate to adopt the role of a teacher (designing, planning, preparing, encouraging, structuring, assessing, providing feedback etc) in the more conventional sense of the word. As a learner I still find times when I prefer to attend a presentation (conference keynote, public lecture etc) as the most effective way of being confronted with new information or a challenge etc. I also occasionally enjoy participating in structured workshops and/or discussion groups where the purpose is clear and an agreed outcome is central to what we are working towards.
On the other hand, I also revel in the more ‘open’ forms of inquiry and participatory learning – whether with my colleagues at CORE or with my ten year old son as we are exploring a game together, or attempting to build something new with his technic lego. In these situations I consider myself a learner – albeit often, a learner with a little more experience of being a learner than the others in the group – but a learner all the same.
Which brings me to an issue I have with the notion of facilitator. I’ve long struggled with this word as an alternative to the notion of a teacher, (a)because to me, good teaching involves the art of facilitation anyway, and (b)there’s a power emphasis in the way this word is used, which assumes that the ‘end is known’ and it’s my role to facilitate your pathway to getting there. Now I know there’ll be many who take issue with this – but think about the most recent contexts where you’ve seen someone introduced as the facilitator of a group (or even appointed as the facilitator from within the group) – they automatically take on the role of an expert, or manager, or organiser, or teacher or all of the above.
For me I’ve been exploring more the idea of being the “experienced learner” – ie, I am completely and utterly engaged in learning alongside and with the rest of those with whom I am working, genuinely seeking to develop new understandings and new knowledge. BUT – there will be times where it is appropriate, even helpful, for me to share the benefit of my experiences as a learner in other contexts in order to add value to what is being done. This may be done by contributing ideas and suggestions, by providing advice and guidance, or by asking timely questions etc.
The difference between facilitator and experienced learner may, for some anyhow, appear too subtle, but for me they are very profound.
A final comment – I think that much of the discussion leading to the idea of a teacher—facilitator continuum stems from perceptions of teaching activity that, for many people (in the areas I deal in at least) are no longer really the case (ie teaching activity that is already quite facilitative and less didactic). Perhaps we need to ensure that our shared understanding of these terms is well established to begin with??
October 12, 2007 at 3:30 pm
leighblackall
Many thanks for the comments so far! James, the link to Dewey is great, a theory of experience is indeed what we need. Is it Connectivism? Not likely, but the ability to curate information based on past experiences, as Dewey (or the simmary there of) is something that is increasingly automated – aka Google Ads, social tagging, Amazon recomendations. Some great things can come of this technology, and bad things 😦
Sue, thanks for teh reassurance. It is nice to hear this from you who has been a close observer from the get go. Thanks.
Graeme, I’m not experienced with psychotherapy (lord knows I have needed it) but it is an interesting comparison. And like the technological good and bads, I guess it can be equally productive or destructive. That BBC documentary looking at the American PR machine driven by Freud’s nephew.. Century of the Self
October 12, 2007 at 3:37 pm
leighblackall
Hi Derek, thanks for taking the time to articulate these thoughts. I totally agree that we are suffering from a disjointed understanding of the terms and therefore the roles and responsibilities. Too often I hear the role of facilitator being passed around, but only ever witnessing a very teacherly behaviour. We in tertiary education are very guilty of confusing these roles. It would be good if we could reinforce their true meaning and worth – as you do. We may find that an expert learner as you put it, can happily and effectively exist in the role of facilitator, once we have re found the true meaning of the word.
October 12, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Konrad Glogowski
Leigh,
I truly enjoyed reading this post. As you know, I have been interested in the idea of losing the teacherly voice for some time now and there are very strong echoes of that in your entry. As I read it, I found myself re-living similar experiences from the past two years: uncertainty about my role in the classroom, thoughts about returning to direct instruction and moving away from facilitation, fears that my belief in networks and communities of learners would give way to a traditional transmission-based model of instruction. There were times when I was ready to give up, re-arrange the desks into neat rows, and revert to lectures and assignments.
That’s when I realized that losing the teacherly voice has nothing to do with losing the voice of an expert. You see, I’d thought that, in order to be a co-participant and a co-learner, I had to learn along with my students. Nonsense. I discovered that they need a figure of authority, someone who knows the topic well, who is an expert and can offer advice, support, and assist them as they engage with the material. The facilitator still needs to be the content expert. That is why people come to us – because they want to learn from us, not with us.
And so, the challenge is that when I try to divest myself of my teacherly voice I need to remember that this process is not about losing the voice of the expert but about losing the voice of the authoritarian.
I admit, this may have very little relevance in your class, with a group whose expectations, career goals, and age are so vastly different from my group of 14-year-olds. I do believe, however, that what everyone looks for in a teacher or an instructor, regardless of the type of educational setting, is that they be an expert and project that air of confidence and expertise. They do want to learn from us.
And that’s why this whole process of building communities of learners and losing the teacherly voice is so hard. It is hard because we tend to think that what we need to create is the impression that we’re all in this together, that no one really is an expert in the classroom. The students won’t respond well to that. They pay their fees because they want access to experts, because they want to be taught, not because they can’t wait to be part of a virtual community of inquiry.
So, what do we do? I believe that it is important to lose the authoritarian voice, the controlling voice, but not the voice of an expert who chose to teach because of his passion for the subject. The students need to see that the instructor is someone who lives and breathes whatever it is that they’re studying, that they have in their midst someone who has a wealth of expertise. They are in that classroom because they want a piece of it.
So, I now spend most of my time commenting on blogs in the class blogosphere, posting entries in which I comment on student work, and moving around the class as an expert. I make suggestions, I support learning, I use my experience and expertise to help my students become better writers. At the same time, I use my blog to post entries that show very clearly that I am also a learner. I write about my interest in human rights issues, for example, and the AIDS epidemic in Africa, but not about the curriculum we’re studying. This ensures that the students see me as a learner, that we are a community of learners but, at the same time, they know that I write about these things because I really have no reason to write about our curriculum. So, when it is time to be an expert, I am not afraid to say, “this is very weak … here’s why … you will need to re-write that paragraph.” I do assert my expert voice because that is why I am there.
I don’t know if what I wrote here helps you in any way. I left this comment because there are moments almost every day in my classroom that make me think of pretty much everything you mentioned here. It is not an easy process, it is filled with self-doubt – but it ultimately makes our classrooms better.
October 12, 2007 at 3:56 pm
lucychili
Hi Leigh
What would happen if each student started by writing a goal about the kind of interest they have and therefore the kind of communities they would like to explore.
This gives each student a purpose.
Then it is easier for the teacher or facilitator to look at actions and ideas in relation to their fit for the stated purpose of each student.
Collaboration is possible for students to compare how they might choose different tools to mesh with different kinds of people because there will be specific habitats for different kinds of online community.
The content purposes skills and tools of each community will enable different kinds of collaboration or structure
Students could then think of a topic which they know nothing about but which might use the same kind of tool and culture approach as their own topic, or could pick a second topic which uses a completely different approach and look at what kinds of collaboration happen there.
A lot of online open source collaboration is about developing skills in communication around a specific purpose. Learning how to contribute the bits of ones self which build for that purpose and to leave out the bits of ones self which are noise rather than signal in that context are the core differences re participating in these kinds of communities.
The facilitator is the purpose. The specific and clear question.
The teacher is the outcome of the experiments of the participants to make conversations or stuff which meets the purpose.
People learn what helps glue things together and when they need to fork or define distinct questions and reogranise around those.
Cheers
Janet
October 12, 2007 at 6:35 pm
Leigh
Thanks Konrad, of course you must know that it was YOU that sent me on this quest 🙂 I almost take it for granted that you and all must know that by now… but I should always reference your work for the record. Thanks for the encouragement and good advice.
Janet, thanks also for dropping in. The first thing I thought from your advice was how students might react or engage in a quest to articulate their goals. In a round about way we do ask people to start off with explaining their goals, but often it is attempted in a very short hand, under motivated manor. This may be a symptom of many people coming to us by way of professional development programs – which pretty much translate into compulsory ed or “spend the PD budget before the end of the year” type scenarios, and so we are perhaps not meeting the most motivated or engaged people in our subject area. But this is a problem for most courses.. maybe not David’s course, but most courses non-the-less. So perhaps it is better to simply accept the short hand and half hearted attempts at assignments like this, and build from there…
October 12, 2007 at 7:01 pm
educationwithbyte.net » To facilitate or to teach from Leigh Blackall
[…] “The biggest challenge I am finding is the expectation for a teacher or instructor while everyone talks about a facilitator. I don’t think someone can be both, primarily because a teacher inherits a significant amount of power and traditional roles that counter act the more neutral and passive presence of a facilitator. This post will be a series of thoughts about this tension, and some ideas on how I can better manage my attempts at online learning community facilitation.” LINK […]
October 12, 2007 at 9:03 pm
midwikied
As a participant on the periphery of this course I have to say my learning has been huge, if somewhat undirected. I wanted to learn about resources for online delivery of course material and I have certainly done that, although the more I learn the more I am aware that there is so much more to learn. I am doing this through my own motivation, for my own interest, I am not enrolled yet as I do not know if my employer will fund my participation in this course. As I am not fully enrolled I have not been privy to some of the course content available on blackboard and have wondered if some of my lack of direction has been because of this. I have enjoyed the opportunity to freely explore various online resources although I am not sure how any of them might ultimately be applied in my own field of adult education. None the less my growing familiarity with these resources will not be wasted, I am sure I will use some in my teaching in the near future and have already placed information in my blog for students, who have told me they have viewed this. Would I have learned as much had I been more directed? For myself I doubt it as I do learn best through doing, others may feel differently. My interest in free open access material has grown and I can see great potential to make this happen.
The desire to be taught is not just associated with online delivery. My own experience with adult female students is that many despair about the cost of the course and the requirement that they need to be self motivated in learning as opposed to passivley soaking up information. I agree with Konrad that students expect a level of expertise from course instructors/facilitators however I think we all still have a lot to learn about being learners and optimising learning as opposed to being teachers and optimising teaching. In whatever field we are working we can never say we now have all the knowledge and information there will ever be on the topic, we all have to continue to learn and grow.
I want to thank both you Leigh and Bronwyn for opening my eyes a little to some of the resources out there and how to use them. For me it is not important that I complete the formal requirements of the course, although I will do this if the funding is forthcoming. The important thing for me has been the enormous expansion in my knowledge of online resources and gaining confidence in exploring and using these. Armed with this small amount of knowledge I am better equipped for my role as a facilitator and educator particularly as we move more towards a flexible blended delivery model.
Thanks again,
Carolyn
October 13, 2007 at 7:12 am
Sarah Stewart
Thank you, Leigh, very much for this post and everyone’s replies-it has been a great thread to read, and I am sure an issue that faces many teachers. I haven’t really got anything else much to add because much has been said. When you are ‘teaching’ in a formal program, that has a qualification at the end, especially a professional qualification such as midwifery which is the profession I teach in, one can never get away from the ‘teaching’ aspect of the course. As I have pondered in my blog that Leigh has linked to, I cannot get away from the issues of ensuring my students are safe to practice and not a threat to ‘life and limb’. So I ‘teach’ how to deliver a baby. What I facilitate is further reflection, discussion, gathering of evidence, critiquing evidence and so on. So I see my role as a mixture of both roles, and soemtimes I find they cannot be separated.
As a student on the periphery of this course (like Carolyn, I have not actually enrolled as yet) I have really enjoyed the course and learnt heaps. However, I had a small advantage in that I was a little more ‘technology’ savy’ than some of the other students. I have been thinking that maybe there should be two course: one that ‘teaches’ the use of the technology, which would be quite structured and strongly led. The second course would then be more about how these tools are used and the development of community. I would see this as being more of a ‘facilitated’ course. I wonder if the problem has been that people are so caught up with the practical elements of getting their heads around what a blog or wiki is, etc, that they haven’t been able to engage beyond that. Just a thought-might be completely wrong. For what its worth, I second Carolyn’s comments – we’re having a ball!
October 13, 2007 at 10:13 pm
roseg
This post reminds me of arguments about the “F” word (“I’m not a feminist, but…”). Maybe we should ban the nouns for a while and use the verbs instead? I’m also not so sure about losing the teacherly voice. What exactly does that mean? Less talking? Not telling? Or pretending not to know? On the other hand some of the most inflexible lecturn thumping pedagogues I’ve known would be the first to call themselves skilled facilitators.
Facilitation is presumably about process rather than content (or at least that’s my rough dividing line between the two terms) and I reckon a poor facilitator is one who expects that it happens by magic or somehow will not involve at least some level of (well intentioned) control or direction. When you say “I have this idealist expectation to build and facilitate a learning community” you are talking about leading somewhere and something of your investment in it. If the learners truly want the same outcome – intrinsically because they genuinely see the potential value to themselves or extrinsically because the organisation will reward them in some way – you might get a different result and even then, as you say, many prefer to be taught or led. Otherwise they would just do it themselves and wouldn’t need a facilitator/teacher/specific person to play that role or perform that function. (And just as an aside, I think that alot of the PD activity is not being sold particularly well in the first place – so many teachers just see it as even more stuff they’ve got to somehow fit into an already packed work life so you’re sometimes behind even before you start.)
Dave Wiley’s course to me sounds like good teaching. Setting tasks, managing flow, providing feedback, modelling, linking, scaffolding etc. Why do we have to call it facilitation in order for it to have kudos?
October 14, 2007 at 1:22 pm
leighblackall
Hi Sarah and Carolyn, thanks for the encouraging feedback. It is interesting isn’t it, that the people NOT formally enrolled in the course seem to be getting AND giving the most in the course. I guess people like yourself carry one of the prerequisites – that of being intrinsically and self motivated enough to what to join a course but informally.
I’m reading Dewey at the moment. It is a good recommendation by James. I am wading through an interesting essay that looks at social control and individual freedom. Its main point is that total freedom is impossible and undesirable and that some form of social control will always need to be present. He sites school yard games and their agreed on rules as an example, and extrapolates from that to other areas. The challenge he poses is how a teacher will design activities that a group will engage in and agree on the implicit social controls, rather than a teacher exerting and expecting a position of control.
While reading this and everything else in this experience, Downes’ Groups and Networks debate is even more significant to me. Perhaps I am in a head space where I desire more individual freedom – or a more sophisticated social control based more in individualism than in social groups. That is why a networked learning model attracts me so much. It does contain such a model. But it is the pathway from socially constructed networked emergent that is the difficulty.
October 14, 2007 at 1:28 pm
leighblackall
Hi Rose, calling something facilitation for kudos is exactly the problem with many institutions requesting facilitation of courses, and teachers calling themselves facilitators. That is what I meant by knowing that the word was being used loosely by many people and institutions. I believe that I am using the word more precisely, and so am identifying a problem largely to do with inconsistency in our shared understanding of the word and so practice. I don’t look down on teaching as much as I look forward to facilitated learning environments where teaching and instruction is needed less. Unfortunately it seems that too few go as far as that and only ever experience learning through being taught/schooled
October 15, 2007 at 8:06 am
Mark Nichols
Nice one Leigh. You’ve hit upon the great and complex gap between teacher intention and student expectation! I’ve found the comments relating to definition very pertinent in this post and its subsequent comments. I think we need to have a broader appreciation of what it means to be a ‘teacher’ that recognises far more than its didactic spin. Too often the term ‘teacher’ is used as a straw person to represent all that is bad with didactic instruction. However to be a good teacher is to be a flexible and committed agent dedicated to student learning, and multiple strategies will be applied. Sometimes you just have to tell. Other times, suggest and explore. Still other times, encourage and release.
I recall in the 1990s a lot of aversion to the term ‘pedagogy’ because Malcolm Knowles’ concept of ‘andragogy’ was becoming popular… actually, the former term tends to encapsulate the latter. Semantics? Yes, but very important semantics. Let’s be honest – what we frequently discuss in e-learning circles is set in the middle of a semantic minefield. Do we mean the same thing when we talk about ‘teachers’, ‘facilitation’, heck, even ‘e-learning’? Confusion about these terms tends to lead to unwarranted criticism and simplistic solutions.
Glad you’re enjoying Dewey, even gladder that you’re wrestling with an issue that helps demonstrate the inadequacy of various criticisms relating to teaching and learning online!
October 17, 2007 at 9:45 pm
newzealandcoach
As a primary school teacher/professional coach I found your post really interesting. I gained my degree via distance learning and the issues you raise are familiar to me. Both as a teacher/facilitator and as a student!
Thanks for a great post.
October 18, 2007 at 11:38 pm
Teaching Generation Z » Blog Archive » The Teacherly Voice
[…] Blackall’s excellent post To facilitate or to teach is a great platform to tie together several ideas that I’ve been pondering. I really admire […]
October 18, 2007 at 11:43 pm
Graham Wegner
Ah, my trackback beat me here. Your post and subsequent comments have had me brooding over my own interpretation for a week but I finally finished it and hope it adds to the conversation.
October 22, 2007 at 8:03 pm
Randy Fisher
I’m following this thread with interest –
First, I have a question, and then some comments.
Leigh – who was it that “asked you to facilitate this course” in the first place….Do you know why you were chosen, and what did this individual hope you could achieve, or not?
Comments:
* Facilitation is an art – you don’t get it right the first time, but it’s a craft, something one masters over time. It’s particularly different in the online environment, and it requires some structuring ahead of time, and dexterity with the available options of chat, communications and technology.
* Expectations – it sounds like there are some very high expectations here…and they’re all over the map…It’s as though institutions are struggling with this, so they find the top-notch learning designer-type, and lop it in his lap (hey, you go figure this out)…. it seems to me, there has to be some clear expectations, and measures of success, so you’re not wondering if you’re successful, by other people’s standards…
* Community – I’m hearing that some people have been engaged, and others fallen off…and there’s disappointment with the relative lack of uptake… I understand this…but at the same time, this is predictable…What the technologies offer, is tremendous scalability – the few can do the job of the many…but what if the many adopted what the few are doing….isn’t that the grand dream of the future…? In my experience as a facilitator, I’ve learned that there are important behind-the-scenes work that has little to do with the technology, but a lot more to do with encouraging and supporting others….And you know me…I’m a big fan of communications…
* Work to be done – let yourself off the hook…even if someone’s put you on it. The challenge these days, is to not be so hard on yourself…you’re a pioneer, and you’ve got a strong group of interested and motivated (community) support. That’s a considerable strength, and WikED (WE)will look for opportunities to build on it, and leverage it!
– Randy
October 23, 2007 at 8:54 am
Sarah Stewart
I agree totally with Randy. I think you’ll look back at this course and eventually see that you have achieved a great deal. I still think, however, that what you want to achieve is too much for this small course. I like the idea of smaller bits that we talked about yesterday, and then maybe a bigger course like this to tie it all together theoretically, or as David suggested, have pre-requisites.
October 23, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Leigh
Hi Randy, Sarah – thanks for popping back.
Who asked this of me? Well, one institution asked my institution, the boss asked my colleague and my colleague asked me. Such is life in an institutionalised world. We (the two who agreed to run the course) read the objectives, looked at the course that was inside a closed Learning Management System and siad, “we can do better than that”. SO I really have no one else to blaim but myself. I could have stayed to the path that was offered. I could have worked to that map. But its me we’re talking about here 🙂
I agree that (in the absence of prerequisits) I am trying to cover too much. But I also wonder if this course runs again whether it will be about right for a group and course structure who is better prepared. Together, the current participants and I could design up a clear schedule to go through. The 10 minute lectures are recorded now and so become readings to get through and comment on. And teh next time round we can invite a few more lectures. So basically I agree that there needs to be prerequisit skills and experience, but think that I can do a better job designing the pathway through stimulous rather than reducing the experience. The target is 5 hours per week. I reckon a lot can be done with 5 hours a week, with a clear map and objectives. Technical skills learning asside, isn’t this possible?
1 hour lecture and discussion
1 hour further research
1 hour writing to blog
2 hour responding and discussion
November 2, 2007 at 8:46 am
Mark Greenfield
Hi Leigh
It has taken a while to come to the point where I feel I am in a position to comment. I agree that the ‘apparent’ lack of direction has at times made this course frustrating – but the frustration stems not from whether you are a teacher who will tell me the answers or facilitator who will show me how to get the answers. The frustration stems from me having to shift out of the comfort zone I currently have settled in an recognising that there is a great big world of learning out there and the chances of me mastering it all is remote.
I feel that my expectation of facilitating an online community and the realities of what the statement means are significantly different. I have only seen e-learning as a virtual classroom where f2f is replaced by f2txt or txt2txt.
I don’t think you should look back on this course negatively – it has given us as students excellent opportunities to develop and progress our knowledge and understanding of online communities in a myriad of ways to cater for all learners – sounds like a teacher/facilitator to me…
November 2, 2007 at 9:03 am
Leigh
Hey, thanks Mark. Actually, since writing this and receiving all these comments my negativity has been tempered. I can see that a few people are thinking about learning here and not just teaching and education. I’m still banging on about facilitation and not teaching.. and am surprised that so many people see them as similar when I see them as entirely different activities. If I stop and picture the facilitators I have met.. at conferences, on radio talk shows, in local council consultation sessions with community.. etc etc. So in classroom type situations, I see that such a person could play a significant role in helping people learn how to learn instead of what to learn. Sure, [some] teachers attempt this everyday. But picture the times when a guest speaker comes into the school. The behaviors are very different hey. I know they are here even – in this polytechnic. When we get an outsider in to talk, people stop and listen. While there are many people in the organisation who can talk about such topics, it seems that we would prefer to hear it from outsiders, and I think this has a lot to do with subtle elements of power. We would rather attribute respect and “power” to an outsider who will not be with us everyday, then with our colleagues we live with everyday. Perhaps its the famous tall poppy syndrome at play. What ever it is, its observable, and so I think we should redesign our system more around professional facilitators who will counsel and support people’s learning, and by being very well networked will call on teacher experts when needed…
November 4, 2007 at 2:20 pm
clare atkins
Wow Leigh – what a great thought-provoking post. Although I often have opinions or personal internal debates about blog posts, I don’t usually find myself unable to walk away! By about paragraph two I had reached for a pad and pencil to scribble my thoughts so that I could construct a reply!!!
I think the questions you ask are fundamental ones and like some of your other commentators I have grappled with them for a long time. The definitions of these terms and their consistent use is so important to arriving at a consistent expectation of everyone participating in a ‘learning experience’. However, although I don’t wish to muddy the waters even further, I think that the debate is not just about ‘teacher’ v ‘facilitator’ – I think the the notion of an educator is currently missing from this discussion.
I agree with some of the previous posters here that a ‘teacher’ role carries with it many of the expectations of the traditional formal role. A teacher would seem to have these characteristics:
– a subject matter expert, i.e. an authority
– able to distill the essence of their expert knowledge such that it can be accessible to those without that knowledge
– able to call on a number of techniques to (mostly) successfully share that essential knowledge with others.
One result of this is an expectation (by both potential learners and by the teacher themselves) that the ‘teacher/expert’ knows the answer(s) to any questions asked or activities set in the context of that knowledge. Consequently, a significant amount of energy is often expended by the student in trying not to arrive at their own solution to a problem or question, but to second guess what the teacher believes is the correct answer (Postman & Weingarten – Teaching as a Subversive Activity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquiry_education.) In a situation where people are expecting to be told correct answers or pointed at correct solutions, being told – however politely – to go out and find their own, is bound to create dissatisfaction for both parties! This form of teaching of course is reasonably cost-effective for those who hold the purse-strings, e.g. if I can deliver a 2 hour lecture to impart this expert knowledge to
250 students in a lecture theatre (real or virtual!) that is cost-effective use of my time (although maybe not of the students!).
A facilitator, on the other hand, is in my opinion, someone who’s subject expertise is in guiding people through the learning processes of exploration and discovery. A facilitator is skilled in helping learners articulate questions they didn’t even know they wanted to ask, validating those questions, and walking beside them as they experiment with creating various responses. I don’t believe it is strictly necessary for a facilitator to be a subject matter expert (but see below). On one of the courses that I am responsible for, my first activity with a class of F2F students is to give them 20 mins to create 30 questions inspired by the four words I write on the whiteboard. The words I write are the name of the course and the questions are ALWAYS interesting! They usually begin with 10 or so quite sensible ones but as the time deadline gets closer and so-called sensible questions get harder to find, creativity kicks in, inhibitions come down a bit and really useful questions appear. The validation of those apparently ‘silly’ questions is a first major step in altering their expectations away from me as a teacher to me as a facilitator. Of course, again for the bean counters, this is not nearly as cost-effective as the previous approach. It requires the facilitator to establish a relationship with each learner, to spend time with them individually – a cohort of 250 learners is no longer a possiblity, even 25 is pushing the limits.
So I agree that a teacher and a facilitator are very different roles. They have different characteristics, skills, behaviour and expectations – and you ask the very pertinent question as to whether one person can do both. I think my answer to that is that an educator is exactly that – someone who is able to move fluidly and appropriately between the different roles, someone who is able to recognise and act on the need to reassuringly provide ‘right’ answers when the situation requires it but who is also to step way back and encourage and facilitate individual experiential learning. An educator has to be both a subject matter expert and a skilled facilitator. My time in education has led me to believe that there is very definitely a need for both approaches – knowing when to adopt which, is one of the primary skills (or should I now say competencies!) of an educator.
One other interesting aspect to this debate for me is that in a formal environment where students are enrolling, or are required to take, a course – we have a requirement to assess their progress/achievement/knowledge acquisition. How we do that assessment is often at odds with our preferred or nominal approach. Assessing the success of facilitation for each learner is far more time consuming in general than asking all students to complete a pre-defined, easy- to- mark exam or test with pre-defined correct answers. How often do we truly reward critical self-evaluation.? How often do we create a marking scheme where the reward for completing a task successfully, is less than the reward for intelligent comment on what was learnt as the task was completed? But devising these forms of assessment and certainly marking them is again time-consuming and thus expensive. However, these are real challenges that we have to face if we are to move away from the traditional role of the teacher.
I could go on here – Leigh you have sparked some real thought for me! – but it is Sunday afternoon and the sun is shining. I would welcome feedback on these thoughts which I have never really articulated before. One thing I would say though is that education and educators are expensive – I attempt to be neither a teacher nor a facilitator but an educator but it is not often that I have the resources, particularly time, to meet that aspiration – but it doesn’t stop me trying!!!
And finally one last comment. Wikipedia begins its page on Teaching with this line, “In education, teachers facilitate student learning…” Now there is a sentence that needs some editing!!!
November 4, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Leigh
Many thanks for this Clare, I want to keep this discussion alive as I’m far from satisfied that we have even begun to ask the right questions. I’m really pleased you reference Postman and Weingarten, their book really inspired me when I was in teacher training. Needless to say, I could not use any of it in the practice of teaching.. and that then lead me to Illich.
I’m not convinced that one person can or should do both these roles – even as an educator. I think you are right, that there are some people who possess an impressive ability to do both roles, but I think most would agree that such a person is rare and that the majority of educational practitioners default to a very teacherly role play with facilitation a poorly understood and very under utilised cousin. This would be one reason that (in institutionalised education at least) we would do well to separate the role, and develop facilitators in their own right. Through the professional focus of facilitation that is freed from the pressures of subject expertise I think we will see better learning – or better learning of how to learn. Also, educational institutions will gain a lot more flexibility in what they do when they realise a workforce of professional learning facilitators. These facilitators will call on the researchers, specialists and experts when required, and from a network rather, or as well as an embedded staff. And I guess this is where my thinking gets a bit unsettling. It both dethrones the subject expert somewhat (at least from their central role enjoyed when they were teacher AND ‘facilitator’) and leaves us with the challenge of trying to find or develop facilitators who will not fall into the trap of teaching… see deschooling..
As far as formal educational requirements like assessment and economies of scale.. I think they can remain actually. I don’t think much has to change at all, once the role of the facilitator and the teacher are separated. There will be less lectures, and the ones that remain will likely be large scale and excellent in terms of content. Exams will also remain as will all the other more formative assessments. Its just that the facilitator will be the one that focuses on the room bookings through to the effective communication channels to use. They will book the experts for lectures and the like, and make sure the students are there and prepared.
Through the facilitator, the students and the teacher’s time can be better spent.
November 4, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Leigh
as for the wikipedia entry. I started, but then saw a mamoth task (and fight). So I think I’ll focus on the article for facilitator.
November 4, 2007 at 5:23 pm
Linda Robertson
This is an exciting discussion. I must say that I agree with the idea that there is a continuum in teaching between being the expert and being the facilitator. Earlier on Graeme referred to this dual role in the psychotherapist; I also identify with this in the occupational therapist. Sometimes you are there to provide ideas and information, other time the key role is to assist the person to ‘work it out’, develop their solutions and their future plans and move on without you. One person can be both expert and facilitator. The skill is in knowing when to shift between these roles.
As one of the paid up members of the group (!) I must say that I have learnt a great deal on this course. What have I learnt is the key question. I would say that much of it is about technology and its potential as well as its problems. I would have to say that I was surprised that it has had such a big focus on a range of technology. My hope was to see how I could develop a community of learners without much technology – my students are very like me ie. do not have much tolerance for technology yet a will to learn (I teach post grad distance based courses using BlackBoard). One of my frustrations with this is that it is difficult to get a sense of community / social responsibility. My students never meet f2f – however one of the main messages of speakers and readings on this course is that the f2f component is essential to developing social networks. This is not entirely helpful and I still have not worked out better ways of doing this – I continue to look for inspiration.
I can see that a Blog that raises burning issues that you can’t resist commenting on are a good way … such as this one! It naturally brings comments and extends peoples thinking. This is so much better than the rather negative comments that have resulted in a lot of discussion on the course emails. More of thoughtful blogging is great.
However, I need to put my energies into doing an assignment so will sign off for now but keep an eye on this very interesting discussion
November 6, 2007 at 10:08 am
Transforming teaching and learning through innovative technology » Blog Archive » Teacher or Facilitator: Can You be Both Online?
[…] the thought-provoking blog entry by Leigh Blackall from New Zealand that started me thinking about this. Turns out this topic is on […]
November 16, 2007 at 8:20 am
Denise Lance
I enjoyed reading this post and the comments of others. I teach a special education course for general education teachers. While I would rather facilitate than teach and believe in student-centered learn, I also find that my students prefer more structure (at times, even spoon-feeding). I would like to use blogs and social networking tools, but many of my students barely handle posting to threaded discussion.
Technical savvy and age are two variables–The younger students seem more comfortable with technology, because they have grown up with it.
Furthermore, the class is only six weeks, so most just want to learn what they need to know and then leave. They don’t want to discover or reflect. Many just want to make the required posts and don’t want to build community with classmates.
These make moving from teacher to facilitator more difficult on my end, but I think a bit of both may be necessary, at least with students in my population. I don’t think doing both makes me a bad teacher.
Thanks for a thought-provoking post.
Denise
Online Instructor’s Lounge
http://www.teachandlearnonline.com
November 16, 2007 at 8:49 am
Do teach or facilitate? - Online Instructors’ Lounge (OIL)
[…] Blackall shares his thoughts on teaching vs. facilitating on his Learn Online […]
November 16, 2007 at 5:45 pm
blog of proximal development » Blog Archive » Conversation with Pre-Service Teachers - Teacher as Learner
[…] many of my thoughts on this topic when he expressed this dilemma and the resulting frustrations in one of his recent posts. His ideas prompted me to comment on the process of losing the teacherly voice. I’d like to […]
November 18, 2007 at 10:20 pm
Skills required for maintaining a successful online learning community. « An exploration of massage therapy training options
[…] Blackall, L. (2007). To facilitate or teach. Retrieved on 18 November, 2007 from https://learnonline.wordpress.com/2007/10/12/to-facilitate-or-to-teach/ […]
November 24, 2007 at 5:01 pm
Linda Robertson
In reponse to Denise; I agree totally about the time frame – although it may depend on how often you meet up. I did wonder about the students lack of interest in engaging in the course. If they are already involved in working with students in ‘special education’ then they should have a wealth of information to draw from. In my experience reflection on actual practice is highly motivating – I teach occupational therapy students who are only to happy to revisit their experiences and rethink them in different ways.
June 17, 2008 at 9:59 am
Facilitatior or Teacher?? (Part One): light in the shadows
[…] won’t ever be. From Leigh: As I teach and facilitate various online courses this year, a lot of the theories and concepts I […]
July 2, 2008 at 2:19 pm
alexanderhayes
It’s interesting.
Today I went to Google and looked for ‘facilitating online’ and came immediately up with this article.
Logged into Google I also noticed that in the sidebar my Google ads. were advertising ‘Crispy Creme’ and low and behold I raised my travel weary head from the keyboard and not ten yards away there was a Crispy Creme shop.
Grabbing my doughnut and coffee I settled into reading your great article and decided amongst my caffeine and sugar rush that this will be the basis or debate point for my next totally online facilitating online session with TAFE NSW SIT campus.
Look for feedback on your article somewhere here after this Friday – http://facilitatingonline.sydneyinstitute.wikispaces.net/4+July+2008
July 2, 2008 at 6:13 pm
leighblackall
Hi ALex,
Looks good! ANd great to hear my post turns up in Google like that!
I have continued developing the course we run on a new wikipage: http://www.wikieducator.org/Facilitating_online_communities
The next course starts 28th July and is of course free to participate informally. Perhaps you could encourage people to join in. Did you want me to chime in on the Connect session to outline the Teach/Facilitate issue?
July 20, 2008 at 6:52 am
Networked Learner News » Blog Archive » Conversation with Pre-Service Teachers - Teacher as Learner
[…] many of my thoughts on this topic when he expressed this dilemma and the resulting frustrations in one of his recent posts. His ideas prompted me to comment on the process of losing the teacherly voice. I’d like to […]
July 22, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Conversation with Pre-Service Teachers - Teacher as Learner | Networked Learner News
[…] many of my thoughts on this topic when he expressed this dilemma and the resulting frustrations in one of his recent posts. His ideas prompted me to comment on the process of losing the teacherly voice. I’d like to […]
August 17, 2008 at 10:18 pm
moving on… «
[…] and then to describe the skills requirements of each, I browsed through Extra Resources and found Leigh’s To Facilitate or to Teach and was intrigued by the following: “Either I yield to the tradition of schooled learning and […]
August 20, 2008 at 7:51 am
gabriela sellart
Certainly teaching is safer and easier than facilitating. Most people expect to be taught, once this first approach is overcome, everybody enjoys managing their own learning process. The thing is whether participants can deal with this first frustration and go on until they see the difference.
I read the whole article thinking you were talking about this ’08 foc course. I wonder if you see any differences or if you would write the same now.
When my teachers were teachers I never had the chance of reading their thoughts…
August 20, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Nellie Deutsch
Thank you for sharing you experiences with teaching and facilitating. I totally agree with you that teaching and instructing is far easier than facilitating. However, I find it difficult to understand your point that facilitating is “a neutral and passive position”. Do you mean it in the context of not teaching or over powering students?
August 20, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Steve Mackenzie
Very interesting post. Confuscious he say take ‘the middle way’ – he did not actually(as you suspected 🙂 – That’s what i thought initially, but actually on reflection i am going to say take the ‘right way’.
Keeping with a Chinese wisdom theme – Bruce Lee would say fight with whichever style is most appropriate. – i think we’ll transfer that to teaching mentality.
My view is that probably too much is expected of learners that are new to a participatory approach to learning. They need time to get to a decent level of understanding of the subject matter and to a new way of learning.
Confuscious (er no me again) he say teach until the students see the light, the light of subject knowledge and the glorious light of participatory learning. Once said levels are attained then teacher can morph into the exalted higher plane of facilitator 🙂
August 27, 2008 at 5:11 am
The Shell | FOC08(2): Facilitating, moderating, or teaching
[…] To Facilitate or to Teach – CC By Leigh Blackall with discussion in the comments. […]
August 29, 2008 at 8:43 pm
Maria Pophristova
The post was quite interesting, although an overall feeling of disappointment is present.
I do agree with you that self motivation is the key to a facilitated learning environment. I’d go even further, and say that self motivation is required in each online course much more than in a f2f one.
While reading your post, a thought seemed to light up persistently. I think that participants’ failure to indulge into a facilitated network learning course as much as you were expecting them to is direct result of formal school that we are so used to. And even if one tries to break away with it, the blueprint is too rooted to forget it overnight.
Looking forward to reading your thoughts after this course 🙂
August 31, 2008 at 9:57 am
Shane Roberts
Leigh, interesting post and thoughts. I encourage you to read my blog which responds to your concerns about confidence in a facilitator role. Education today is moving quickly from a teacher dependent process, requiring facilitation skills to enhance learning.
I would also disagree with your statement – And so, through this set up process they are encouraged to expect the familiar presence of a teacher or trainer, a formal learning venue and everything else that is familiar to a person who has been successful in the schooling experience. Ultimately they are unprepared for the facilitated and individually responsible and self motivated learning environment I try to encourage.
In my experience through involvement within professional learning in my employing organisation, and networking with teachers globally, teachers who enrol in professional learning are more than capable and desire individual responsibility. Yes there is always an initial flurry of concern and potential negativity from the group as boundaries are established and objectives realised – this has occurred in every significant professional learning I have been involved in. But does this not also happen (to a lesser extent due to confidence and power relationships) in the school classrooms today, and management structures of corporations, and volunteer organisations etc etc.
I would be interested in your response to this and my blog post – http://shane-tech-teach.blogspot.com
Shane Roberts
September 3, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Daryl Cook » Facilitating, moderating, or teaching?
[…] me say up-front that I totally agree with a comment on Leigh’s blog that suggests the word ‘facilitator’ is being used loosely by many people and […]
January 6, 2009 at 2:04 pm
gene williams
Poor facilitator!
Perhaps a writing facilitator would help. If this guy talks the same way he writes, no wonder people have an hard time understanding what he’s trying to do.
January 6, 2009 at 2:09 pm
leigh
A writing facilitator for a blog.. hmm. Thanks for the suggestion
February 17, 2009 at 11:46 am
About to develop another model for open access education « Learn Online
[…] to currate the learning programme (similar to that of a film festival coordinator perhaps), and to facilitate people’s association and progress through that programme, in a fashion of free ranging like being the rain. (Those links help that […]
August 27, 2009 at 11:04 am
chriswoodhouse
Hi Leigh,
A really fascinating post. The frustrations of trying to move to a facilitation role in learning speak loud and clear. And I was impressed by owning up to “Mystakes”. There were a few thoughts / questions I wanted to share on reflection.
(1) You talk about students who themselves are in education. Have you seen a difference in dependence on formal structured led learning between students who themselves are education professionals, and other students?
(2) I felt the biggest issue outside issue (i.e. outside your own internal struggle with the transition from instruction to facilitation) was mismatched expectations. And indeed you addressed this a couple of times. If the marketing or administration of courses sets the scene such that students expect an instructor-led course, it’s always going to be hard. But then if you promote a course as being facilitated learning, then you may not get the sign-up you (or the educational establishment) would like.
(3) I’m a student on Facilitating Online Communities 2009, where you’re billed as the instructor and we have a separate facilitator, Sarah. How did your thinking progress from this post (and the responses) to the position I think we have in FOC09?
Looking forward to working with you now you’re back from the US.
Cheers,
Chris
August 27, 2009 at 11:25 am
FOC09 – Facilitating, Moderating or Teaching? « Chris Woodhouse's FOC 09 Blog
[…] also posted a comment on Leigh’s post highlighted in the […]
August 27, 2009 at 11:38 am
leighblackall
Hi Chris! Good questions. The first 2 I suspect you intuitively know how I will respond.
1. Yes, I do think those who work in formal education come to expect a certain format of ‘instruction’, ‘structure’, ‘scaffholding’ however we want to call it – even though they themselves may verbally subscribe to notions of “life long learning” or “socially constructed learning” without necessarily recognising how these formats impact on such notions. Certainly the effort to move to a facilitated course is based on these notions, but it would appear that there are many interpretations of what life long and socially constructed learning looks like.
2. Conflicting expectations and messages have certainly been a coordination problem. Over time it seems these problems are abating – mostly as the course coordination becomes more independent of other service areas. We are also trying to balance the educator perspective by calling on civic workers, journalists, marketeers and other professionals with an interest in online facilitation to participate in the course. We suspect that teachers would benefit from being exposed to the concerns of a more diverse group of professionals such as these.
3. Assigning Sarah as the course facilitator has 2 reasons. 1 is to build a team who can facilitate this course so it is not reliant on 1 or 2 people. We hope to become multi lingual through international facilitators as well. 2 is to separate the role of facilitator and assessor. I wasn’t aware that I was being billed as instructor, the intention is that I assess the work of formal participants, giving Sarah the space to focus on facilitation – without the participants seeing her as the “gate keeper” or power holder in the course. This relates to the issues spoken about in this post as well.
See you in the next meeting hey!
August 28, 2009 at 2:32 am
chriswoodhouse
Hi Leigh,
Mystake!
I was tired and sloppy last night. I was so much into the swing of Facilitator vs Teacher for the course assignment that I completely forgot you are an assessor and not an instructor. My excuse is I was posting at gone midnight when I was up before 6am to get a train to London to facilitate a half day workshop. When I got home I wrote up the workshop for my client, which took a couple of hours, then did my assignment and wrote the post to your blog (both offline, so I could be sure of the composition – irony there), then posted.
Hoping to attend Friday’s meeting – depends on stamina and how much beer I have at the pub quiz tonight. My brother and his wife are coming to stay for a week today.
Cheers,
Chris
February 19, 2010 at 5:40 am
Ann Frosch
Facilitation is both a science and an art. You are right that there is a big difference between teaching and facilitation. Both require a ton of training and experience in order to become excellent. I believe that you have to use the right tool for the right situation. There are times when teaching (with all the authoritative power associated with it in a classroom setting) is best. Other times, facilitation (which is more neutral) is the ticket. We have articles about this on our website http://www.teambuildingusa.com you can look at if you are interested in more on this subject.
Ann Frosch
Project Coordinator
http://www.teambuildingusa.com/teambuilding-articles.asp