Facilitation Basics (ASTD Training Basics)

This book necessarily begins with some assumptions about characteristics and skills that you already possess. Your work with this book will be based on these assumptions:

• Assumption 1: You already possess basic platform skills: You are comfortable in front of a group, and you have mastered the principles of basic presentation techniques, including stance, voice, gestures, eye contact, and basic media skills. This book will help you review and build on those skills.

• Assumption 2: You are an expert in the subject matter you are facilitating. This means you have thorough knowledge and experience in the subject area and can share examples, stories, and your rich background with learners to enhance your facilitation.

• Assumption 3: You have a well-designed course to facilitate. Learning design and facilitation go hand-in-hand in making an effective learning experience. Although the focus is in this book is on the facilitation aspect, you must first appraise the training design that you have been given.

If your situation is not reflected in the first assumption, you may wish to consider some additional practice on your presentation skills until you feel comfortable with that skill set. Another book in this series, Presentation Basics (Rosania, 2003), as well as the other publications listed in the Additional Resources section can help you hone your presentation skills.

If you need to increase your subject matter expertise, try getting more experience and practice, or shadow an expert. Another alternative is to partner with a subject matter expert who can co-facilitate a learning experience with you.

If the course you are to facilitate has an incomplete design or some design problems, you may need to assess the need for, and, if necessary, do some prework to enhance the design before facilitating the course. Design considerations are addressed in some detail in the next section.

Think About This

The three main design components that you must investigate, appraise, and perhaps enhance before beginning to facilitate a course are:

• learner profile information: available, detailed, and accurate

• learning objectives: alignment with learning activities and measurements/assessments

• content segmentation and flow: must-know content is clear; flow and segmentation support effective learning.