Saturday, April 23, 2011

Reflection: My Online Facilitation Experience

As a part of the requirement for the online teaching and learning facilitation course, I had the opportunity to facilitate a week of the course. I find the experience to be positive because in reality, the instructor in the online environment has the role to facilitate the course for the entire term and the one-week experience gave me the opportunity to test my ability as a facilitator.


Prior to having the experience, I was very nervous about my ability in the early part of the course, but as each week went by and I prepared for my facilitation, everything seems to fall in place. I also felt that by seeing what the other learners were doing and taking notes of their facilitation experience, I was able to shape my thinking of what to do and I believe that help to prepare me for my week of facilitation. I also had many opportunities to use “Wimba” prior to the online teaching and facilitation course, and that was helpful for me, because not only was I comfortable to some degree with the collaboration tool, I had ample time to prepare myself for the facilitation week, since I was the last student to facilitate in the course.


In preparation for the facilitation week, I also made certain that I attended as much live facilitation sessions as possible to take notes of the different techniques used by the various learners to collaborate on different topics. I attended ten of the 12 sessions live, which includes my synchronous wimba session. I also prepared by activities for the live “Wimba” session weeks in advance and conduct research for the focus of the week, which was problems that the online facilitator may experience, such as (late response, no response, silence, conflict, cheating, and other variations in the course room). I believe that without adequate preparation, the synchronous wimba night could have been disastrous.


The fear in my mind for my facilitation week was that I would not know sufficient to provide appropriate feedback in the asynchronous course room to the discussion topic. However, my fear level was moderate as oppose to high, by the fact that my expectation was that my cohorts would support me and would assist me if there were a need. Having the fear and expectations helped me to prepare myself to do the best job ever to have a successful and positive learning experience.


The Asynchronous Experience:


The asynchronous experience was positive because I knew what to expect from seeing what the other learners did. From a student standpoint, I know that feedback is important, timely response to the post of students is important, and giving positive and constructive feedback is more valued than being critical and non-supporting. I made sure that my post to the post of the learners started with a positive note, and I acknowledged the value of the information shared, and then I provided a personal experience that was positive or negative that made connection with the discussion post. I find that the approach I used was well received by the learners, so I kept that momentum going for the entire week without incidence. I post everyday in response to the posts from learners in the course and I did that for the entire week, which I find, was good because it kept the discussion topic going for the week.


The Synchronous Experience:


The synchronous experience was positive. On my live wimba night, I started the live wimba session with my introduction and purpose and then I went into a brief warm-up session. I was very impress and somewhat surprised that I was the last facilitator for the course and that I had a large audience. I was excited that I felt that I had control and that I was not nervous at all. What I did was put myself in the place of being in the presence of a group of people I know and that we were simply sharing information. Having that frame of mind kept me comfortable throughout my session and I felt that I was in control of presentation.


What was interesting was that repeatedly after each slide in my presentation; I had to ask several times if anyone wanted to provide feedback, comment, or questions. What was also interesting was that I felt on my side a feeling of quietness and I was thinking about things that I could do to get people talking. Although, I had that feeling, I kept going and eventually the feeling went away as I noticed more interaction at the middle and end of the presentation.


What I gained from the live wimba session was that the facilitator needed to have interesting activities to keep the audience alert and interested in the topic. As the facilitator, I felt that I also needed to ask the audience to share personal experiences and that may get them involved as they can demonstrate the connection of their experience to the content presented.


Personal Perspective of Online Facilitation:


Online facilitation is a lot of work and it takes dedication and commitment to be an excellent facilitator. Timely feedback, ongoing communication, and engaging learners, promoting a safe learning environment, addressing problems in the online environment, and completing all administrative course requirements before the start of a course, during the course, and at the end of the course are required roles of the online instructor. Time management, organizational skills, and competencies to facilitate in the online environment are also mandatory requirements. My interest is still high to one day be an online facilitator.