Facilitation
Reviewed: January 2008
This page has been kept for reference.
It will no longer be updated by ICVET.
Facilitation is widely regarded as a process of guiding the group to use its knowledge, skills and potential to achieve its goals. It is particularly appropriate when groups have a need to focus on process issues such as how to work together effectively to achieve goals. These issues can include: sharing information, problem solving, decision making, dealing with conflict, group roles, etc.
Facilitation has become recognised as an important process in assisting a group to work together effectively to achieve shared outcomes. However its wide spread use across diverse contexts has seen the principles of facilitation fused with other delivery options such as teaching and training. There are similarities, but there are significant differences that need to be identified if facilitation is to be truly effective. The key difference between facilitation and teaching and training is the degree of autonomy within which the group operates. Teaching and training provides a level of direction that is not equalled with facilitation. It is within this scope that the richness of diversity has the potential to unearth innovative approaches to achieving outcomes.
However, to effectively facilitate groups requires an awareness of group dynamics and knowledge of self. Key skills of a facilitator are the ability to observe, to listen, to know when to make an intervention, how to question in a way that creates new knowledge, how to give feedback and how to capture the group’s learning.
Websites
What is facilitation?
Here is a quick one-page guide to the basics of facilitation. Well worth printing and keeping on hand.
Facilitation (face-to-face and online)
This web page provides a succinct overview and as many links as you care to follow. Settle in for a while to browse through.
Effective online facilitation
This is an Australian resource particularly aimed at those facilitating learning online for students in vocational courses.
Online Facilitation (elearnspace)
Here you’ll find a summary of content 'created' as a result of discussions using a non-traditional approach to learning. This article is best understood as a collage of thoughts, rather than a cohesive essay.
Publications
BROOKFIELD, S D 1986, Understanding and Facilitating Adult Learning, Jossey Bass, San Francisco.
This text is a theoretical and practical exploration on learning within the context of facilitation. Topics centre on self directed learning and include how adults learn and structuring programs around learner’s needs.
HERON, J 1989, The Facilitator’s Handbook, Sage Publications, London.
A condensed book that focuses on six key dimensions of facilitation: planning, meaning, confronting, feeling, structuring and valuing. Heron’s style is comprehensive and provides great insight into facilitation processes.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT NETWORK, TAFE NSW 1999, A Facilitator’s Handbook: Facilitating Groups in the Workplace
A practical and easy to understand resource consisting of a compilation of facilitator techniques and case studies centred on sixteen key issues including observation, listening, intervention, feedback, appropriate styles and reflection.
SCHWARZ, R M 1994, The Skilled Facilitator: Practical Wisdom For Developing Effective Groups, Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco.
This book covers key issues for facilitators such as styles of effective groups, identifying behaviours that impact on groups, dealing with emotions and how to work with co-facilitators.