What is facilitation and how can it be used by youth workers and teachers? Basic principles and necessary components, its meaning and purpose. Group dynamics and its basic principles.


What facilitation is


Facilitation is a way for trainers to help students learn, remember, and use the information and skills they are learning. Participants are given an overview of the topic before they can ask questions. The trainer leads the conversation, does things to make the learners' experience better, and gives ideas. But rather than carrying out the group's tasks for them, they direct students toward a particular learning objective.

Five facilitation strategies that help learners stay engaged:

  • Define success in advance so that activities can be made to help students reach a certain goal.

  • Prepare everything thoroughly, including yourself, the learning environment, and the material.

  • Start with an impact so that learners are engaged, excited, and in control from the start.

  • Keep people interested throughout the session by giving them different ways to learn, like questions, role plays, practice exercises, and chances to share their own experiences and learn from each other.

  • Handle dysfunction, which happens when a learner shows displeasure with the training's goal, content, method, or outside factors, whether consciously or unconsciously.

Check it also here:

https://www.roffeypark.ac.uk/knowledge-and-learning-resources-hub/what-are-facilitation-skills-and-how-do-you-facilitate/


Facilitator Skills


Facilitators can be from any background and have many different levels of experience. The best facilitators, on the other hand, have these skills:


Listening

A facilitator must pay attention and hear what each learner or team member has to say.


Questioning

A facilitator should know how to ask questions that don't have a right or wrong answer and get people talking.


Problem solving

A facilitator should know how to use group problem-solving techniques, such as:


  • defining the problem,

  • figuring out what caused it,

  • thinking about different solutions,

  • weighing the pros and cons of each,

  • choosing the best solution,

  • putting it into action, and evaluating the results.


Resolving conflict

A facilitator should know that disagreements among group members are normal and don't need to be stopped as long as they are expressed in a polite way. We should expect and deal with conflict in a positive way.


Using a participative style

A facilitator should encourage all learners or team members, depending on how comfortable they are, to take part in meetings and contribute. This means making sure the group members feel safe and comfortable enough to share their thoughts and feelings.


Taking care of others

A facilitator should keep an open mind and not criticize learners' or group members' ideas and suggestions.


Empathizing

To understand how the learners or team members feel, a facilitator should be able to "walk a mile in someone else's shoes."


Leading

A facilitator needs to be able to keep the training or meeting on track to reach the goal that was established up front.


Check it also here:

https://www.mentimeter.com/blog/great-leadership/the-7-key-traits-of-an-excellent-facilitator


Team development


In business, teams are typically praised. If the team isn't functioning, either because the members can't get along or the talents are out of balance, then substantial, typically negative difficulties might occur. Business suffers. Teams abound. They grow, mature, and die.

Tuckman identifies five phases of team growth.

The first stage is called "forming." This is when the team members get together and decide what the team is for and how it will work.At this point, the team is just a group of people getting to know one another or debating the ambiguous mission. This expensive and time-consuming step is necessary to assure team members' comfort.

Second, storming. The term refers to questioned views, values, and behavior. The team's responsibilities are contested. This dispute is positive since it builds trust, and if the people succeed, a stronger team will result.

The third stage is norming, which is when the team sets up the routines it will use to work. The team is settling down, testing ideas, and establishing standards. Also, patterns of behavior are set, trust is built, and the ways that decisions will be made are decided.

By the time the performing stage is reached, the team is complete and is able to perform effectively.

Role, conflict, and adjustment concerns are addressed.

Many teams reach the final dorming stage. The team gets comfortable, loses interest, and self-preservation dominates.

Five phases are recommended for all teams. If the team loses or adds members or the external environment imposes fundamental changes, it may regress.

Watch this video:


Team Dynamics


Team development is however only one dimension in understanding the importance of the ways in which teams work. All teams are a matter of balance and the team members fulfill two roles. The primary role is the skill or function for which the individual was appointed to the team in the first place. This is usually the individual's professional role.

The secondary role is the team role based on the individual's preferred behavior pattern. All the team roles are needed for a team to be successful, the team role being in addition to the members bringing their own disciplines and skills. It is also possible that members have more than one team role skill, although one will usually dominate. The team role may change, depending on the task and the number of team members to avoid the problem of team imbalance (See Annex I). Belbin describes eight team roles:


  • The coordinator leads, presides, and organizes activities; he or she is balanced, disciplined, and excellent with people.

  • The implementer is the administrator and organizer who puts ideas into jobs and assignments. This individual is efficient, trustworthy, and unexcited.

  • The shaper is a high-strung extrovert. - task-driven to the point of passion, he or she is a force for action

  • The plant is an introvert who is academically clever and inventive.

  • The resource investigator is the team's social extrovert, a source of new connections but not ideas.

  • The monitor-evaluator is not creative but analytically brilliant; they evaluate ideas and detect mistakes and defects.

  • The team worker is supportive, empathetic, and popular with the team, but only noticed when missing.

  • The complete-finisher appreciates the details, pushes the team to reach objectives, and views urgency and follow-through as crucial.

Later study indicated a specialized function. This individual joins the team when expert or particular guidance is needed. This new job is a result of more project teams.

Further reading: The Nine Belbin Team Roles:
https://www.belbin.com/about/belbin-team-roles