The definition

There are many different interpretations of the term “facilitation” and perspectives on the role(s) of a facilitator. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the verb facilitate as:

Make (an action or process) easy or easier.

The Institute of Cultural Affairs – UK, describes the role of a facilitator as using a set of skills

“…in working with a group, enabling and supporting them to achieve their objectives in a way that involves and respects all contributions, builds ownership and releases the potential of the group and its members.”

What is facilitation in an educational context?

As educational philosophies developed and a growing number of adults began to participate in higher education (not only youth or young adults), beliefs and pedagogical practices changed to accommodate the richer experience and knowledge that learners brought to the classroom. Adult learning theory had a profound impact on the way courses were designed and delivered, and the developing ideas around social constructivist learning and humanist teaching approaches influenced many instructors to move from acting as the “sage on the stage” and instead, to begin supporting or scaffolding the learning that was meaningful for each student (e.g., acting as the “guide on the side”).

A concurrent shift in teaching practice occurred as educators recognized that traditional approaches were not successful in developing the 21st-century skills that learners needed (e.g., critical thinking and the ability to communicate effectively, innovate, and solve problems through negotiation and collaboration). Research consistently suggested that collaborative learning and personalized learning strategies were successful in supporting the deeper learning needed.

Many teachers began to modify their practices to include facilitative teaching rather than direct teaching. While teaching methods will still vary depending on the subject, level of learning or intended outcomes, the focus is generally on helping learners understand course content through questioning and suggestions while providing rich cases, complex problems, and opportunities to apply new knowledge in different contexts.

Facilitating learning online

A model or framework of online learning referred to as the Community of Inquiry was one of the first to identify the increasing role of the learner and the importance of having teachers facilitate social and cognitive interactions. Research collected over more than 18 years demonstrated the importance of facilitation of learning through listening, connecting ideas, and involving learners in “…meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning” (Chapter 3: Facilitation – Teaching in Blended Learning Environments – Vaughan, et al, 2013, p.47).

Overview

Facilitating Learning Online (FLO) is a growing collection of one- to five-week online courses that are intended to enhance the skills required to confidently and effectively facilitate learning online. Affectionately referred to as a family of courses, the program is a supportive community of educators taking facilitation of learning online to the next level—practicing, improving, and reaching out to motivate colleagues to do the same.

Figure 2.1 [Long Description]

The courses

Listed below are the five courses in the FLO collection along with brief descriptions; we describe them more fully in subsequent chapters in this guide.

FLO Fundamentals

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FLO Fundamentals is a five-week introduction to research-based adult and online learning concepts, principles, and strategies to make learning engaging and effective. You develop the skills you need to effectively facilitate learning in online environments by alternating between learner and facilitator roles to implement a series of short learning activities each week. The course includes opportunities for peer feedback and emphasizes reflection on your own experiences.

FLO Design

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The four-week FLO Design course begins with a review of theories of learning, approaches to instructional and learning design, and different quality and accessibility frameworks for online course design. You can bring your own design project or work with others, sharing evolving designs and receiving constructive feedback in weekly studio forums.

FLO Synchronous

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FLO Synchronous is a three-week immersion into planning and facilitating synchronous online learning sessions. We introduce you to best practice strategies, you’ll learn from examples of synchronous online facilitation, and will practice in a safe environment. There are two role choices (tracks) in this workshop — Reviewing Participant and Practicing Facilitator — allowing for flexibility in learning outcomes.

FLO MicroCourses

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MicroCourses are short, single-topic, hands-on and practical. In one week, you will dip into the FLO experience and leave with something practical and useful for your own teaching practice. Topics are emergent and relate to designing and facilitating learning online.

The FLO story (the short version!)

The first Facilitating Learning Online course was called Instructional Skills Workshop Online (ISWO) and was developed by Royal Roads University in 2008 through the BCcampus Online Program Development [https://bccampus.ca/open-education/] fund. This course was based on the well-known Instructional Skills Workshop, but focused on facilitating online, rather than in person.

In 2013, BCcampus began offering what is now called FLO Fundamentals. It is an adaptation of the original ISWO, and was subsequently revised several times. In 2015, the name of the workshop changed from Instructional Skills Workshop Online (ISWO) to Facilitating Learning Online (FLO), more closely reflecting the focus on online facilitation.

From the beginning, our goal was to prepare educators across the BC post-secondary system to effectively facilitate learning online- first by hosting, refining and growing the collection of courses, then by supporting the adoption and expansion process in a way that maintains a high quality and consistent experience for faculty and staff across institutions. All FLO courses are open educational resources (OER) and available for institutions to implement in-house.

Who are the FLO learners?

We have attracted a range of learners to FLO courses: very experienced educators, experienced online instructors, new-to-online instructors, and even those new to both instruction and online learning. The courses have also been popular in teaching and learning centres and with other post-secondary institution staff, as well as with individuals from private and non-profit organizations.

What makes FLO unique?

FLO courses provide you with a participatory and learner-centred experience to enhance the skills you need to facilitate your own online courses and activities. The FLO experience is very different from an independent and self-directed study. In addition, the courses provide an ideal environment to mentor future FLO facilitators.

The following list captures our philosophy and approach:

Design and Development

• Experienced learning designers and educators design and develop the courses.
• We undergo pilots, extensive testing and improvement cycles, incorporating feedback and suggestions from educators from various fields and institutions.
• Courses are licensed CC BY, meaning you can copy, remix, transform, and build upon the work, and we hope you will! You are only asked to provide attribution and keep the same open licence.

Participants

• Experience the role of the learner while learning about and experiencing the role of the facilitator (and in FLO Design, they experience design and observe others and their approaches to design).
• Learn about the implementation of collaborative teamwork while doing it.
• Experiment with a variety of tools, techniques, and strategies.
• Participate fully in activities and discussions throughout the entire course; these courses are a commitment!
• Practice, seek advice and feedback, and share learning in a small, supportive community of peers; this is not a MOOC!
• Learn together with colleagues from a variety of locations, settings and academic disciplines.
• Engage in reflective practice.
• Maintain access to course spaces after the course is completed.

Figure 2.2 [Long Description]

What’s our big plan for FLO?

Our goal is to support the adoption of FLO courses at BC post-secondary institutions so that faculty and staff can create engaging online experiences for students. We hope there will be many, many facilitators ready to adopt FLO courses and implement them in their own institutions.

The next chapter looks at how to prepare for facilitating FLO courses.

Attributions

The OER definition from the Faculty OER Toolkit is used under a CC BY 4.0 Licence.

Image descriptions

Figure 2.1 long description:

“The FLO family of courses are jam-packed with pedagogically sound inspiration, current ideas, helpful resources and a network of amazing participants, instructors, and facilitators, who are all interested in making teaching and learning online the best it can be. The best part for me was probably how hands-on and practical the courses were and how much I’ve actually been able to use what I created for my own courses afterwards. It made investing the time and effort so much more rewarding.”

— Bettina Boyle, Capilano University

[Return to Figure 2.1]

Figure 2.2 long description:

The FLO courses are well designed and filled with solid online pedagogy. This in itself sets the learner up for success, but the real strength is that each course is designed so learners apply what they learn in a supportive online community. Learning by doing is powerful.

— Ross McKerlich, Okanagan College

[Return to Figure 2.2]

In this chapter, we dive into the details of what is involved in becoming a FLO facilitator. Subsequent chapters will guide you through the steps and considerations for facilitating each course.

Accessible design, inclusive facilitation

An important part of becoming a better online facilitator is to understand and integrate the principles of accessible design and inclusive teaching and facilitation. Many educators point to the Universal Design for Learning framework, which focuses on providing multiple means of:

• Engagement
• Representation
• Action and Expression

While FLO courses were designed to promote inclusive and participatory learning, particularly through encouraging multiple means of engagement, action and expression, there is always a need to review our materials, our design and our facilitation and teaching strategies. Ensuring accessibility of learning is an ongoing quest, as technologies change and we gain experience in online facilitation of FLO courses.

BCcampus Open Education has produced (or identified) several practical and helpful guides to help you improve the accessibility of each FLO course you offer. The current Accessibility Toolkit – 2nd Edition focuses on the application of Universal Instructional Design (UID) and includes an easy-to-use checklist (Appendix A) that will develop your understanding of the potential impact of various types of diversity (primarily cognitive and physical). The insights shared in the Toolkit will help you understand the importance of taking time to make changes to your content and delivery. Try to think proactively about the accessibility of your FLO course—both as you design it and during the facilitation of it.

Some basic questions to ask yourself as you facilitate FLO courses:

• Do I have materials (visual, multimedia, documents) that present important concepts or information that not all students may be able to see, hear, or access?
• Do I use facilitation strategies that may exclude some learners or present barriers to participation?
• If I utilize new apps or tools to encourage exploration of online teaching and learning, do I have alternatives for those who can’t (or don’t wish to) use these technologies?
• As I think about the diversity of my learners, can I imagine how they perceive the learning environment and experience my presentations, comments, interaction with learners?

Roles and functions of FLO facilitators

FLO courses are built on a foundation of social constructivist perspectives, infused with a recognition of the importance of evidence-based practices, the power of shared reflection and inquiry, and the need for personally meaningful learning experiences.

FLO facilitators adapt their roles to the needs of each cohort of learners as they progress through a course. During the first week of each course, facilitator presence is high as the facilitators take on the roles of a community builder and a guide. FLO facilitators welcome and engage learners, post frequent reminders, clarify curriculum, troubleshoot problems, and encourage each learner to participate and learn. They take time to develop connections with and among learners to help develop a sense of community and mutually supportive learning.

As the course moves on and learners become more familiar with the course expectations, content and environment, they become more active participants in the co-creation of meaningful learning. FLO facilitators take on the roles of coach and mentor. They step back and encourage learning through the use of different questioning strategies and proven facilitation techniques. They participate in discussions but don’t lead; instead, FLO facilitators highlight important concepts, weave together the ideas that participants share, and post frequent summaries to help learners keep track of the flow of conversations as they move in and out of the course environment.

FLO courses are designed to provide a structured yet flexible learning environment, respecting many of the core principles of BC’s Universal Design for Learning (UDL). FLO facilitators strive to identify and respond to the varying needs, abilities and interests of each learner. The courses are developmental in focus. Although FLO facilitators provide frequent and constructive (formative) feedback, they encourage participants to use the self-assessment rubrics and reflective practices embedded in each course to monitor and celebrate their own achievements. FLO facilitators help participants stay on track and make explicit links between course activities and learning outcomes.

As each course draws to a close, the FLO facilitators help individual participants complete activities and assess their progress. Participants share final reflections and often help plan and host a final wrap-up session to celebrate achievements and to look ahead to future connections and applications of new learning.

Developing FLO facilitation skills

Figure 3.1 [Long Descripion]

Developing skills in online facilitation is a journey, not something that can be accomplished over one iteration of a course! We encourage people interested in facilitating FLO courses to spend some time reading about online facilitation, open education practices and Universal Design for Learning, before facilitating FLO courses. We also recognize that you could gain online facilitation skills while facilitating – including reflecting on that facilitation. Working with others to co-facilitate FLO courses can also support the development of online facilitation skills as we watch and learn from what our colleagues do.

We’ve gathered a list of skills that we have found effective in facilitating FLO courses and grouped them under four main categories: Support Diverse Learners Online, Build and Sustain Online Community, Manage the Online Course, and Model Effective Facilitation.

We know it’s a big list and probably not an exhaustive one, but it’s a start. To create it, we drew skills from the self-assessment rubric included in FLO Fundamentals and crowd-sourced ideas from people who have facilitated FLO courses. We also drew some inspiration from the International Association of Facilitators (IAF)’s list of Core Competencies.

The interesting—and most exciting!—thing about facilitating FLO courses is that, in addition to talking about online facilitation skills with our participants throughout the course, we also model those same skills. We want our participants to see us continually working on enhancing the skills in ourselves – to model reflective practice as an online facilitator and to bring an authentic presence to our courses.

Throughout the chapters included in this guide, we’ll dig deeper — and provide examples — into what it looks like to use these facilitation skills.

Our model

It is beyond the scope of this guide to delve into institutional adoption needs and processes. Instead, we offer an emergent model that has proven to be effective in preparing FLO facilitators. Your institution may wish to adopt a similar model or consider partnering with other institutions that already have.

Take FLO courses:  Experience the roles of online learner, collaborative team member, activity designer and facilitator, together with colleagues from a variety of disciplines. Complete FLO courses in any sequence.

Experiencing the role of participant in the course you wish to facilitate is one of the best ways to understand the structure, flow and resources that make up the course. You will also experience the value of facilitated learning.

Apply what you’ve learned:  Completing one or more FLO courses will provide you with new ideas to implement in your own teaching and to share with colleagues. Consider embarking on a scholarly research project to present your work to a larger audience!

In other words, practice any chance you get, and share with your colleagues.

Become a FLO facilitator:  Although the facilitators in FLO Fundamentals try to make their facilitation visible, a lot of planning and adaptation still takes place behind the scenes.  In our experience, the best way to learn how to facilitate a FLO course is to co-facilitate with a more experienced facilitator as a mentor.

Volunteering your time and expertise to assist — and be mentored by — experienced FLO facilitators is a perfect mutual exchange. We encourage mentees and facilitators to negotiate the level of commitment and tasks.

Adopt FLO / Become a lead facilitator and mentor:  An obvious next step for your institution to sustain or expand FLO offerings is to bring more facilitators on board. Once you have the experience of facilitating FLO courses you are ready to mentor incoming facilitators.

As open-licensed resources, FLO courses can be hosted in-house, and offer opportunities for cross-institutional collaboration and cost-saving professional development.

Figure 3.3

Leonne Beebe

Leonne Beebe is a seasoned FLO participant and facilitator, having returned to FLO for every offering in some capacity, each time taking on more responsibility and new challenges. Leonne transitioned from being mentored to being a full-on facilitator by boldly accepting each invitation to take on more. She brings years of teaching experience and keen participatory observation skills to the workshop.

Leonne offers this for future facilitators:

“The FLO/FDO mentoring model for learning to facilitate online makes the learning both real and realizable. As a teacher, you have the concurrent experience of being a student while also being a teacher. Through your experiences, you will develop an awareness and empathy for the learning challenges and the strategies needed for student success. You may also find one time is just the beginning…”

Figure 3.4

Rachel Loganberg

Rachel Loganberg from College of the Rockies volunteered her time and expertise by taking on an observer role in the FLO Design pilot. This role enabled her to provide feedback on the design of the workshop based on her observations of how learners were engaging. Rachel was also keen to understand more about the 5-week FLO Fundamentals course, and volunteered to co-facilitate so she would be ready to take the lead on a future FLO workshop. She then went on to co-facilitate the 2-week FLO Facilitator Development course. Rachel is now very well equipped to mentor future FLO facilitators! This is a terrific example of a mutual exchange model — learn and practice while giving back to the FLO community.

The next four chapters guide you through the facilitation of each FLO course.

Image descriptions

Figure 3.1 long description:

A puzzle with four interlocking pieces. The pieces read:

• support diverse learners
• build and sustain community
• manage course
• model effective facilitation

[Return to Figure 3.1]

Before you select a FLO course that you’d like to deliver, step back and think about where you might want to host the content and create your shared learning environment. Think about the nature of FLO courses, the underlying philosophy, the intended audience and the proposed learning outcomes.

Foundational or essential technologies

In general, online learning courses are hosted in content or learning management systems. FLO courses were originally developed and offered using the open source learning management system called Moodle. The OER files for FLO courses are available as Moodle mbz files that can be imported directly to another Moodle system or translated and imported by most other well-known learning management systems.

FLO courses generally require a system that allows :

• registration and login accounts for students (to protect privacy and support management of the learning event),
• forums to allow text-based discussion (preferably augmented with images, audio and video) that is persistent so students can participate at different times and from different locations,
• a place online to store resources that support the learning, and
• a synchronous online (web conferencing) meeting system. An additional desirable feature would be the ability to assign facilitator level access to this tool to allow students to experience both learner and facilitator roles.

Important additional technologies

The following additional features may be available within a learning management system or as complementary tools or could even be provided through the judicious selection and use of social media.

FLO courses can benefit from the ability to:

• create and share quick surveys or lengthier quizzes,
• allow learners to create short videos or audio recordings and share privately to other course participants and the facilitator,
• vote or indicate preferences within forum discussions, or when collaborating on group learning activities, and
• create private or shared group forums, folders, etc. to support collaborative learning.

Some questions to consider:

• Do you have an institutional content or learning management system? Will you be expected to use this system?
• Are you familiar with the available tools or complementary technologies that your institution may offer that would support your delivery of FLO courses?
• How much support could you ask for during your delivery of a FLO course? If support is limited, can you utilize the tools well enough to use on your own when you are facilitating the course?

Using open source or social media tools

As technologies continue to evolve, the choices of tools (often free or open source) provide an endless array of potential pedagogical value for instructors.

Check with your institution’s teaching support or technology support departments; they may already have tools available that will allow you to try a different pedagogical approach to your FLO course delivery. Think about what you think will benefit your learners as you deliver a FLO course. There are advantages to trying new teaching approaches using tools that have been tested and are supported by other instructors or technology experts where you work.

If you want to explore the use of open educational resources, tools or teaching approaches, check what is available in-house (e.g., Kwantlen Polytechnic Open Education, Royal Roads Resources for teaching) and contact BCcampus Open Education for ideas.

If you want to use tools that are not supported within your institution, ask yourself:

• Why do I want to use this tool? What value do I hope it can provide to the learning experience of my learners?
• Does my institution have guidelines or rules about the use of social media or the protection of learner privacy?
• What characteristics or affordances does the tool offer that I believe will benefit the learners?
• What impact will this have on my learners? Will they need to sign up for an account? Can I use this tool and protect their privacy?
• Can I provide alternatives to learners who don’t want to use this tool?
• What happens to anything we record or create using this tool? Sometimes free social media tools retain copyright to what you create when you use their tool. It may not matter but you should consider the implications before using a new tool.

Synopsis / abstract

Title: Facilitating Learning Online (FLO) Fundamentals

Purpose: This course introduces participants to online facilitation strategies based on established adult learning concepts. Facilitators support participants as they practice facilitating through experiential activities and teamwork. By hosting this course for the people you support, you can build a supportive community of online educators and improve the online learning experience at your institution.

Mode: A facilitated online learning course that involves asynchronous and synchronous learning.

Length: Five consecutive weeks

Expectations – Facilitators: FLO facilitators provide ongoing guidance and support throughout the course to broaden awareness and understanding of online learning theories and pedagogical practices and to develop the online facilitation capabilities of each participant. However, we do recommend that you have some previous experience with online learning and facilitation.

Time Requirements for Facilitators: The time commitment for facilitators varies widely. Facilitators can expect to spend anywhere from 15 to 25 hours per week during the preparation and implementation of this course. First-time hosts may require more time. Facilitators should expect to be available to the course on a daily basis.

Expectations – Participants: Participants are expected to participate actively and collaboratively throughout each week, exploring facilitation ideas and techniques and engaging in weekly activities. A key activity is to participate as a member of a team to facilitate a one-week online exercise and discussion.

Assessment: Throughout the course, participants reflect on learning through the use of learning journals and rubrics. Participants also provide constructive feedback on the team facilitation skills of others, and respond to feedback on their own team efforts.

Time Requirements for Participants: Participants should expect to spend 6 – 12 hours per week for online activities and course readings. More time will be required during the week the participant is facilitating the discussion with their team.

Primary Resource for Facilitators: All materials (introductory information, suggested readings, detailed discussion topics, etc.) for the course are included in the FLO Fundamentals OER from BCcampus, available for viewing or download. This guide is based on the 2019 version of the course and version 3.x of the Moodle learning management system.

What is FLO Fundamentals?

This is a mostly asynchronous online course, delivered over five sequential weeks. Two or three one-hour synchronous sessions are optional but recommended to facilitate community building and to provide valuable exposure to synchronous facilitation. Your primary role is to build and sustain the online community: pre-planning the course, communicating regularly with participants, providing supplementary materials, organizing and coaching teams, and supporting participants’ experimentation with a variety of online learning tools.

In a nutshell, the course works like this: in Week 1, you get everyone enrolled in the course, familiar with the layout, and introduced to each other. The FLO facilitators then start the discussion for Week 1’s assigned topic and guide participants to experience what it feels like to help build an active online community. By the end of Week 1, participants are organized into four teams: each team will be responsible for facilitating an assigned topic for one of the following weeks. During each of the following four weeks, you provide participants with readings and a discussion topic related to the readings. The team responsible for that week facilitates the discussion while the course facilitators provide support from the sidelines and are less visible in the discussion.

Keep in mind that in facilitating this first week’s discussion, you are demonstrating good facilitation skills and providing a model for how participant teams might facilitate a weekly activity when it’s their turn. Depending on your participants, you may wish to make this point more or less explicit.

FLO Fundamentals has proven to be an effective—and often transformative—learning experience. Our experience has shown that a class of 14 – 20 educators is a good size for this course and we highly recommend that you enlist a co-facilitator to support this group. You can expect to be involved in the course every day for a total of 15 – 25 hours per week (more if this is your first time) during the preparation and implementation of this course.

Learning outcomes

FLO Fundamentals develops key themes for successful online facilitation. At the end of this course, participants should be (better) able to:

Build and sustain online community

• Reflect on the experience of an online learning community.
• Explore the role of instructor presence in online learning.

Support diverse learners online

• Observe UDL principles and identify ways to help diverse learners online.
• Use facilitation strategies and tools to address the needs of adult learners.

Facilitate collaborative and individual learning

• Facilitate collaborative and individual activities online.
• Explore group dynamics in online collaborative activities.

Provide constructive feedback and assessment

• Model effective feedback and assessment.
• Critically reflect on feedback and experience to self-evaluate work and learning.

Manage the online course environment

• Explore effective strategies to manage the workload.
• Improve the use of tools within an online learning environment.

Participants

A wide variety of educators benefit from FLO Fundamentals. Participants are often full- or part-time instructors at post-secondary educational institutions who are new to teaching online or have already been teaching online for some time but would like to develop stronger facilitation skills. Other participants may be familiar with traditional teaching practices but are seeking to develop experience and confidence with more learner-centric educational approaches.

FLO Fundamentals may also be of interest to many other educators, including instructional/learning designers, educational developers, learning technologists and others who work in teaching and learning centres. It may also be useful for graduate students, consultants from the private sector, trainers employed by for-profit or non-profit organizations, and educational support providers.

Technology

FLO Fundamentals requires no special technology beyond what has been recommended in Chapter 3: Tools to Support FLO. Because FLO Fundamentals is usually the first FLO course participants will encounter (and sometimes their first online course ever), be cautious about using too many external tools or apps until you are better aware of your participants’ comfort levels.

Course content and layout

FLO Fundamentals is a complete five-week workshop-style course with a comprehensive collection of information, activities, directions, assessments, and related resources. Within the Open Education Resources (OER) version of the course, resources are organized into tabs, with one tab for each of the five weeks, plus one Hub tab with introductory and general information, and one tab to organize the work of the teams (see the image below for an example).

Figure 4.1

In the Hub tab, you will find:

• A Course Handbook, describing for participants how the course works, what’s expected of them, learning outcomes, scheduling, etc.
• A sample Schedule to help participants (and facilitators) stay on track.
• Resources to help facilitators organize participant teams.
• Sample forums to facilitate discussion:
  • An Open Forum for sharing general information (clarification, announcements, social-type sharing) not necessarily related to the weekly discussion about content. Both facilitators and participants can post and respond.
  • A Weekly Journal Share forum, for posting reflections on learning.
  • A forum to provide Feedback for participant teams.
• A feedback form (Feel, Like, Improve, Feedback, or FLIF) to help participant teams reflect and receive personal, private feedback on their facilitation experience. (In the OER course, this feedback is structured using the Learning Management System’s quiz tool.)
• Additional resources for facilitators to aid in coordination of the course (generally hidden from participants).

Tabs corresponding to each week’s activities include:

• An overview of the topic for the week.
• A forum to discuss the week’s topic (e.g. to respond to the questions posted by the facilitation team).
• Other resources and/or activities specific to that week.

The tab for Facilitation Teams Workspace includes:

• A detailed activity plan for each team.
• A workspace forum (private, if you choose) for each team’s members to plan their facilitation strategies and tasks.

The topics discussed in this course are:

• Week 1: Building Learning Community (facilitated by course facilitators).
• Week 2: Diversity of Learners (facilitated by the orange team).
• Week 3: Responsive Facilitation (facilitated by the blue team).
• Week 4: Collaboration (facilitated by the yellow team).
• Week 5: Reflective Practice (facilitated by the green team).

Course assessment strategies

This course is designed to be developmental; it is not a graded course in the traditional sense. Unless you decide otherwise, your participants will not be marked or assigned a formal grade on their performance. The course does include a number of activities to encourage self-reflection, as well as a comprehensive self-assessment rubric which could be used to assign a grade, if needed (see FLO Fundamentals Self-Assessment Rubric).

Participants are also encouraged to self-assess their qualification for a Certificate of Completion. As facilitator(s), it is up to you to decide what form this Certificate should take.

Facilitator task list: What you need to do before, during and after the course

The successful hosting of FLO Fundamentals requires good planning, timing, and coordination. Over the years, we’ve developed a detailed, step-by-step Task List for course facilitators:

• See FLO Fundamentals Task List for a concise, detailed list of facilitator tasks.
• You can also use the following Task List Explanations alongside the Task List for more background information and ideas.

Task List Explanations

Several weeks (or months) before the course begins

1. Access the OER course. The OER course Facilitating Learning Online – Fundamentals is currently offered as a Moodle course with guest access; you should be able to enter the course and view all content.
2. Set up your own learning environment and copy content. Before you can offer FLO Fundamentals, you need a learning environment – a virtual place to host the course. At the very minimum, you need an online space (private or securable, if you choose) where facilitators and participants can conduct discussions and share facilitation discoveries and the results of experimentation. The course content must be added to the LMS or other learning space you have chosen:
   1. If using Moodle: restore the latest version of this course into your LMS (you can download it using the link in the OER).
   2. If NOT using Moodle: establish and configure an online learning environment (LMS, CMS, wiki, etc.) into which you can copy all relevant content from FLO Fundamentals.
3. If possible, find a colleague to assist you as a Co-Facilitator. Your ideal co-facilitator will be someone who can work with you to provide guidance and support to your participants, and can dedicate 15 to 25 hours per week to this task. Ideally, your co-facilitator will be familiar with online learning theories and practices, and with personal and technical skills to engage online participants. Not only do co-facilitators lessen the workload and enrich the facilitation process for you, they increase the facilitation expertise within your institution or organization. It would help a great deal if your colleague has already taken FLO Fundamentals.
4. Access your FLO Fundamentals learning environment to review content and tools. Prepare the course site or learning environment and (re)acquaint yourself with the facilitation tools you plan to use. Familiarize yourself with the course content, materials, philosophy, scheduling, flow, etc. of the course.
5. Set up a web conferencing tool for online synchronous sessions and conversations. There are many web conferencing applications to choose from, depending on your institution’s requirements.
6. Connect with your co-facilitator for detailed pre-planning. Develop a planning regime that you’re both comfortable with. Work together to develop a detailed list of tasks to be completed before, during, and after the course runs. You have a lot to do before the course begins:
   1. Ensure an easy-to-access place or process to store planning resources. Agree on planning tools and schedules.
   2. Customize this Facilitator Task List to fit your needs.
   3. Review the resources available in the OER and select some activities to try. You could also add your own ideas for icebreakers, discussion topics, resources, images, slides, etc.
   4. Develop rough agendas for your synchronous sessions.
   5. Prepare how-to resources for your participants to explain the features of the learning environments and tools.
7. Practice using learning environment tools. If you’re already pretty comfortable with both synchronous and asynchronous online tools, you may wish to try something new; to model for your participants an adventurous open mind when it comes to educational technology. However, be aware of the technical expertise of your potential participants: you don’t want to choose something that most of them will have trouble accessing or learning to use.
8. Identify potential participants. Think about where you might find your course participants. Will you enlist from your institution only, or other institutions and organizations? Decide how far ahead you must start the recruitment process.
9. Ensure your content is accurate. Once you have a potential learner audience in mind, re-visit the learning environment and carefully review all content (forum post topics, reading lists, directions, etc.). Make sure your content is appropriate for your intended group of participants, and reflects the goals of your institution or program. Remember, the FLO courses have been developed as Open Educational Resources and are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License so you’re free to modify whatever you like! The only requirement is that you provide attribution and don’t imply or suggest endorsement by the licensor.
10. Ensure your content is accurate. Unfortunately, the web addresses (URLs) of internet resources change often with the result that your linked document may not appear when participants click on the link. Sometimes, through searching, you can locate the new URL for the resource but you may wish to consider finding a more up-to-date resource on the same topic instead.
11. (If you haven’t done so already!) Choose a start date and promote your course to your target participants.

One- to two weeks before the course begins

Once your FLO Fundamentals course is underway, you and your participants will be very busy indeed and you’ll want to have as much preparatory work out of the way as possible. How you set up the course site and engage the community will directly impact how the rest of the course flows; keep in mind that you are modelling good facilitation practices (a detailed list of Core FLO Facilitation Skills is included in Chapter 3 of this Guide).

1. Complete recruitment and register participants. You may have begun the recruitment of participants weeks or even months ahead. Make sure you have a process in place to register your participants in accordance with your institution’s policies. If you are managing your own site (e.g. a WordPress site), you may be able to organize this on your own. During recruitment, be sure to:
   1. Communicate expectations around time and teamwork.
   2. Provide information to your participants about what they’ll need to do and where to find what they’ll need. Your goal is not to overwhelm your participants but to provide enough information so they can jump right in when the course begins.

2. Meet with co-facilitator, finalize the week ahead. Now is the time to check the details and do final revisions of your first week’s activities & resources, including:
   1. Discussion topics, resources, images, slides, etc.
   2. Icebreaker activities.
   3. Your introductory welcome post.
   4. Agenda for the first synchronous session.
   5. Resource to explain the basic features of the synchronous environment & tools.
3. Create or update co-facilitators’ profiles and contact information. Tell a little about yourself in a profile or short biography. Establish your contact information and set “office hours” (if appropriate).
4. Decide which aspects of the course will be displayed when the course opens and which aspects will be hidden until needed. Many learning environments will let you hide or show specific activities until you’re ready for your participants to see them.
5. Ensure sufficient starting information for participants. Your new participants will need detailed information about how to access the course and get started (e.g. if using Moodle, see the FLO Handbook on the Hub tab, or consider preparing a screencast).
6. Finalize enrollment of participants, send out a Welcome email. Provide the participants with access to the course and/or information about accessing technical support, if necessary.
7. Decide on your week’s start day and modify your directions to the participants and the learning environment settings accordingly (if necessary). This course is not self-paced; the work is organized around weeks. Will the first day of your course week begin on a Sunday, Monday, or some other day?
8. Set a time for your first (Week 1) synchronous session. Prepare the synchronous environment as much as possible: upload slides, write/draw/embed a welcome message, etc.
9. Set up a separate online workspace for each team. You will be dividing up your participants into 4 teams; each team will facilitate one of the weekly mini-sessions. A unique team workspace (e.g. a forum or Google doc) with editing functions for team members should be sufficient. You may wish to limit access (e.g. read-only access) to this workspace to non-team participants.

Some other decisions you’ll need to make:

10. Decide which teams each co-facilitator will support during the course, and decide between yourselves what kind of support you will provide.
11. Confirm technical support is available and adequate, if needed. If you are providing your own tech support, confirm that your site has been backed up and no significant technical issues (e.g. scheduled downtime) exist. If tech support personnel are available, confirm they are standing by and aware of your course start date and enrollments.
12. Review the suggested assessment options for this course and select one (or more) to recommend for your participants. A self-assessment rubric can be adapted so the facilitator can assign a grade, if needed (see FLO Fundamentals Self-Assessment Rubric).

As time permits

• Practice navigating your course site and other tools. If you are using the OER Moodle version of this course, you’ll find it’s a complex environment with lots of moving parts. Take the time to familiarize yourself with the course and revise it as you see fit. Move stuff around and explore different tools, modules, and plugins (if available). Consider (judiciously!) trying some new or less-used tools outside of your LMS or main learning environment.
• Streamline or otherwise improve your course’s navigation tools. When you refer to another part of your course or learning environment, provide a direct link whenever possible. Consider including a navigation screencast showing step-by-step how to get around your learning environment or LMS.
• Fine-tune your reading list. In such a fascinating and fast-moving field like online facilitation, it’s easy to get carried away with the list of readings you provide for participants. Consider making all readings optional but don’t be afraid to strongly recommend a resource you know is important. After all, this course is intended to be informed by research and theory.

The readings you’ll see contained in this course have been chosen carefully to be both high quality and of reasonable length. However, as we have already mentioned, links to internet-based resources can break or become “stale.” Encourage your FLO participants to research and recommend better or more up-to-date readings for their own facilitation week.

A few days before the course begins

1. Connect with your participants. Make sure they’re able to access the learning environment, and communicate some basic information about the course, expectations around time, etc.
2. Write your introductory welcome post (e.g. in an “Introductions” forum within the course or as a new thread in the “Open” forum) in a friendly, informal, and enthusiastic style that welcomes them to the online course environment and sets a tone for your online community. Encourage participants to respond with their own introductions.

3. Post the week’s overview post, emphasizing for participants:
   1. Activities, etc. they must complete this week.
   2. Tips on how to navigate the site.
   3. The need to plan and schedule time to work on the course. Remind participants that a valuable learning experience cannot be achieved using a side-of-the-desk approach.

4. Finalize your questions for Week 1’s forum “Building Online Community.” The following are SAMPLE QUESTIONS only (you may have other questions to engage participants on this topic):
   1. What experiences have you had with online learning communities?
   2. What can an instructor (or facilitator) do to develop and maintain a sense of community in an online learning environment?
   3. What do you know about the Community of Inquiry model? How does it relate to building a sense of online community?
5. Organize participants into facilitation teams and post this information for all participants. You may decide to organize teams randomly or according to certain criteria; whether to make team interaction private or to open it up so that other participants can follow their planning process. Decide how and when participants can switch teams (preferably only within a short time period at the start of the course) if they wish.

Week 1: Building Online Community

Throughout Week 1, your role is to establish a strong facilitator presence and effectively demonstrate what good online facilitation looks like. Aim to do this as transparently as possible; think out loud to your participants to show them how you plan and facilitate the various activities. This may be a good opportunity to incorporate other collaboration tools, such as wikis or other co-authoring platforms, to show how it is possible to communicate outside of a forum (which tends to be the default discussion tool).

Week 1, Day 1 (the first day of the week):

1. Morning: Post facilitators’ personal intros to the Introductory Forum.
2. Morning: Begin the Building Online Community forum activity. Post your questions to launch and guide the discussion.

3. Evening: Finalize details for the first synchronous session in your agenda and/or slidedeck, including:
   1. How to use the synchronous environment.
   2. Icebreaker: quick intros of participants.
   3. Review of the agenda – invite additional ideas.
   4. Highlight course structure (and flow): roles, expectations, team facilitation, reflective practice, self-assessment.
   5. Explain the purpose of the Facilitation Team Workspace with an activity plan and planning forum.
   6. Highlight the importance of feedback, journaling, reflection, time management tips.

Week 1 Day 2

1. Earlier in day: Remind participants about the synchronous session a few hours before the session begins. (Reiterate that this session is not required although it is highly recommended.) Your reminder may be a forum post, LMS message, email, etc. Re-post session time, access information, and link to technical support, if needed.
2. Morning: Introduce the Learning Journal (perhaps as a post to the Open Forum). In your post:
   1. Explain the concept and the value of maintaining a record of what participants are learning and want to remember.
   2. Remind them to regularly pause, reflect, assess and synthesize their learning.
   3. Recommend they document these thoughts in a personal learning journal using paper-based, audio/video, or electronic means.
   4. Encourage participants to share nuggets (insights) in a Learning Journal.
      The Learning Journal is explained in more detail in the Course Handbook.
3.  Later: Host first synchronous session. Keep in mind this is your opportunity to connect with your participants both aurally and visually, and to demonstrate the value that a synchronous collaboration tool can bring to an online learning experience. If possible:
   1. Ensure you have technical support people (or your co-facilitator) standing by to assist with access problems.
   2. Enter the synchronous session at least a half-hour early to greet early arrivals and troubleshoot navigation problems within the synchronous environment.
   3. Remember to notify participants that the session will be recorded (if this is possible and if all agree) and hit the record button as your session begins.
   4. Check in with participants about their comfort level navigating the site during the session and address any confusions.
   5. Evening: Post a brief follow-up report about the synchronous session. Talk up the value of the session and encourage participants to attend the next synchronous session (mention the date and time). If the session was recorded, let participants know when a recording may be available.

Sometimes the topic of feeling overwhelmed does come up naturally. The following is an example of one participant’s experience (from the participant’s Weekly Journal Share Forum for Week 1):

Week 1 Day 3

1. Connect with members of the first participant facilitation team. Post a message in the team planning forum for Diversity of Learners to encourage this team to get underway.
2. Remind participants to use Schedule and begin Learning Journal. Use a post in the Open Forum to remind participants to begin their Learning Journal and to use the FLO Fundamentals Schedule to keep on track. More information about the Learning Journal and FLO Fundamentals Schedule is available in the OER course. Make sure you revise the schedule to fit your own situation.
3. Post the recording (if available) of the synchronous session. Use a post in the Open Forum to provide a link to the recording and to highlight any key or outstanding topics.

Week 1 Day 4

1. Connect with missing or inactive participants who have not yet logged into the course and with those who haven’t posted in any forum. Participants who are relatively new to online learning may not realize that this is NOT a self-paced course. Review participation in the Building Community forum and encourage more participation, especially among less active participants.
2. Remind participants to engage in reflective activities. Encourage them to assess their own participation using the self-assessment rubric (also available directly in the FLO Fundamentals OER). Remind them that at the end of each week, they will be asked to share a few nuggets (questions, aha moments, and ideas that grow from their experiences each week) in the Learning Journal forum. Don’t forget to maintain your own Learning Journal and be ready to share your reflections, ideas, and examples at the end of the week.

Week 1 Day 5

1. Post a summary of the Building Online Community discussion activity. When composing the summary, keep in mind that you are demonstrating for participants what will be expected of the facilitation teams in the weeks to come. Inform (or remind) participants that, although you won’t be asking for their feedback on this activity (due to time constraints), you will be asking them for their feedback in following weeks.

2. Check in with the team facilitating Week 2’s activities. Post a message in the planning forum for the Diversity of Learners team to encourage them to get started (if they haven’t done so already).

End of Week 1

1. Connect with your co-facilitator about the work for the week ahead and divide the labour. Keep in mind that one of you will need to write the upcoming week’s Introductory post, with an overview of the theme topic and an outline of the work ahead for participants.
2. Launch week 1’s Weekly Journal Share forum thread with a starter post for facilitator and participant nuggets. Then add your own post with your reflective thoughts, nuggets, and examples related to Facilitation Skills and Strategies. Invite participants to contribute nuggets from their Learning Journals as well as self-assessment thoughts (including any conclusions or comments from their self-assessment rubrics.) Here’s an example of a nuggets starter post:

• Example of a nuggets starter post

  

  Week 1 Journal Share – by Sylvia Riessner – Friday, 2 October 2015, 6:53 AM

  This is a nuggets starter post for everyone’s journal share for Week 1.

  Please reply to this thread when posting your journal share for this week. This will have the effect of collecting all the posts each week.

  A quick reminder from the Handbook:

  “…each week, review your journal and extract an aha moment. This could be a quotation from a reading or forum that made something clear or made you smile. Also, share some insights you gleaned from self-assessing your participation each week (using the FLO Rubric).”

  … and here’s an example of a reflective nugget that a previous facilitator shared:

  Example of  reflective post

  

  Facilitators’ Weekly Journal Share:  by Leonne Beebe – Sun, 2 Oct 2016, 5:12 PM

  Week 1 of any course, especially an online course, is exciting and challenging. Seeing the FLO online community beginning to develop and learning of participants helping each other is motivating and rewarding. However, one of my “imaginary facilitator friends” known as Anxious Annie has a habit of showing up in Week 1 and hanging around. She keeps asking me, “What about those who haven’t posted by the suggested timeline? What about those who haven’t started working on their week’s planning yet? What about those who haven’t posted their journal yet?” Then, I remember facilitating is not about me; it’s about helping the participants as they need and ask for help. There is a saying that RRU folks often refer to called “Trust the process.” As I gain more experience and confidence with facilitating, the more I am able to trust the process and ignore Annie. Besides, it’s only 5:00 Sunday afternoon. There is lots of time left…

  A question that faced me this week was, “What do you do when a team member leaves the team/course (for whatever reason)?” and “How do you best support the team member who is left to facilitate that week’s activities?”

  Out of confusion comes clarity,

  Leonne

  3. Ensure the Diversity of Learners team is ready for the week ahead. If team members haven’t yet responded to your post in their planning forum, you may need to contact them more directly. Let them know how and when you will be available to help them.

  Your shifting role: From facilitator to guide

  

  Weeks 2 through 5 follow a relatively similar pattern: as co-facilitators, you will post a message at the beginning to welcome participants to this week’s topic and work, and you will post a summary to close the week. Throughout the week, you will monitor discussions and join in as appropriate. Although your guidance may be more hands-on in Weeks 1 and 2, by Weeks 4 and 5 you should find yourself pulling back and encouraging this week’s facilitation team to manage the discussion. Ideally, your participation will always be supportive — but not overwhelming — as you strive to scaffold your participants towards developing good facilitation skills.

  Week 2: Diversity of learners

  Evening before the week begins

  

  1. Ensure that this week’s facilitation team has posted an introductory message. The message should introduce the facilitators and the topic. The team should also provide instructions for the week’s activities and a recommended schedule for completion.
  2. Post the week’s overview post (in Open Forum) with a description of activities, etc. to be completed this week.

Here’s an example of an overview post that focuses on regrouping and encouraging participants to dig in to the course again:

By mid-week

1. Connect with the team facilitating the following week’s activities. Post a message in the planning forum for the team to encourage them to get started (if they haven’t done so already). Let them know how and when you will be available to help them.
2. Survey/poll participants to determine an optimal time for Week 3’s synchronous session. If possible, schedule the synchronous session so a maximum number can participate.

Ongoing throughout the week

1. Provide support for this week’s facilitation team as necessary. The co-facilitator responsible for supporting this team should check in regularly.
2. Monitor and participate in discussions and activities. Check the Open Forum regularly.

Later in the week

Finalize planning for Week 3’s synchronous session. Post the date and time in both the Open Forum and the Schedule.

End of the week

1. Connect with Week 2’s facilitation team, debrief and thank them for facilitating.
   Assist the team in wrapping up their facilitation work. Team members should review and respond to feedback from classmates.

Example of video feedback with transcript

How a Facilitating Team Gets Feedback in FLO

This short video describes how one facilitator ensures that facilitation team members get comprehensive feedback, without being heavy-handed or overly directive. A transcript is also provided below.

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://opentextbc.ca/flofacilitatorguide/?p=751

Transcript

There are several ways that a facilitating team gets feedback for their facilitation of their activity in FLO. These are before the activity, during the activity, just after the activity, and then in response to their FLIF. Now, before the activity, as their FLO facilitator being assigned to support their team, I try to let them know what they are supposed to be doing, but I try not to be too heavy-handed in how to do it or all of the minute details of what they’re going to be up to and how they’re going to share their roles. So, I let them know I’m a support to them, but I try not to direct too much what they’re going to be doing.

After they launch their activity, I watch how things are going throughout the week as their support facilitator, and sometimes I’ll post in their planning forum to ask some open-ended questions about how they think things are going, and maybe if they think something else needs to be done by them in order to prompt the group or to spur the group on to participate a little bit more in the activity. Again, I try not to be too heavy-handed here, but I do watch and try to ask questions to help the team facilitate behind the scenes as we go along.

Now the facilitation team always asks for feedback at the end of the week from the rest of the group, and they do this through the feedback structures that we’ve provided in FLO. We’ve tried to use different structures every week, so we can show the class just how to use different feedback structures. So, the team, or one of us as FLO facilitators, will ask the rest of the group to provide feedback to that team. The team needs this feedback in order to complete their FLIF reflection activity. So we always really want to encourage the rest of the class to do this and provide meaningful feedback to the facilitating team.

The last way the team gets feedback on their facilitation is individually through the FLIF reflection tool. So, after each person on that team has had a chance to complete the FLIF, then I as their support facilitator will go in, individually, and respond to those pieces in the FLIF. Again, I try to be positive here, but I do try to bring up things that maybe they could have done differently or suggest alternatives. It almost becomes like a little conversation in the FLIF about how things could have gone if they had done something different, and also giving them kudos for what they did that I saw that was going really well. I always invite the person, individually, to contact me after they’ve seen my comments in their FLIF to get even more feedback if they want to talk about something that I’ve said.

So, those are some ways that a team gets feedback in FLO, and I wish you luck in supporting them to have that. Bye!

2. Connect with your co-facilitator about the week’s work and divide the labour. One of you will need to write the past week’s summary post, harvesting highlights to which you want to draw attention. And one of you will need to write the upcoming week’s introductory post, with an overview of the theme topic and an outline of the work ahead for participants.
3. Post a summary of Week 2 in Open Forum. Highlight any issues, surprises, what went well, etc.
4. Launch this week’s nuggets in the Weekly Journal Share forum. Post a starter thread for this week’s nuggets and add your own reflections, aha moments and other nuggets.
5. Post weekend reminders for participants in Open Forum. Participants should:
   1. Provide feedback to this week’s team facilitators.
   2. Review their Learning Journals and post their nuggets to the Weekly Journal Share forum.

Week 3: Responsive facilitation

Evening before the week begins

1. Ensure that this week’s facilitation team has posted an introductory message. The message should introduce the facilitators and the topic. The team should also provide instructions for the week’s activities and a recommended schedule for completion.
2. Post the week’s overview post with description of activities, etc. to be completed this week.

Here’s an example of an overview post:

Early in the week

1. Notify participants about Week 3’s synchronous session. Your message should include the session time, access information, and a link to technical support. Re-post a reminder about the session a few hours before it begins.
2. Later (on the agreed day): Host the synchronous session. Post a brief follow-up report. Post the recording of the session if/when it’s available.
3. Co-facilitator reviews and responds to Week 2 team’s FLIFs. The co-facilitator responsible for supporting the Week 2 facilitation team adds comments and feedback within each participant’s FLIF and notifies them when it’s complete.

By mid-week

Connect with the team facilitating Week 4’s activities. Post a message in the planning forum for the team to encourage them to get started (if they haven’t done so already). Let them know how and when you will be available to help them.

Ongoing throughout the week

1. Provide support for this week’s facilitation team as necessary. The co-facilitator responsible for supporting this team should check in regularly.
2. Monitor and participate in discussions and activities. Check the Open Forum regularly.

End of the week

1. Connect with Week 3’s facilitation team, debrief and thank them for facilitating.
   Assist the team in wrapping up their facilitation work. Team members should review and respond to feedback from classmates. Remind team members to complete their FLIF reflection
2. Connect with your co-facilitator about the week’s work and divide the labour. One of you will need to write the past week’s summary post, harvesting highlights to which you want to draw attention. And one of you will need to write the upcoming week’s introductory post, with an overview of the theme topic and an outline of the work ahead for participants.
3. Post your (co-facilitator’s) summary of Week 3 in Open Forum. Highlight any issues, surprises, what went well, etc.
4. Launch this week’s nuggets in the Weekly Journal Share forum. As in previous weeks, post a starter thread for this week’s nuggets and add your own.

5. Post week-end reminders for participants in Open Forum. Participants should:
   1. Provide feedback to this week’s team facilitators.
   2. Review their Learning Journals and post their nuggets to the Weekly Journal Share forum.

Week 4: Collaboration

Evening before the week begins

1. Ensure that this week’s facilitation team has posted an introductory message. The message should introduce the facilitators and the topic. The team should also provide instructions for the week’s activities and a recommended schedule for completion.
2. Post the week’s overview post with a description of activities, etc. to be completed this week.

Early in the week

Co-facilitator reviews and responds to Week 3 team’s FLIFs. The co-facilitator responsible for supporting the Week 2 facilitation team adds comments and feedback within each participant’s FLIF and notifies them when it’s complete.

By mid-week

1. Connect with the team facilitating Week 5’s activities. Post a message in the planning forum for the team to encourage them to get started (if they haven’t done so already). Let them know how and when you will be available to help them.
2. Connect with the co-facilitator and decide on a course wrap-up event. You may decide to use a synchronous or asynchronous format to wrap up the course.
3. If you are hosting a synchronous session in Week 5: Survey/poll the participants to determine an optimal time for Week 5’s synchronous session. If possible, schedule the synchronous session so a maximum number can participate.

Ongoing throughout the week

1. Provide support for this week’s facilitation team as necessary. The co-facilitator responsible for supporting this team should check in regularly.
2. Monitor and participate in discussions and activities. Check the Open Forum regularly.

Later in the week

Finalize planning for Week 5’s wrap-up event. If you will be hosting a synchronous session in Week 5, post the date and time in the Open Forum.

End of the week

1. Connect with Week 4’s facilitation team and debrief, thank them for facilitating.
   1. Assist the team in wrapping up their facilitation work. Team members should review and respond to feedback from classmates.
   2. Remind team members to complete their FLIF reflection.
2. Connect with your co-facilitator about the week’s work and divide the labour. One of you will need to write the past week’s summary post, harvesting highlights to which you want to draw attention. And one of you will need to write the upcoming week’s introductory post, with an overview of the theme topic and an outline of the work ahead for participants.
3. Post your (co-facilitator’s) summary of Week 4 in Open Forum. Highlight any issues, surprises, what went well, etc.
4. Launch this week’s nuggets in the Weekly Journal Share forum. Post a starter thread for this week’s nuggets and add your own reflections as in previous weeks.
5. Post week-end reminders for participants in Open Forum. Participants should:
   1. Provide feedback to this week’s team facilitators.
   2. Review their Learning Journals and post their nuggets to the Weekly Journal Share forum.

Week 5: Reflective Practice

Evening before the week begins

1. Ensure that this week’s facilitation team has posted an introductory message. The message should introduce the facilitators and the topic. The team should also provide instructions for the week’s activities and a recommended schedule for completion.
2. Post the week’s overview post with a description of the activities, etc. they need to complete this week.

Early in the week

1. Co-facilitator reviews and responds to Week 4 team’s FLIFs. The co-facilitator responsible for supporting the Week 4 facilitation team responds to Week 4 team participants in a message or email.
2. If you are hosting a synchronous session in Week 5: Notify participants about this week’s synchronous session. Your message should include the session time, access information, and link to technical support. Re-post a reminder about the session a few hours before it begins.
3. Later (on the agreed day): Host synchronous session. Post a brief follow-up report. Post the recording of the session if/when it’s available.

Ongoing throughout the week

1. Provide support for this week’s facilitation team as necessary. The co-facilitator responsible for supporting this team should check in regularly.
2. Monitor and participate in discussions and activities. Check the Open Forum regularly.

Later in the week

Conduct course wrap-up event. Use an asynchronous or synchronous tool to summarize and celebrate the participants and participation. Provide information about follow-up courses (including OER courses in the FLO “family”).

End of the week

1. Connect with Week 5’s facilitation team, debrief and thank them for facilitating.
   1. Assist the team in wrapping up their facilitation work. Team members should review and respond to feedback from classmates.
   2. Remind team members to complete their FLIF reflection.
2. Connect with your co-facilitator about wrapping up the course and divide the labour. One of you will need to write the past week’s summary post, harvesting highlights to which you want to draw attention.
3. Post co-facilitators’ wrap-up post in Open Forum. Provide a summary of Week 5, highlighting issues, surprises, what went well, etc. Add a wrap-up summary of the course. There are many different ways you can draw the course and community to a close. The example below shows how a facilitator used a mind mapping tool to acknowledge participants’ contributions and recognize the learning that took place. Read the forum post and view the mind map; you can visit the Coggle site to try it for yourself!

Example of a wrap-up posting

Closing our Community – Thank you all!  by Beth Cougler Blom – Fri, 6 May 2016, 4:20 PM

Everyone, it has been such a pleasure for Sylvia and me and Leonne to work with you all over the last five weeks. What a group! This has been a rich experience for all of us, and we hope that it has been for you as well.

Some final details:

Thanks to all of you who have posted your Looking Back Looking Forward reflections and artifacts. (It’s not too late if you haven’t had a chance to contribute something.)

…….

And one last thing…Sylvia Riessner and I have worked over the past day to encapsulate some of our group’s many varied and wonderful thoughts and quotes on facilitation, that you’ve shared throughout the course. We present them back to you here in a Coggle – enjoy!

Figure 4.2. (Click on the image to see it full size.)

4. Launch this week’s nuggets in the Weekly Journal Share forum. Post a starter thread for this week’s nuggets and add your own as in previous weeks.
5. Post end-of-course reminders for participants in Open Forum. Participants should:
   1. Provide feedback to this week’s team facilitators.
   2. Review their Learning Journals and post their nuggets to the Weekly Journal Share forum.
6. Thank participants and request final feedback. If you are using a survey and/or final course evaluation, emphasize the value of participant feedback, provide explicit directions about where to find the feedback forms and how to submit them.

See Appendix 3: Generalized Course Evaluation Survey for a sample course evaluation survey that you can modify for your specific course and evaluation needs.

After the course

1. Review the survey and/or course evaluation feedback. Now is the time to make a note of any confusing directions, outdated resources, or ineffective activities and ensure this information is available before you host the course again.
2. Conduct a debrief session for all involved: co-facilitators, support personnel and others. Share the feedback from course evaluations and surveys, and celebrate successes. Use this information to note changes you’d like to make when you offer this course again.
3. Devise a strategy to keep in touch with participants. Ensure you at least have email addresses so you can share news about additional FLO courses and other, related professional development offerings. If possible, engage past participants in a community of practice or network of shared resources and practitioners to encourage ongoing professional growth.

 

Course Date:

Facilitators: ______________________________ and _______________________________

Participants, you can use the following rubric to assess your own learning as you work through the course.

You may want to copy and paste these tables into your own document or spreadsheet.

Team Facilitation Self-Assessment (Facilitator Role)

Summary table for team facilitation

This summary table is a useful way to record your team facilitation, as outlined in the Rubric.

1. Calculate your weekly score (1, 2, or 3) for each criteria over each week.
2. What is your calculated weekly total scores? (Maximum weekly total is 4 x 3 = 12)
3. Reflect: What are your critical strengths and areas needing improvement?

Total: ___ out of 15

Weekly Participation Self-Assessment (Participant Role)

Summary table for weekly participation (participant role)

This summary table is a useful way to record your weekly participation as outlined in the Rubric.

1. Calculate your weekly score (1, 2, or 3) for each criterion over each week.
2. What are your calculated weekly total scores? (Maximum weekly total is 12)
3. Reflect: What are your critical strengths and areas needing improvement?

The FLIF (Feel, Like, Improve, Feedback) survey is a valuable way to help your participant facilitation teams debrief their facilitation experience. As each team completes their facilitation week, you can strongly encourage them to complete the 6-question FLIF survey (see below). You can assist the team with this reflection by modelling the FLIF process yourself.

The questions posed in the FLIF are:

1. How do I feel about the session? Reflect on the strategies you used to facilitate and their impact on participants. Do you feel participants achieved the learning outcomes? How do you know?
2. What do I like about what I did?
   Think about the aspects of your mini-session that you felt good about.
3. What do I want to improve or do differently?
   Consider what you would like to do better next time you are in a facilitation role like this.
4. What were the key points about the feedback I received from my participants about my facilitation?
   Review the feedback you received from your participants. What conclusions can you synthesize? What are the take-away ideas you’ll want to consider for next time?
5. How will this facilitation experience impact my teaching?
   What will you take away from this experience that you can apply to your own courses?
6. Are there some additional points I would like feedback on?
   Are there any specific aspects of your facilitation experience you’d like your course facilitators to respond to?

The survey can be developed using a semi-structured survey tool (e.g. an LMS quiz), or in a less-structured way (email or private forum).

When team participants have completed the FLIF, be sure to provide them with timely and constructive feedback, and encourage them to respond to their own team feedback in a similar way. Conclude your response with an open invitation for the participant to contact you with any questions about your feedback, or any related topics they wished to discuss with you.

Explanatory notes for participant facilitators

A strong element of the FLO Fundamentals course is critical reflection. Throughout the course, you are asked to pause, take note, examine, look forward. When you complete your mini-­session facilitation, we ask that you complete a reflective survey activity referred to as FLIF, in which you structure your reflections around how you Felt, what you Liked, how you might Improve, and how you might incorporate any Feedback you received. Your FLIF responses should be honest and personal; they are shared only with course co-facilitators.

Although FLIF responses are generally private, we offer you two examples below of how others have responded to the FLIF questions:

Synopsis / abstract

Title: Facilitating Learning Online (FLO) Design

Purpose: This course is intended to help participants develop knowledge and skills in designing effective online learning spaces and activities.

Mode: A facilitated online course that involves asynchronous and synchronous learning.

Length: Four consecutive weeks.

Expectations – Facilitators:  FLO facilitators provide ongoing guidance and support throughout the course, to broaden awareness and understanding of design theories and pedagogical practices, and to develop the online learning design capabilities of each participant.

Time Requirements for Facilitators: Time to prepare the course before the start date will vary depending on the facilitators’ skills with navigating and editing the course learning management system. During the course, facilitators can expect to spend approximately 15 hours per week, potentially more in the first week and in the fourth week (due to organizing and hosting the showcase sessions). First-time hosts may require more time. Facilitators should expect to be available to the course on a daily basis.

Expectations – Participants:  Participants are expected to participate actively and collaboratively throughout each week, exploring design ideas, developing their online unit designs, and participating in weekly Studio sessions to give and receive constructive feedback.

Assessment:  Participants are encouraged to use a self-assessment FLO Design rubric, augmented by a selected quality framework, to monitor their developing skills and their design project. Weekly Studio sessions provide opportunities for the FLO Facilitator (and peers) to provide constructive feedback on the evolving designs.

Estimated Time Required for Participants: Participants should expect to spend approximately 6-8 hours for course activities during each of the four weeks. Those with no prior online teaching and learning experiences can expect to invest more time. Additional time may be needed to prepare for the final showcase sessions.

Primary Resource for Facilitators: All materials for the FLO Design course are included in an Open Educational Resource (OER) from BCcampus, available for viewing or download. This guide is based on the 2019 version of the course.

What is FLO Design?

Facilitating Learning Online Design (FLO Design) is a four-week course that offers participants opportunities to explore different approaches to developing effective online courses and/or learning experiences. Participants are introduced to a wide range of ideas about how people learn, best practices and recommended pedagogies to engage and support online learners, and several respected quality and accessibility frameworks to guide their design efforts.

The course is practical and developmental; participants are asked to identify a specific design project and can work alone or with others to design a short unit of learning (unit = 2-3 weeks of an online course or equivalent) and a sample online learning activity to demonstrate how they will engage learners online.

More details

Although all FLO courses emphasize reflective practices and participatory, often collaborative, learning with a practical focus, FLO Design goes a step further by building in weekly Studio design forums. FLO Facilitators offer expert advice and suggestions, but also acknowledge the diverse range of skills and experiences that learners bring and invite them to help each other clarify and develop their design projects.

Learning outcomes

After participating in, and contributing to, learning activities throughout FLO Design, you should be able to:

• Discuss important elements of online learning design, including quality, accessibility and design guidelines.
• Create a plan for a short unit of online learning that includes a prototype learning activity.
• Critically reflect on your learning and progress in developing online learning design skills and knowledge.
• Explain design choices and pedagogical perspectives applied to a specific learning design project.

Participants

Participants who take FLO Design are typically new online course designers/instructors and/or experienced instructional/learning designers, as well as instructors and program/course planners. The course offers participants an opportunity to review the theory and practice of online learning and teaching, to explore different design approaches and quality frameworks, and to practice important planning and design skills.

Technology

General recommendations for technology can be found in in Chapter 3: Tools to Support FLO.

Some additional tools to consider for this course:

• Provide suggestions for drawing or charting tools that participants can use to create a visual of their design to share with others.
• Provide access to a shared collaborative space such as Google Docs for both facilitator and participant use.
• An annotation tool can be helpful to allow specific comments to be linked to the relevant portion of the design plan (e.g., Marginalia within Moodle forums).

The course content and layout

The FLO Design Open Learning Resource (OER) from BCcampus is a complete four-week course with a comprehensive collection of design readings and resources and learning activities. Within the OER course on the SCoPE site, resources are organized into tabbed pages. The core structure includes tabbed pages for:

• the Hub
• Pre-Course Orientation (optional)
• Week 1: Getting Started
• Week 2: Sparks to Design
• Week 3: Projects Under Construction
• Week 4: Showcase Designs

The Hub

The Hub contains content/activities that are referred to throughout the course, such as:

• Acknowledgements. You may choose to embed acknowledgements of funders or contributors, or recognize traditional territories (increasingly done in BC, Yukon and other parts of Canada).
• Course handbook. Similar to a course syllabus, the handbook explains how the course is designed and the kind of teaching and learning to expect. In addition, the Handbook includes a rubric to guide self-assessment, tips to help participants track progress and an explanation of course licensing and access.

• Course schedule. A detailed, week-by-week explanation of learning events and tasks to help participants stay on track.
• Announcements and open forums. The Announcements forum is a place for facilitators to share important course notices, while the Open forum is an informal space where participants are encouraged to post questions or ideas.
• Weekly Reflections forum. Participants are asked to respond to a reflective question each week and their posts are gathered in the Hub.
• FAQs – Tech Tips and Tools. A searchable collection of help items and tutorials.
• Visuals Gallery. Visuals that explain some core learning activities and demonstrate mapping learning designs.
• HIDDEN resources. These are for Facilitators only. They may include a private discussion forum, a folder to store documents and presentations to customize for weekly synchronous sessions, etc. It can be useful to embed a page listing the changes being made to the course content prior to (and sometimes during) the course delivery.

Weekly tabbed pages

Each week’s pages include at least the following:

• A detailed, editable checklist,
• A topic-focused overview book of readings and resources,
• A studio forum to support collaborative design work, and
• A link to the Weekly Reflections forum (contained in the Hub).

Note: If you decide to offer a pre-course orientation, you’ll add a tabbed page that contains resources and activities to help participants navigate the online course and complete essential tasks.

A studio-based design approach

A unique aspect of the FLO Design course is the use of weekly collaborative Studio forums to encourage participants to share their emerging designs and to review constructive feedback provided by the FLO Facilitators (and contributed by other participants).

Participants contribute questions, thoughts, emerging designs, examples, and provide feedback to the work of their colleagues in the course. Each week’s Studio forum provides a quick reminder of design tasks.

Example: Week 2 studio forum

Figure 5.1

The weekly studio forums are a place where you can share your progress, your questions, your challenges with others.

For this second week of FLO-Design, we ask that you post a topic thread indicating:

• your chosen instructional (learning) design approach (see the Week 2: Overview book),
• any elements from Instruction (Learning) Design stories shared in the synchronous Blackboard Collaborate session that you plan to integrate
• an update on your progress in developing your Design Project Plan
• the drawing tool you’ve selected to illustrate parts of your plan (or an alternative visual method to share your emerging design)
• any questions you have about how to move forward?!

Please take the time to review and respond to at least two other posts in the Studio Forum.

Assessment of learning

FLO Design offers a developmental learning opportunity; there are no marks or grading for design projects and participation.

Participants monitor their own progress in relation to the FLO Design Learning Outcomes using the self-assessment rubric (included in the Course Handbook) AND by reviewing the detailed feedback from FLO Facilitators on their emerging learning design each week in the Studio forums.

The rubric uses five criteria and a three-stage developmental structure: Level 1: Beginning; Level 2: Developing; Level 3: Accomplished. You can review the detailed elements for each criterion in the example shared at the end of this chapter (see FLO Design Self-Assessment Rubric).

FLO Facilitators provide constructive feedback based on each participants’ stated design goals, and they are also guided by a course quality framework (see Week 3 Overview, Elements of Quality).

A final self-assessment activity in Week 4 encourages participants to reflect on and share their progress and to look forward to how they will apply what they’ve learned.

Facilitator task list: What you need to do before, during, and after the course

The successful hosting of FLO Design requires an organized approach to planning and facilitation. A detailed facilitator task list has been developed for co-facilitators to support a successful delivery of the course.

See the FLO Design Task List to review the detailed facilitator tasks alongside the following explanations.

Before the course begins

Review the FLO Design Handbook and Schedule (in the Hub page): The Handbook and Schedule will help you understand the curriculum and intended flow of learning in the course. Spend some time and reflect on your facilitation approach and how you will manage the weekly Studio forums described in the Handbook.

Review each week’s Overview book to ensure that the content reflects your institution’s guidelines and parameters related to online course design. For example, if you have specific accessibility checklists, design standards, or policies related to inclusive design or Indigenization, these should be added to the course.

Design Choices

Do you want to offer a pre-course orientation week?

• Consider your participants, particularly their previous experience with your chosen online learning environment and tools. Would they benefit from a Pre-course Orientation Week?

Do you want to offer challenge activities and a digital badge?

Figure 5.2 FLO Explorer Badge

• Offering specific tasks for participants who are new or inexperienced with your chosen learning environment can help them get started with learning new skills. You will find challenge activities in the OER that you can customize.

Do you want to try the interview activity in Week 1 instead of asking participants to post a personal introduction and briefly describe their design project ideas?

• The interview activity (see the Facilitator Resources folder) helps participants clarify and extend their design project ideas, develops connections among participants and can reveal special knowledge / experiences / skills that each participant could contribute.
• If you decide on the Interview activity, make sure to send out information to participants before the course starts so they have time to think through what they might ask or answer.
• The risks of using this activity are the amount of time it can take for each pair of learners as they need to interview each other and post the results to the Studio before the end of the week.

Encouraging reflective practices: Do you want to pose a specific reflective question each week or ask participants to share nuggets from their personal learning journals to the Weekly Reflections forum?

• Posting a new question mid-week allows you to direct the attention of participants to emerging design or related issues.
• Encouraging participants to share nuggets from their personal learning journals can introduce new perspectives and unexpected ideas that stimulate creative thinking.
• Make sure that the description field of the Weekly Reflections forum describes the approach you have chosen.

Do you need to offer starter ideas for design projects or do you want to rely on the design challenges presented by your participants?

• Review the topics and resources offered in the Week 1 Design Project book. You can customize the topics and resources or omit the book and rely on your participants.

Do you have a back-pocket full of stories of instructional or learning design strategies you can share or do you have colleagues who are interested in sharing? How will you “spark” new ideas or inspire participants to reflect on their projects and intended approach?

• Look ahead to the Week 2 Sparks to Design Forum and plan how you will find/share stories of instructional/learning designs to inspire participants.

How can you help new participants to navigate the learning space and find the resources they need quickly? Review the links and dates in the materials for the start of the course (pre-course orientation page, the Hub, Week 1).

During the course

• Provide frequent opportunities for participants to express how they’re feeling about their learning and progress in the course. Be as accessible and responsive as you can to address frustrations before they become problems.

• Monitor the progress of each design project and provide feedback relevant to the development focus of each week. Assist participants by asking questions, providing suggestions and guidance.

Week 1: Getting started

Focus: Use your posts to begin developing a sense of community and instructor presence this week. Make sure your Welcome post sets the tone for the week (and the course!)

Participants will need more support and guidance during the first week. Respond quickly but take time to develop their independence by including brief tips, pointing out helpful resources, or connecting them with other participants.

Reinforce the essential tasks throughout the week (i.e., deciding on a design project, whether to work alone or with another participant, and to end the week with an understanding of what’s ahead.)

Interview activity (optional):  If you’re using the Interview activity, make sure that participants are connecting with their assigned interviewee. Encourage them to post the results of their interview in the Studio forum in time to allow others to review and comment (and for the interviewee to clarify any misunderstandings).

First synchronous session:  The purpose of this session is to launch the course, make sure participants understand the flow of activities and the expectations, and engage them in developing mutual agreements to guide their collaborative learning. Allow time for questions and highlight the ways they can monitor their progress or ask for assistance.

Provide structures to guide collaborative learning:  Make sure all participants have reviewed and agree with the course Agreements posted in the Week 1 page (reviewed during synchronous session). Make sure participants have had an opportunity to refine or propose new agreements. These are important in setting the tone and minimizing misunderstandings as the group works together.

Support participants’ successes:  Use the monitoring tools of your online environment to ensure that all participants have visited the essential places and resources. Follow up immediately with any latecomers by offering support and encouragement.  Emphasize the importance of getting the essentials accomplished in the first week (see Week 1 checklist).

Posting a detailed summary of design projects at the end of the first week can help participants get a sense of the breadth of experience and ideas within the learning community. Making this visible can reduce the stress many participants feel when they are asked to choose a project and can help develop a stronger sense of community. Here is a simple example:

Week 2: Sparks to design

Focus: Step back a little this week and encourage participants to connect and continue building a sense of community and shared purpose.

Use your forum posts to draw attention to important learning theories or approaches to learning design that are relevant to emerging design choices that participants share in the weekly Studio forum.

By the end of Week 2, participants should have selected a specific design approach (three approaches are offered in the Week 2 Overview).

Provide options for learning more (or reviewing) important concepts in online learning design.

Add comments to forum discussions to draw attention to relevant theories or add links to more information.

Provide complex ideas in structured ways or use digital tools to allow participants to explore easily. The Week 2 Prezi overview is an example of this – Design for Learning

Figure 5.3

Second synchronous session: The purpose of this session is to spark new ideas and encourage participants to think beyond their previous approaches to learning design. Be prepared with interesting examples (and guest presenters, if possible) to broaden the discussions.

Two key discussion forums: Make sure participants notice the purpose of both the weekly Studio forum (for posting on their specific projects) AND the Sparks forum (to host a discussion about the learning design examples provided by the explainers).

The stories and examples shared during the Week 2 synchronous session should be summarized in the Sparks forum so participants can ask further questions during the week. These examples can encourage participants to try new approaches, and to think about their own design choices and how they may affect the learners.

Monitor progress carefully and encourage participants to use the checklists and/or other methods to stay on track. Use nudge posts near the end of the week if participants haven’t identified an approach from the three shared in the Week 2 Overview book.

Make explicit links from emerging designs to theories and approaches: Focus on conversations in the Studio forum. Make sure you provide each participant with detailed, constructive feedback on their emerging design plan. Remember to draw in relevant theories and brief explanations of underlying values and beliefs about how people learn.

Week 3: Projects under construction

Focus: Your facilitation this week will be both broad and deep! Connect with any participants who seem to be struggling while celebrating the “aha” design moments and accomplishments occurring in the weekly Studio. Take your feedback to deeper levels, making specific links between your comments and the FLO Design rubric, relevant learning or design theories or quality guidelines. Always keep the discussions learner-focused by asking questions from this perspective, based on each participant’s original context and learner descriptions.

Maintain your emphasis on participatory and connected learning. Highlight thoughtful comments or questions posed by participants. Encourage any participants who haven’t provided feedback to their peers to do so.

Encourage participants to develop a visual representation of design projects to help make the flow of each unit easier for reviewers to understand. Highlight any examples that participants have shared in the weekly Studio forum.

Third synchronous session: The purpose this session is to help participants overcome any significant challenges in the construction of their unit of learning. Allow time to discuss the purpose of developing a prototype online learning activity. Make sure participants understand that the prototype should reflect their beliefs about how people learn, and help them try out a particular approach or topic while they have a supportive audience who can provide valuable feedback.

Stay calm and carry on: Find ways to lessen the anxiety that some of your participants may be feeling this week. The pace of Week 3 can be hectic as participants are asked to sign up for a Showcase synchronous presentation in Week 4, to continue developing their units of learning, and to develop a prototype learning activity.

Be open to modifying your approach/expectations to adapt to the needs of your cohort. The purpose is to help them develop, NOT to create a “do-or-die” atmosphere.

Why should I draw or map my design?

The power of images or drawings to make difficult concepts easier to understand has been researched and demonstrated for many years in education. For a short online learning experience like FLO Design where participants are asked to share their ideas and provide constructive feedback, some form of visual or illustration of the core activities and learning approach for each design project becomes important.

The design of each project is changing each week. In addition, the underlying reasons for particular activities, assessment, and approaches are explained in lengthy paragraphs in Studio topic threads. A simple drawing or flowchart can allow participants and facilitators to quickly grasp the overall design and ask cogent questions or provide useful suggestions.

Figure 5.4 Sample Participant Map

Managing the clarity of Studio design posts: Not all participants will recognize the importance of linking back to a core design document and using each week’s Studio forum to post new design thinking or responses to constructive feedback. You can scaffold the process by creating links or inserting explanatory posts that encourage each participant to explain their thinking and highlight changes in their designs from week-to-week.

Post separate summaries that highlight significant changes you observe in the group’s emerging designs. Identify themes and interesting streams of conversations within the week’s Studio.

Encourage peer-to-peer feedback: Find ways to elicit more meaningful posts; don’t accept “that’s great” superficial responses.

Promote the value of the Showcase sessions: As you encourage participants to sign up for Week 4 showcase session(s), mention the value of concise sharing of design ideas. In general, each participant will have a maximum of 10-15 minutes.

Point out examples from elevator pitches or three-minute thesis presentations to show how this skill applies in business and academic fields.

Point participants to the Week 4 Overview for tips on how to plan their presentations.

Week 4: Showcase designs

Focus: Your facilitation this week may involve all your managerial, coordination and inspirational skills. You need to support participants to pull together a final presentation of their design, while asking them to take time to reflect on their experiences and share some of their intended future applications of what they’ve learned. And you want them to participate in a final closing activity and complete a course evaluation survey.

Take time to collect examples, quotes, vignettes from participants to share during a final closing session – whether that be synchronous or a final open bulletin board or video, or simply a final forum posting.

Showcase session(s): Depending on the size of your group, you may schedule more than one Showcase synchronous session. We recommend keeping them to the standard one hour format and allowing only 4-5 presentations per session (to allow time for brief questions and feedback). Remind participants to post their slides, diagrams or visuals of their design and prototype learning activity in the final Studio forum. They can add further explanations or ideas there. Emphasize the importance of having other participants take on the role of the audience to support their peers.

Provide an example and a simple process to encourage those who can’t attend to create and share a screencast or audio recording that explains the final design they are asked to share in the Week 4 Studio forum.

Facilitator(s) and peer feedback: Facilitator(s) will have provided detailed formative feedback and suggestions/questions throughout each week. The final week’s feedback should include a summary and any final observations from the Showcase sessions. Acknowledge the progress each participant has made in designing and explaining their unit of learning to identify areas for growth and to encourage participants to reflect on their initial and future goals for developing and applying their learning design skills.

Encourage participants to take time to review as many final designs as they can and to provide constructive feedback.

You may choose to provide both open and private feedback to your participants for the end of the course. Make sure you refer to the criterion identified in the FLO Design rubric – the relevant learning outcomes and the quality guidelines.

Final reflective activity: Encourage participants to complete the final Looking Back/Looking Forward activity. Draw attention to the previous week’s reflections forum in the Hub and remind them of thought-provoking comments or ideas that were shared during Studio sessions.

Closing the course: An important facilitator role is to draw the course to a close and celebrate learning, connections and accomplishments. If possible, a synchronous celebration provides many opportunities for final discussions and acknowledgements. However, an asynchronous bulletin board or other online space to share final goodbyes can work as well.

During the final week, FLO facilitators will often draw the course to a close with an activity that encourages participants to take a deep breath and reflect on their learning and to think ahead to how they might use what they’ve learned in the future.

This example shows how the activity is structured and shows the use of annotated, opened licensed images and a cloud-based tool to provide an alternate way of presenting the activity.

The final challenge is to try and host a synchronous celebration of learning to close the course. Although valuable for cementing relationships and potential future connections for learning, you may have to consider an asynchronous, digital goodbye.

Post-course

Participants often feel let down at the end of such intense learning. Consider some options to continue the connection, if possible. Leave part of the course space open so participants can report back on their success or further improvements to their design.

• Within an institution, it might be possible to schedule regular check-ins with the Facilitator and interested participants.

To help you self-assess your learning progress in relation to the Learning Outcomes and the focus on collaborative learning and planning, the rubric identifies different criteria to apply to your participation and project development.

Synopsis / abstract

Title: Facilitating Learning Online (FLO) Synchronous

Purpose: This course is intended to help participants develop knowledge and skills in planning for, facilitating, and following up after facilitating synchronously online.

Mode: A facilitated asynchronous online course with mandatory and optional synchronous online sessions.

Length: Three consecutive weeks.

Expectations – Facilitators: FLO facilitators provide ongoing guidance and support throughout the course and model examples of synchronous online facilitation in three separate synchronous sessions. Facilitators attend sessions and provide feedback on the facilitation skills of participants who are taking the Practicing Facilitator track.

Time Requirements for Facilitators: Time to prepare the course before the start date will vary depending on the facilitators’ skill with the technologies used. During the course, facilitators can expect to spend approximately 15 hours per week; more time may be required to attend Practicing Facilitator sessions in the final week. First-time hosters may need even more time. Facilitators should expect to be available to the course on a daily basis.

Expectations – Participants: Participants are expected to participate fully in course activities, which are a mix of asynchronous and synchronous online activities. There are two role choices (tracks) for participants in this course — Reviewing Participant and Practicing Facilitator — allowing for flexibility in learning outcomes. Participation expectations differ depending on which track participants choose to complete.

Assessment: Facilitators attend or review all Practicing Facilitator sessions and provide informal feedback – using a structured template – to the Practicing Facilitator that is open to all course participants. All participants complete a self-assessment rubric at the end of the course specific to the track they chose to complete. Facilitators review these self-assessment rubrics before determining participants’ completion of the course.

Time Requirements for Participants: Participants should expect to spend approximately 6-8 hours for course activities each week. Participants who choose the Practicing Facilitator track or who have little previous experience can expect to invest more time.

Primary Resource for Facilitators: All materials for the FLO Synchronous course are included in an Open Learning Resource (OER) from BCcampus, available for viewing or download. This guide is based on the 2019 version of the course.

What is FLO Synchronous?

Facilitating Learning Online (FLO) Synchronous is a three-week online course that helps people develop synchronous online facilitation skills. Participants learn best practice strategies to plan for, facilitate, and follow up after synchronous online learning events. FLO Synchronous provides participants with opportunities to see and learn from examples of synchronous online facilitation and, if desired, to practice synchronous online facilitation skills in a safe environment. This course is designed for faculty and staff who would like to increase their teaching and facilitation skills within a web conferencing environment.

Participants have the option to engage with the course via one of two tracks: Reviewing Participant or Practicing Facilitator. This flexibility allows people to choose what kind of learning is best for them at the time they take the course. The Reviewing Participant track is focused on reviewing and discussing best practices in synchronous online facilitation, and providing feedback. The Practicing Facilitator track is focused on planning for, and facilitating, a short synchronous online event and receiving feedback.

In a nutshell, the first week of the course is spent exploring how to prepare to facilitate synchronously online. The second week of the course is focused on facilitation skills in online synchronous environments. The last week of the course is focused on following up after facilitating online. It’s important to note that, during the last week of the course, participants who have chosen the Practicing Facilitator track will facilitate a short online session and Reviewing Participants will need to attend Practicing Facilitators’ sessions and provide feedback.

FLO Synchronous works well with 10 or more participants and can accommodate participant numbers into the 20s, most likely with two facilitators.

Learning outcomes

There are two different sets of intended learning outcomes for the two tracks:

Reviewing participants track

By the end of the course you will be able to:

• Identify effective planning and facilitation strategies for synchronous online sessions.
• Provide effective feedback to facilitators of synchronous online sessions.
• Explain the importance of evaluation for synchronous online sessions.

Practicing facilitators track

By the end of the course you will be able to:

• Apply effective design strategies to plan for synchronous online sessions.
• Lead synchronous online sessions using appropriate facilitation skills.
• Use a web-based platform at a basic level to facilitate synchronous online sessions.
• Use reflection and feedback gathering to evaluate synchronous online sessions.

Participants

Participants who take FLO Synchronous are typically full- or part-time instructors at post-secondary institutions who are new to teaching online or have already been teaching online for some time and would like to develop teaching skills in the synchronous online mode. Participants may also include those who support teaching faculty, such as instructional/learning designers, educational consultants and learning technologists.

Other potential participants may include graduate students, consultants from the private sector, and trainers employed by for-profit or non-profit organizations.

Technology

General recommendations for technology can be found in in Chapter 3: Tools to Support FLO.

Some additional considerations for this course:

• Access to a shared collaborative space, such as Google Docs, to be used as a booking calendar.

The course content and layout

The FLO Synchronous OER from BCcampus is a complete three-week course with a collection of content, activities and resources about facilitating in synchronous online environments.

The course structure itself is divided into four sections:

• Hub
• Week 1: Preparing for Synchronous Sessions
• Week 2: Facilitating Synchronous Sessions
• Week 3: Following Up After Synchronous Sessions

The Hub

The Hub is a general section that contains:

• Course Overview. This includes course syllabus information such as a course description, descriptions of the participant tracks and related activities and outcomes, details about the Practicing Facilitator sessions, participation expectations and information about providing effective feedback throughout the course, and information about privacy and confidentiality and the course license.
• Course Schedule. This is a week-by-week schedule which is updated with new dates and times for each iteration of the course.
• Open Forum. Any participant can post to this forum. This design choice was made to bring facilitator announcements and cafe-type conversations into one place.
• A link to a booking calendar to allow Practicing Facilitators to book the use of the web conferencing platform.
• Links to two web conferencing rooms that can be used by any participant.

The Hub also contains some resources hidden from participants. These resources are provided for facilitators and may also be helpful when many facilitators from the same institution take turns facilitating the course and want to share resources with each other. Examples of hidden resources include:

• A Facilitator Resources Folder to hold lesson plans and slide decks for the three synchronous sessions that facilitators host for participants.
• Instructor-only links for the synchronous online platform that you will be using for the course.
• Any notes that past facilitators of the course want to keep inside the course for the next facilitators – or future facilitators – to see, such as recommendations for minor or major redevelopments of the course for future iterations.

Weekly sections

Each of the Week 1 through 3 sections features a poll, pages that describe that week’s activities, details about the synchronous online session being hosted by course facilitators that week, weekly course content, and a discussion forum. Week 3 also includes an upload area so participants can submit their self-assessment rubric, and a course feedback survey.

Course assessment

As noted above, all participants complete a self-assessment rubric at the end of the course specific to the track they chose to complete.

The rubric details:

• The requirements ALL participants need to complete, and
• The requirements they need to complete if they are Reviewing Participants, or
• The requirements they need to complete if they are Practicing Facilitators.

The rubric is a three-point rubric with the categories of “did not meet requirements,” “met requirements,” and “exceeded” requirements. Rubric criteria include the following for all participants:

• Participation in the synchronous sessions facilitated by the course facilitators.
• Participation in weekly discussion forums.
• Participation in weekly activities other than discussions.

As well as (for Reviewing Participants):

• Participation in synchronous sessions of Practicing Facilitators.
• Giving feedback to Practicing Facilitators.

Or (for Practicing Facilitators):

• Participating in synchronous sessions of Practicing Facilitators (note that the requirement is different than for Reviewing Participants).
• Giving feedback to Practicing Facilitators.
• Leading a synchronous online session
• Reflecting on their facilitation of their session.

Participants are tasked with completing the self-assessment rubric (FLO Synchronous Self-Assessment Rubric) by the end of the course and submitting it to course facilitators.

Facilitator task list: what you need to do before, during, and after the course

The successful hosting of FLO Synchronous requires an organized approach to planning and facilitation. A detailed facilitator task list has been developed for co-facilitators to support a successful delivery of the course.

See the FLO Synchronous Task List to review the detailed facilitator tasks alongside the following explanations. Note that not all items on the facilitator task list are further explained here, only those requiring some extra discussion and detail.

Before the course begins

Set up the two web conferencing rooms

We advise setting up two web conferencing rooms on your platform of choice because Practicing Facilitator practice sessions and real sessions may overlap, especially with a large class. Decide what type of links you want to give participants for the rooms. For example, for the first synchronous session that course facilitators will facilitate, you might want to give participants an access link that allows them to enter the room from a participant viewpoint only, and not give them access to moderator tools. Later, for the second synchronous session in Week 2, you might want to give them moderator links so you can scaffold their learning to now see things from a moderator’s perspective.

Create a booking calendar

The booking calendar is what everyone in the course will use to book space in one of the two web conferencing rooms to hold practice or real sessions at any time throughout the course. This should be a tool that everyone has access to update.

Schedule online sessions

Schedule the three synchronous online sessions that you will lead (as a facilitator) into your calendar. Because there are three pre-planned synchronous online sessions in FLO Synchronous, it is important to pick times for these and book them well ahead of the course in your calendar. Advertise the dates in advance of participant course registraiton because it is part of the course expectatations to attend at least two of the three sessions.

Create/update the lesson plan and slide deck

Create/update the lesson plan and slide deck for the first synchronous session. It is important in FLO Synchronous to model the kinds of synchronous online facilitation skills that we hope participants will be able to learn and practice in the course. (This goes for all synchronous sessions that the facilitators facilitate, not just this first one.) This includes:

• Creating and using lesson plans (not just slide decks) to model good design skills.
• Creating sessions that model the kinds of sessions we’d like to see participants design and facilitate in the course, i.e. sessions that are interactive, participatory, etc.
• Creating and including evaluations or feedback-eliciting mechanisms after each of the synchronous sessions to, again, model what we teach in the course. For example, after the first session we send out a short feedback survey to gather participants’ feedback.

If you are co-facilitating, it is important to prepare for this session with your co-facilitator. A sample slide deck for this first session is in the OER version of FLO Synchronous, in the Facilitator Resources folder.

Choose and set up the tool for the Video Introductions activity

For course introductions during Week 1, we ask participants to submit introductions by video. This activity serves a two-fold purpose: It helps facilitators and participants get to know each other, and it gives participants a chance to practice and get comfortable with recording and being seen on video.

Choose a tool that will allow participants to contribute short video clips (approx. 90 seconds) introducing themselves, and responding to one or two prompts that you provide.

It is important for facilitators to model good examples of their own video introductions. “Good”examples include having an authentic and real presence, looking at the camera, not reading verbatim from a script, etc.

Accessibility guidelines suggest providing alternative ways for learners to hear or read this content. Although informal, the content of brief introductions help learners develop a sense of community that enhances learning and promote retention. While transcripts might not be feasible, some re-sharing of introductions could be posted in alternative formats.

The Video Introductions activity also helps us achieve one more purpose within the course. In other FLO courses, such as FLO Fundamentals, we have seen that engaging in an introductions activity in the first week can sometimes take a lot of time when people are excited to begin the course and contribute a large amount of posts. This can sometimes be overwhelming for people, particularly those new to online learning. While FLO Fundamentals is a five-week course, FLO Synchronous is a shorter, three-week course. Asking participants to contribute timed video-based introductions, no longer than 90 seconds each, helps participants limit the amount of time they need to spend on an introductions activity – either contributing an introduction or responding to the introductions of others. While we still want to include introductions as part of community-building in FLO Synchronous courses, shorter video-based introductions allow us to make space for other content and activities that we also need to engage in during that first week of the course.

Decide on Tech Times sessions

Tech Times are informal times that we hold twice in the course – one in Week 1 and one in Week 2 – to allow participants a chance to informally explore and get to know the web conferencing platform that we are using. Tech Times are optional to attend and there is no set agenda. Facilitators do not need a lesson plan to host Tech Times; you simply need to show up at the appointed time and support participants to learn about aspects of the synchronous platform you are using.

Not every participant needs to attend a Tech Time but we’ve found that they can be very valuable for participants who are quite new to web conferencing technology or technology in general. Facilitators should know the platform well enough to host these technology-oriented sessions themselves, but could also invite learning technologist or IT-based colleagues at your institution to support participants as well. Tech Times can also be informal opportunities to build community and establish relationships with participants in the course. On a more practical note, they can also help course facilitators talk informally with participants about which track they might want to be on for the course.

Block time in personal calendars during Week 3

Week 3 of FLO Synchronous can be quite busy, particularly if you are facilitating the course alone. Book time in your calendar before the course begins to attend as many Practicing Facilitator sessions as you can at the end of Week 2/start of Week 3. While the course specifically indicates to participants that course facilitators may not be able to attend all sessions, it is a good idea – and a richer experience for all – if you attend as many as you can. Having a co-facilitator throughout the duration of the course helps for this with a big class! In our experience, and understandably, many more Practicing Facilitators tend to choose times for their sessions early in Week 3 rather than later in Week 2.

During the course

Week 1: Preparing for synchronous sessions

Write a welcome post

We recommend that facilitators use the Open Forum throughout the course to let participants know what is happening and to build a sense of community. Posting a welcome post to participants on the first day of the course sets the tone and practice for many similar posts to come.

Video Introductions activity

Throughout the first week of the course, facilitators should regularly monitor incoming video introductions and make sure at least one facilitator responds to every participant video. Responding to participant videos offers a welcoming course presence and allows participants to begin to get to know you as course facilitators.

First synchronous online session

At the beginning of the course, facilitators should hold their first synchronous online session. We’ve found that if the course starts on a Monday, Tuesday is a good time. The first slide of the sample deck (found in the Facilitator Resources folder in the OER version of FLO Synchronous) lists the technical skills (such as knowing how to turn on microphones, type in the chat box and raise hands) that we want participants to learn during that session. While the web conferencing platform that you choose may have slightly different tools, the concept is the same: think about the basic technical skills that you’d like participants to build during that first session, and plan your lesson and slide deck accordingly.

This first synchronous online session also starts building community with, and among, course participants. Participants get to know each other a little, talk briefly about course overview details, find out what the course is all about, and start thinking about the track they’d like to be on for the course. (Remember, they can choose from Reviewing Participant or Practicing Facilitator; participants need to choose their track by the end of Week 1.)

Additional Open Forum posts

As mentioned above, we recommend that course facilitators write posts in the Open Forum throughout the course to keep participants on track and to maintain instructor presence in the course. Opening and closing posts for every week are a good idea, and you might also need to add in extra posts for other reasons mid-week, such as:

• Posting the link to the recordings of synchronous sessions and highlighting key information for people who weren’t able to make them.
• Encouraging/celebrating participation in course activities.
• Noting upcoming events, such as the Tech Times or Practicing Facilitator sessions.
• Responding to poll results or other weekly activities.

Be in touch with participants who haven’t logged in/aren’t participating

As facilitators of online learning, one of our roles is to maintain an awareness of how engaged our participants are in the course and to use strategies to support them if their attention appears to be flagging. We do this right from the beginning of the course. A good idea is to set expectations with participants right from Week 1 about their course contributions. This is a particularly important time to see if participants have logged in and, if they haven’t, reach out to them individually to see if they need help.

Checking in with participants who haven’t yet logged in – or who logged in initially but have taken a break of several days – is a good idea to make sure they are getting over any technological hurdles with the course platform. In some cases we’ve found out, after contacting an absent participant early in Week 1, that they never received the course registration email with login details! One strategy to use with participants who have logged in but not really engaged with any activity yet is to email them individually and invite them in (or back into) the course, so they know you have noted their absence. Often these kinds of emails result in a good exchange between participant and facilitator, and sometimes illuminate events going on in the participant’s life that have just temporarily gotten in the way.

FLO courses requires a lot of commitment and participation in order to be effective. If you find out a participant is deeply struggling, perhaps from an overwhelming schedule, your role is to help them decide if now is the right time to take the course. We strongly advise against allowing participants to audit FLO courses for many reasons, the least of which is that they will not be able to achieve course learning outcomes if they do.

In other situations, a direct connection between facilitator and participant can uncover the fact that the participant is struggling with the course platform or other technology. In this case, it is a facilitator’s role to attempt to support the participant as much as you can. Sending illustrative screen captures, meeting one-on-one in a web conferencing tool (if possible) where you can share your screen with the participant to show them things, or enlisting the help of learning technologists or IT professionals at your institution, are all options to draw from to provide early technological support to course participants.

One idea to help you track interactions with your participants to ensure you engage with them fairly equally throughout the course is to use a tracking matrix. This can be a simple spreadsheet with all your participants’ names in the first column on the left and many blank columns next to them on the right. Every time you respond to a participant, make a mark in a column next to their name. Over time, you can use this matrix to try to spread out your forum post responses to participants. This may help each participant feel heard by you as their facilitator throughout the course. Here is a simple example:

Fatimah
John
Carlos
Mei

Help participants choose which track they want to be on for the course

By the end of the first week, FLO Synchronous participants must choose the track they want to be on for the course (by declaring their intention in a response to a facilitator’s Open Forum post). As mentioned above, the two tracks are Reviewing Participant and Practicing Facilitator.

Having two tracks of engagement for a course is something that needs a bit of managing. Our aim is to ensure that enough people choose the Practicing Facilitator track so everyone has enough sessions to attend in Week 3, and to see several (or many) examples of synchronous online facilitation. Say, for example, that you have a class size of 20. You wouldn’t want only two of the 20 participants to choose the Practicing Facilitator track! Ideally 6-8 participants or more would choose to go that route in that size of class.

This means that part of our role as course facilitators is to encourage participants to take a risk and choose the potentially harder track of Practicing Facilitator, when their natural inclination might be to play it safe on the Reviewing Participants track. Happily, the time that you spend in the first synchronous session and the Tech Time in Week 1 can help you uncover potentially keen participants whom you think may be willing to stretch themselves on the Practicing Facilitator track. You may be able to encourage participants on a one-on-one basis through emails or private course messages, but certainly an Open Forum post to encourage risk-taking is a good idea as well. See the image below for an example post that attempts to do just that.

Something else to keep in mind while helping participants choose their track is that FLO Synchronous offers a tremendous opportunity – because of the existence of the two tracks – for participants to take the course more than once. Some participants may wish to stay in the relatively safe zone of the Reviewing Participants track while taking the course for the first time, but challenge themselves a little more on the Practicing Facilitator track in the future.

Example: First Synchronous Session tomorrow at 12pm

By Beth Cougler Blom – Wednesday, 25 October 2017, 4:36 PM

Magnifying glass.

Consider this your encouragement! You know, for everyone “listening” here… the FLO courses are somewhat based on the ISW model… and one of the tenets of the Instructional Skills Workshop is encouraging some risk-taking to help us grow our teaching practice.

Risk-taking can look different for all of us, depending on where we are in our teaching practice. For one of us, risk-taking could be practising designing and facilitating more interactive lessons synchronous online. For another of us, risk-taking could simply be getting used to looking directly at the camera and feeling comfortable being on video.

It certainly would help our whole class out (in terms of opportunities to attend more sessions) if a few more people could be Practicing Facilitators… would anyone else be willing to take such a step, knowing that this is a safe environment and we are here to support each other’s success?

Week 2: Facilitating synchronous sessions

Early in Week 2, facilitators should hold their second synchronous online session. There are several purposes for the second synchronous session:

1. Provide time for participants to talk about their synchronous online facilitation goals using the Facilitation Session Guide (found in the Course Overview) as a point of discussion.
2. Create an opportunity for participants to experience a very active and participatory synchronous online learning environment, and see course facilitators modelling how to facilitate such an environment.
3. Give participants a chance to see and learn about the web conferencing platform from a moderator perspective.

It is important to mention that the second session should also include a feedback-eliciting activity, to (again) model that we are asking for feedback from our participants – the topic of Week 3. Since we sent a feedback form after the first session, we have included the feedback-eliciting activity within the lesson plan of the second session.

There is a sample lesson plan and slide deck in the Facilitator Resources folder in the OER version of FLO Synchronous.

Connect with Practicing Facilitators

Early in Week 2 it is important to connect with Practicing Facilitators – likely via an Open Forum post – to make sure they are aware of the requirements for their role and facilitated session. It may be worthwhile to point out the Participant Facilitation Sessions page of the Course Overview and the Facilitation Session Guide document located near the bottom of that page.

The Facilitation Session Guide is a form that you and other participants can use to capture and give Practicing Facilitators feedback after participating in their session. The Guide includes many skills, divided into sections, that have to do with facilitating synchronously online. It features blank boxes to jot down areas of particular skill and areas for improvement that you’d like to note for the practicing facilitator.

Connect with Reviewing Participants

In the same vein, it’s important early in Week 2 to connect with Reviewing Participants to ensure they know they need to be an active participant in the course throughout; they have to give feedback to Practicing Facilitators as they prepare for their facilitation, and must also participate in at least two synchronous sessions of Practicing Facilitators and give feedback to them. An Open Forum post to Reviewing Participants is a great idea to reinforce these expectations with them in Week 2. They are definitely not just auditing the course!

Mention the Self-Assessment Rubric

Remember the self-assessment rubric we discussed above? Week 2 is a good time for course facilitators to remind participants they will need to complete it at the end of the course. This is an opportunity for participants to evaluate – in an informal and formative way – their course engagement to-date and take action to potentially increase their course engagement and make more time for course activities. Reminding participants about course expectations half-way through the course is another great opportunity to set them up for success to achieve all the learning outcomes for their track by the end of FLO Synchronous.

Sample Synchros Activity

The Sample Synchros activity in Week 2 provides opportunities for course participants to watch short video examples of other people facilitating synchronously online. You may wish to replace the sample videos included in the OER version of the course with your own sample synchros, particularly as platform technology changes.

It is important to reinforce to participants that the sample synchros are not meant to provide expert examples of synchronous online facilitation. In fact, most of the sample synchros included in the OER course are recordings of faculty members learning how to facilitate synchronously online, just like your participants will be. However, providing samples of any kind allows us to facilitate a discussion about what strategies we saw the facilitators using that were effective and not. The samples provide a jumping-off point for a rich discussion about effective online facilitation strategies. (Discussion prompts are already included in the activity.)

Week 3: Following up after synchronous sessions

Practicing Facilitator sessions

The first few days of Week 3 are usually a rush of attending Practicing Facilitator sessions. Ensure that all participants know the expectations around attending these sessions. That is, we don’t just want people to show up to the session; we want them to engage in it.

Remember, you have not promised to attend all Practicing Facilitator sessions; however, you should try your best to make as many as you can (or split them up when co-facilitating so at least one of you could be at all sessions). If you need to miss a session, ensure that you watch the recording in a timely manner, fill out the Facilitation Session Guide and give robust feedback to the Practicing Facilitator by the end of Week 3.

Final synchronous session

The final synchronous session that you will facilitate in FLO Synchronous is an opportunity to gather one last time with your participants, look back on everyone’s experience in the course and reflect on learning. Not surprisingly, with this session – as with all sessions – your purpose is to showcase activities that participants can take away and use on their own, and to model effective online facilitation.

The last session also allows you to offer one last facilitation opportunity to one or more of your participants. Late in Week 2 or early in Week 3 you could mention in an Open Forum post that you’d like to invite one or more participants to co-facilitate the final synchronous online session with you. In our experience, you won’t always find a participant to step up to accept this invitation but when they do, it can be a wonderful learning opportunity for both you and the participant.

Write closing Open Forum post

Your closing Open Forum post is one of your last opportunities to make a connection with course participants and (hopefully!) leave them with a positive impression of the course. This post will likely contain last housekeeping bits of information, such as the need for participants to complete and submit their self-assessment rubric as well as the course feedback form. You should also include warm words of thanks to everyone involved for engaging in the course and wish them well on their online facilitation journeys in the future. As always, you will bring your own personal flair and authenticity to the crafting of this post.

After the course

Respond to self-assessment rubrics

While you may have had the opportunity to respond to participant self-assessment rubrics in the last days of the course – if they submitted them early – you may also need to spend some time after the course ends to finish up this last task. Remember that the self-assessment rubric is directly tied to the course outcomes. If you see an issue or a mismatch with how the participant perceives their course engagement and how you perceive it, you may wish to reach out directly by phone or email to that person to invite a discussion about their course completion.

Read course feedback forms and reflect on own facilitation

Reflection on your facilitation practice is an important part of facilitating online. Ensure you make time to read course feedback forms and debrief with any co-facilitators that you worked with throughout the course. Make notes of things that you’d like to enhance or change for next time – especially while it’s fresh in your memory! Recognize both the strengths you brought to the course as an online facilitator and what you’d like to continue to learn about and practice as you go forward on your own journey in online facilitation.

Course Date:

Facilitators: ______________________________ and _______________________________

Course set-up may be done by LMS Administrator and/or IT Support.

Please assess your own achievements in this course using the following rubric. To successfully meet course requirements, you should be able to mark yourself as having “met requirements” or “exceeded requirements” for all criteria that pertain to all participants and additionally the course track that you were on (Reviewing Participant or Practicing Facilitator).

Synopsis / abstract

Title: Facilitating Learning Online (FLO) MicroCourses

Purpose: These short courses provide an opportunity to dip into the FLO experience and leave with something practical and useful for your own teaching practice. Each MicroCourse focuses on a different topic; new MicroCourses are added as topics are put forward by educators or suggested by emergent trends. This enables educators to selectively explore relevant issues, tools and strategies. The spirit of FLO MicroCourses is to offer an open and flexible experience within a scheduled framework.

Mode: A facilitated asynchronous online course

Length: Five days

Expectations – facilitators: Facilitators provide support throughout the course and foster a comfortable and inviting space to encourage sharing of unfinished work for peer review. The facilitator does not need to be an expert in the subject area.

Time requirements for facilitators: The time commitment varies depending on the number of facilitators, their prior experience, and the number of participants. Typically, facilitators are also involved in the design of the course materials unless they are re-using a previously implemented MicroCourse. Each facilitator can expect to spend at least 5 hours during the week, more if they are providing direct feedback on the participants’ work.

Expectations – participants: Participants are expected to follow the steps for the course activities and can choose how detailed they wish to make their drafts and prototypes. However, there is an expectation that participants reciprocate with feedback; if they are offering something for peer review, they should also provide feedback to others.

Assessment: Through peer review, participants give and receive feedback, reflect on what is useful and relevant, and refine their prototypes. A peer feedback rubric is included to guide the process of giving feedback.

Time requirements for participants: Participants should expect to spend 5 hours for course activities. Those with no prior online teaching and learning experiences can expect to invest more time.

Primary resource for facilitators: All MicroCourses contain familiar elements: templates for designers and facilitators to use and modify for their specific topic. After a MicroCourse is implemented, it is made available as an Open Educational Resource (OER). Facilitators can then download a course, implement it, or completely re-work it for a new topic.

What are FLO MicroCourses?

Facilitating Learning Online (FLO) MicroCourses are five-day courses that focus on a single topic. Participants engage in a five-step process to create a draft or prototype, and then give and receive feedback. Participants  then leave with something practical and useful for their own teaching practice, whether it’s of their own creation or borrowed from their peers.

We created the concept of short FLO MicroCourses to appeal to more participants than could attend a longer course. Many participants reported being astounded at how much they learned from their first full intensive FLO course (such as FLO Fundamentals or FLO Design), and how valuable participatory and collaborative learning was. However, the length of the foundational FLO courses could be a barrier for some people. For example, it could be challenging for faculty to devote five weeks to complete FLO Fundamentals during a semester with a full teaching load. Therefore, FLO MicroCourses offer a dip into the FLO experience without the full-time commitment.

Here are some suggested topics for MicroCourses:

• Make your course intro video
• Creating and using rubrics
• Experience and design a community-building activity
• Write your teaching philosophy statement
• Design course evaluation surveys
• Metacognition: Rethinking the role of thinking in learning
• Writing a compelling discussion prompt
• Create an explainer video
• Acknowledging traditional Indigenous lands
• Design with Liberating Structures
• Teach with stories

Benefits of MicroCourses:

• They’re short, manageable chunks of productive learning.
• They provide a taste before committing to a full FLO course and allow participants to experience facilitated, active, peer-supported, outcome-based learning.
• They provide an opportunity to practice facilitation.

As outlined in Chapter 3, the mentorship model for preparing future FLO facilitators requires that we provide opportunities to practice. These short courses are a smaller time commitment for FLO facilitators than the 3-, 4- or 5-week courses, yet they provide a rich experience in both activity planning and facilitation. Offering the courses frequently, and working in teams, opens up more possibilities.

Learning outcomes

A MicroCourse provides a framework for introducing any number of topics and projects. As such, the learning outcomes change from one course to the next.

Participants

Participants who take FLO MicroCourses are typically full- or part-time instructors at post-secondary education institutions. Participants may also include those who support teaching faculty such as instructional/learning designers, educational consultants and learning technologists. Other potential participants include graduate students, consultants from the private sector and staff who work at for-profit or non-profit organizations.

There are no prerequisites for MicroCourses so participants could potentially come from any domain.

FLO MicroCourses work well with 10 or more active participants which allows for sufficient variety in the prototypes and more exposure to new ideas and examples. The course model can certainly accommodate more than 10, mainly because of the peer review element. To date, we have not placed a limit on enrolment and fully expect that not all participants will be active. Facilitators do not reach out to participants if they aren’t engaging in the course, such as they would to participants of other FLO courses.

Technology

General recommendations for technology can be found in in Chapter 3: Tools to Support FLO. Other tools can be considered on a per course basis depending on the topic of each MicroCourse.

The course content and layout

The FLO MicroCourse OERs from BCcampus are complete 5-day courses with a collection of content, activities and resources. The BCcampus MicroCourses are open to the public. Anyone can access the courses without enrolling. Also, past offerings of MicroCourses remain open for browsing. As mentioned, topics change from one course to the next; however, these course elements remain consistent.

MicroCourse Handbook

This resource outlines details about participation, course tools, and course content.

Activity Packet – 5 steps / 5 days

The Activity Packet is the core resource for MicroCourses. From this page, participants follow steps that include research, creation, review and feedback.

The activity packet includes five steps. This is an example from the ‘Write a compelling discussion prompt’ MicroCourse. You can modify the steps to suit the top of your offering, but sticking to five steps helps keep the courses consistent.

• Research phase
  • Step 1 – What? Why? What have others done?
• Creation phase
  • Step 2 – Draft it!
  • Step 3 – Post it!
• Review and feedback phase
  • Step 4 – Review and engage.
  • Step 5 – Give and receive feedback.

Announcements forum

This forum is for facilitators to welcome participants, post daily reminders and commentary on progress, and close the course. These posts are more likely to be noticed because they are in their own separate forum.

Questions & Answers / Open forum

This forum is where you ask for (and give) help/clarification/guidance. While there will be some overlap with the conversations that take place in the Sharing & Feedback forum described below, having this Q&A as a separate forum makes it easier to zone in on precisely what is relevant at that moment.

Sharing & Feedback forum

This forum is used for sharing prototypes and providing feedback. It includes prompts for presenting the work as well as for providing peer feedback.

Course assessment

There are no set requirements for completing MicroCourses. However, all participants who share prototypes receive feedback from peers and/or the facilitators. Guidelines for providing quality feedback are outlined, so in that sense, it is a self-assessment tool for rating feedback efforts. (See FLO MicroCourse Peer Feedback Rubric.)

Facilitator task list: What you need to do before, during, and after the course

The successful hosting of a FLO MicroCourse requires an organized approach to planning and facilitation. The following suggestions will support the facilitation team to successfully implement the course.

Two heads are better than one

Figure 7.1

This is what Robin Leung had to say in his “lessons learnt” report after his first MicroCourse co-facilitation experience:

I learnt that you need a co-facilitator that balances with your life well. I had a more technical background and my co-facilitator had more of the facilitation background. I am a night owl (catching most of the activities at night), and she’s the early riser (catching most of the activities in the day time). I think we complemented one another very well.

— Robin Leung

Before the course begins

Promote the course

Think about ways to advertise your course in a way that appeals to individuals from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines. The more diversity in your course the richer the discussions and feedback. In your communication, emphasize the informal and practical nature of the course, as well as the potential to leave with a full bag of ideas and examples.

Review the MicroCourse Handbook

This handbook is intended to be very general so that it can be used in every MicroCourse. However, you may need to remove any information that is not relevant to your offering.

Adjust the course dates to match your offering

In the BCcampus version of the course, the dates are listed on the main page as well as in the polling activity (within the LMS) that we use for registration. Your learning management system may also require dates to be set for each course.

Invite self-enrolment

You may choose to organize the registration process in a way that suits your institution. However, we have found that self-enrolment works well for this course because we are not limiting the enrolment.

Edit the Activity Packet

The activity packet should include all the information a participant needs to complete the five steps. This includes essential details, but also links to other resources and forums mentioned in the steps.

Create a co-facilitation plan

There is no shortage of ways to spend your time as a facilitator. With a plan for how you will divide up the tasks, you can maintain a manageable workload and avoid overstepping. For example, two concurrent responses containing similar information to a participant’s question is not value-added. You may decide to alternate days, allowing for breaks from the course or more time to simply sit back and enjoy browsing the contributions. Another possibility is to divide participants into groups and each facilitator declares responsibility for individuals in their group. This way you can ensure that all participants receive some form of acknowledgement of their work.

Open the course

Open the course a few days before the start date. This suggestion is optional, but we have found that participants are ready to roll up their sleeves on day one of the course if given this opportunity to preview what’s ahead.

Decide how participants will become acquainted

A 5-day course does not allow much time for community building! So, you may wish to create a shared Google Doc and ask everyone to respond to one or two “about me” questions. This way, everyone can stay on schedule and use their time wisely. In Moodle, we have used the Glossary tool for introductions because it avoids the subscription issues that can sometimes come with using forums. It also gives better display and sorting options and allows comments.

During the course

Write a welcome post

You may have already posted a “doors are open” announcement to invite participants to see what is ahead in the week to come. Your post on the first day should include details about what participants should attend to immediately. This conveys the fast-paced nature of the course, and zones in on exactly what is relevant for that day.

The tone of your post is important. Avoid pressuring participants to comply with course deadlines, or suggesting they are only welcome if they are committed to following the activity plan. This is an informal, adult learning environment; expect that individuals will have their own agenda.

Establishing a protocol for facilitator posts can help them to be noticed and reinforce the timeframe. For example, the subject heading for this post is Day 1: Rise and Shine. The next day’s post was Day 2: Dig In, and so on.

Acknowledge the arrival of participants

How you do this will depend on the way the course is set up. If you have included an introduction activity, facilitators should quickly respond to those who have taken this first step. If there is no planned way of “arriving” to the course, you can still send direct messages or personal email. Any effort to reach out early in the course will help establish facilitator presence.

Attend to the calls for help

Ideally, if the activity packet is clearly laid out, there won’t be too many of these. However, you should respond to any questions pertaining to the course process as quickly as possible. Make sure you coordinate with your co-facilitator who will respond.

Monitor the sharing of drafts and prototypes

It’s exciting when the prototypes begin to roll in! What is the facilitator’s role when peer review is the centre of the course design? This is an area that requires balance and judgment. The best advice is to:

1. Be concerned only if an uncomfortable amount of time goes by without any replies.
2. Only offer genuine feedback.
3. Resist the urge to be thorough, but be clear that you’re only commenting on one or two aspects of the artifact.
4. Invite participants to jump in and elaborate, using your curious voice: “I can’t wait to read others’ first impressions and advice.”

Also, consider the impact if facilitators only respond to one or two contributions. Will others feel neglected? Quite possibly! So, it’s important to establish expectations that you may acknowledge contributions but not provide comprehensive feedback. After all, other participants might have more subject matter expertise than you, and they will provide valuable feedback.

Continue with daily facilitator posts

Plan to begin each day with a forum post (announcement) that shines a light on progress, and brings attention to where participants should be in the process.

Harvest the gems!

Throughout the course, it’s useful to create a routine that brings together the resources that the participants are sharing. Often this falls on the facilitators, but certainly encourage everyone to compile and organize artifacts.

After the course

Write a closing post

Facilitators need to gauge the opportune moment to wrap up this five-day course. Since there can still be a lot of buzz on the Friday, Saturday could be better so it doesn’t look like you are checking out early, and there may still be participants busily working away on course activities. In any case, open up the opportunity for participants to share their revised prototypes even if it is past the moment of receiving further feedback. You might also suggest they can still offer encouragement and appreciation to their classmates. Also, remind participants that the course remains open, if that is how your establishment chooses to handle these courses. If you have this information, mention the upcoming MicroCourses; word of mouth is the best way to build interest in open learning opportunities!

Evaluation survey

Remind participants about the importance of providing course feedback. So much can be gleaned from these surveys! A sample basic evaluation survey can be found in Appendix 3: Generalized Course Evaluation Survey.

Facilitator debrief

Don’t part company with your co-facilitators without scheduling a debrief. It’s important to share experiences and ideas about the facilitation process, otherwise you are destined to repeat what could have been improved! Keep notes and share them with other facilitators, if possible.

Summary report

Publishing a summary of what transpired can help participants feel a sense of accomplishment, and can also help build interest in upcoming MicroCourses. Consider including participation data, quotes from the evaluation survey or forum posts. For example, this graph clearly illustrates a high level of participant engagement in the “Creating and using rubrics” MicroCourse — probably higher than anyone realized.

Figure 7.2. Member views is the top line, member posts is the bottom line. [Long Description]

This collage captures the thumbnails of videos shared during the “Create your course intro video” MicroCourse and sparked up the summary report.

Figure 7.3

Image descriptions

Figure 7.2 Long Description:

[Return to Figure 7.2]