4

Getting Started

What’s Inside This Chapter

• Getting to know your audience prior to learning and as learning begins

• Paying attention to room setup and the physical environment

• Using your own behavior and style

• Using effective opening activities to set the tone

• Personalizing your facilitation

Getting started on the right foot for a learning event can make a huge difference in how much learning takes place throughout your course. You need to put the learners at ease, learn about them, set the expectation for participation and involvement, and ultimately create a climate that supports and enhances learning.

Know Your Audience

In an ideal situation, you have all the information you need about your audience before your course, so that you can begin tailoring your facilitation to the needs of the specific learners. The course designer’s or leader’s guide should provide you with the following information about the learners:

• skill and background levels relevant to the content you will be facilitating, and the mix you will have of experienced and not-so-experienced learners

• job context information:

whether the participants work alone or in groups

levels of activity and movement they are accustomed to

where they are in their work cycle when they come to you (for example, if they’ve just finished a graveyard shift and are coming to your class exhausted)

• learning styles and preferences, and types of learning activities that they are accustomed to (and not accustomed to!)

• flexibility, openness to change, and willingness to try new learning modes and ways of doing things

• expectations the learners have for the course and attitudes they have toward the subject and the learning program

• circumstances under which the learners are present at the learning event (is it a mandatory course, do they need to improve job performance, or are they preparing for impending changes?).

In online and virtual classroom environments, learners can post their bios, which provides details about their education and experience. This is then readily accessible to the facilitator and other learners.

If you don’t have this information and you have time prior to the learning event, you could collect it through interviews, surveys, or focus groups with a sample of the learners. Alternatively, you can speak with the learners’ supervisors or other facilitators who have worked with them. There may be evaluation data from other courses these learners have participated in that you can consult, or organizational data regarding the learners (performance reports, quality reports, employee attitude surveys, and so forth) may be available.

If you don’t have this information or time to collect it prior to the course opening, you have two options. You can prepare a couple of contingency activities based on what you deduce to be some of the most likely information. Alternatively, you can develop an opening activity that will allow you to gather some of the information.

Creating the Climate for Learning

Critical aspects of creating a climate for learning include setting up the room and adjusting physical environment factors before the learning event; preparing yourself for the facilitation experience; greeting the learners as they arrive; making the learners feel comfortable as they arrive; and conducting opening activities.

Room Setup and Seating Arrangements

How a room is set up is an important part of creating the learning climate and can be an important factor in enhancing—or hindering—the learning. Because of this, you will want to give thought as to how your room is set up. Of course, there may be limits as to how much you can do to set or reset a room. Some examples will help clarify these limits:

• Example 1: You’re taking a workshop on the road and delivering it in hotels. The hotel indicates that the room will hold up to 30. Because you only expect 16-20 participants, there should be plenty of room, right? Not necessarily! Many hotels determine the room capacity by lecture style. You can get many more people in a room that is set up lecture style than you can with a round or U-shaped setup. In addition, the capacity does not tell you the room’s dimensions. Many hotel rooms are rectangular and narrow with columns. This configuration is not ideal.

• Example 2: You’re taking the workshop to another company location. They have a room they use for training that is the right size and has the media requirements. You later realize that they use the room for computer skills training or another type that has fixed desks, usually lecture style. Again, this limits your capability to do small group work and lead facilitative discussion.

• Example 3: In many cases, you will want to use breakout rooms for group activities, so you have to make sure that the rooms have the necessary supplies. If you indicate that you need charts in the breakout rooms and you get whiteboards, there is a problem. Participants cannot take a whiteboard back to the main room for read outs. Can they copy it over? Yes, but this takes additional time, and others will not be able to see their work. In addition, breakout rooms are often spread out or on different floors, which limits your ability to monitor and coach the various groups.

• Example 4: Some locations have an executive boardroom or meeting room, which may be in an auditorium and pit style. Such rooms are good for making presentations, but they are not good for facilitating learning. The image of meeting in the executive room is nice, but the learning will suffer.

So, what’s the point of these examples? You have do a little research and be sure the room is appropriate for the type of learning experience you are facilitating. If it is not appropriate, do all you can to change rooms, and be very explicit about your needs. Short of that, you may need to be creative to make the room work.

Let’s look at some factors that will help you determine your required room setup. For example, how many participants will you have in the learning experience? What type of activities will the participants be engaged in? Group activities require rounds or team tables. How many teams are you going to have? How many members to a team? Will each team require a flipchart or other audiovisual equipment? How much facilitated discussion and participant interaction will you have? What physical limitations will the room have? These include narrow versus wide floor plans, pillars, folding doors, irregular walls, the amount of windows versus wall space, and wall surfaces for hanging visuals on the walls.

Your Space

How you set up the front of the room and the rest of the room is a reflection of your style and comfort. Your first decision is determining where the front of the room will be, given the existence of windows, sunlight, doors, and refreshments.

An open style, which requires just a front table to hold your materials and a side table for handouts, is a highly recommended layout. In the open setup, there is no podium or stand. Although a podium gives you something to hide behind or cling to with white knuckles if you get nervous, it also creates a barrier between you and your participants. Podiums restrict facilitator movement, limit learner interaction with the facilitator, and cause the learners to take passive roles. Should you ever use a podium or lectern in a learning program? Rarely, if ever. Podiums and lecterns are fine for presentations, but they are not conducive to facilitated learning. It is far better to move around and interact with the learners.

You may want to use one or two flipcharts, placed to the side. If you are using a screen, it should be mounted either directly behind you or to the side. However, keep in mind that screen mounting can be a real issue. In some cases, you have no options because screens are permanently mounted. If the screen is directly behind you, be aware that you may block the learners’ view. Therefore, you will need to move to the side. If the screen is in the corner of the room, learners have a better view and there is less likelihood that you will become a visual barrier. However, depending on how far back and the angle, learners seated on the same side as the screen may have some trouble seeing it. You will need to set the screen once the rest of the room is set.

Types of Learner Setups

There are many ways to set up a room, depending on the type of learning program you are facilitating. Here are seven different examples and the theories behind them, along with what to consider about each.

Rounds Setup

The term rounds refers to a setup that uses multiple round tables at which learners are seated, as in Figure 4-1. Rounds are good for group sizes of 16 to 24, with four to six people at a table.

The rounds are placed throughout the room for maximum visibility and the facilitator is set up in the front with the required tables. Flipcharts can be placed beside the rounds for group work, with the flipcharts for the center rounds placed to the side of the room. Sometimes, you may not have actual round tables; you might have small rectangular tables instead. In this case, you can put two tables together for added seating and work space. You could also develop the T-effect by placing two tables at a 90-degree angle to each other.

Rounds are great to use when you are going to do a lot of small group work. This layout allows easy group interaction, creates a friendly and open environment, and provides a large surface to work on. It also allows the facilitator to work the room by walking among the rounds.

Rounds do require a fairly large room to allow for the tables, flipcharts, and movement. If the room is too small and everyone is crowded together, you lose some of the benefits of that open environment and freedom of movement. Another issue to watch out for is visibility. Rounds, if not properly set up, can cause some learners to have difficulty seeing your work at the front.

Figure 4–1. Rounds Setup

U-Shaped Setup

This layout has two sets of tables parallel to each other, making two sides of the U, while another set of tables is horizontal (at 90 degrees to the parallel tables) at the back, as in Figure 4-2. The inside of the U is open. There may be a facilitator’s table at the front, but it does not close the space. The number of tables in a U-shaped setup depends on three factors:

• total number of learners; the optimum is usually 12 to 18

• number of learners that can be seated at an individual table comfortably

• size of the room.

The U-shaped configuration is good for allowing learners and small teams (two or three learners) to interact with one another. This setup also allows the facilitator freedom of movement within the U to build rapport and enhance communication. It also provides good visibility of the front of the room.

The U-shape must fit the room. If the room is narrow, you may have a U that is too narrow and too deep, which can actually hinder communication because the learners at the back table are too far from the front learners to effectively communicate. Learners may also have a difficult time walking around the outside of the U if the room is too narrow.

This setup is not conducive for having learners work in groups of more than three or four. If you want to create teams of five or six, have the teams move to workstations with flipcharts in another part of the room.

Figure 4–2. U-Shaped Setup

Conference Setup

The conference setup, shown in Figure 4-3, involves several learners sitting around a conference table and is similar to the U-shaped setup.

The table shape can be oblong or rectangular. You then have the option of sitting at the head, which indicates a leadership position, or joining the group by sitting in another seat. Although good for more formal presentations, the conference setup does not work well for facilitating learning experiences. It is difficult to have team-work exercises, limits your choice of media, presents a problem for storing handouts, and hinders your movement among the learners.

Figure 4–3. Conference Setup

Classroom Setup

The classroom configuration, in Figure 4-4, has been the traditional setup for the last century. In this layout, rows of tables and chairs are set up facing the facilitator, who stands at the front. The facilitator usually works from a table with a side table for materials.

The classroom setup is not recommended for facilitating learning experiences. By its very nature, this setup places the facilitator as the focal point of the attention—quite the opposite goal of facilitated learning, in which learners play the primary role while the facilitator guides the learning.

Classroom setups do not allow for teamwork or good group communication and discussion. There is also the problem of visibility: Learners in back rows cannot see the front of the room, and the facilitator cannot see those in the back of the room. It is also hard for learners to see and talk with one another. This is especially true if the room is deep and narrow. Add a column or open panel doors and you really have a problem.

Figure 4–4. Classroom Setup

Chevron Setup

This setup is like a classroom setup except that the tables are angled. It uses rows of tables, which are aligned one in front of the other at an angle to form a V-shape, as shown in Figure 4-5.

As with rounds, this setup allows the facilitator to move into the group for better interaction. It also allows for small group teamwork using triads at a table. The chevron setup can accommodate larger groups, while still providing some visibility of the front. This layout is also conducive to using several forms of media, but it does have some drawbacks.

As is true for the classroom configuration, the chevron setup restricts good interaction among the learners. Who likes to look at and talk to the back of another’s head? In addition, those in the back may still have a problem seeing the front and hearing all the comments.

Figure 4–5. Chevron Setup

Hybrid or Fishbone Setup

This setup combines the U layout with the chevron and is used when there are too many learners for a good U and when the room is wide enough to accommodate the breadth of tables. In this setup, you create the U first and then develop a chevron layout within the U, as shown in Figure 4-6.

This layout allows the facilitator to move within the tables to increase communication. It also allows for better group communication than the chevron alone. With larger groups, learners are able to be close together, which increases facilitator and learner visibility. Teamwork is a little easier because those inside the U can work with those beside them or behind them. Flipcharts will need to be placed outside the U. However, there is still the issue of some learners looking at the back of the heads of others.

Figure 4–6. Hybrid or Fishbone Setup

A Reality Check on Room Setup

Here are some tips to help you manage the realities of setups:

• Always arrive at least an hour early on the first day. In hotels, this buffer gives you a chance to check the room and have it set or reset under your guidance.

• If you can’t make setup changes before the beginning of the learning experience, make the changes at lunch or before the start of the next day.

• If using a company training room, make sure it can accommodate your desired setup. If not, change rooms.

• If you use breakout rooms, make sure that they have the equipment and supplies required and are in close proximity to your room.

• Be sure the room can accommodate your media. Not all rooms have sufficient wall space (due to windows) for projection or hanging flipchart pages. Some rooms are not equipped or configured for computer projection. If a room is narrow and deep, the learners may be too far away to read your prepared flipcharts or wallboards.

• Avoid using a room with columns if possible because they can be a logistical nightmare. If you must use a room with columns, try to make the seating arrangement fit within the columns, even if this makes the usable part of the room narrower.

• Determine the amount of wall space you need for posting flipcharts and group work, as well as wallboards and posters.

• Windows can be a problem. There is always the issue of learners gazing outside, especially if it is a fine spring day! In addition, too much natural light can cause media problems. If the room does have windows, be sure you can close the blinds or drapes. Although you don’t want a drab room, too many open windows can detract from the learning.

• Be sure the room is not located in a high-traffic area; this is especially true for programs delivered in outside facilities.

• When leaving the room for lunch and breaks, be sure you can secure the room. You don’t want participants’ laptops and other possessions to disappear.

• If the course covers several days, make sure the cleaning crew does not throw out the work that has been done. More than one facilitator has lost a good day’s work when all the charts have been removed from the walls or team tables.

Other Physical Environment Factors

In addition to room setup, there are other factors that you should consider when preparing the room for a learning program.

Temperature

The room must be comfortable—not too hot or too cold. Don’t forget that the more bodies in the room, the higher the temperature will be. Check the room thermostat and adjust it accordingly. If the temperature is centrally controlled, find out how to make adjustments before the program begins.

If you cannot control the temperature, the best alternative is to find another room. If that is not possible, and the room will remain cold, let the learners know that they should bring a jacket or sweater. If the room will remain hot and you can’t change rooms, be sure to provide water, and consider changing the course schedule to use the room when it is at its coolest.

Peripheral Materials and Methods

Having posters on the wall and handouts on the table that are relevant to your course content makes the room seem less sterile and gives learners something to look at and talk about when they arrive. Providing tablets and writing utensils is a nice touch. You also want to have nametags or name tent cards available so the learners can identify themselves for you and one another. If your course content includes equipment or job-site materials, having samples of those on the tables enhances learning.

Some facilitators put small toys or puzzles on the tables. These provide opportunities for learner interaction, keep faster learners occupied while waiting for slower learners to complete an activity, and are important for kinesthetic learners—they will actually play with the items during the learning event to stay engaged with the content. However, you must manage this. Some learners play with these toys to the point of being a distraction.

Refreshments

Having water available is important, and having other refreshments, such as coffee, tea, soft drinks, and even food is a nice touch. Consider the following tips regarding refreshments:

• Have caffeinated and caffeine-free beverages available and always have water on hand.

• Candy is a nice touch to have on tables; hard candy is better than soft because there’s less opportunity for mess, and they can also help suppress coughing if need be.

• Plan to have beverages replenished regularly not only to keep an adequate supply, but also to keep the coffee fresh.

• If providing food, don’t provide only high-sugar items such as donuts, pastries, and cookies. Some learners want and need low-sugar items such as bagels and fruit. Also, consider including a high-protein item like cheese cubes.

Preparing Yourself

There is no worse feeling for a facilitator than to enter the learning environment unprepared. Thus far we’ve addressed knowing as much as possible about the learners, knowing your course content, and knowing the leader’s guide with learning activities. Subsequent chapters discuss knowing your activities, sequence, and pace. And here are even more tips:

• Get a good night’s sleep before the learning event.

• Do some stretching exercises prior to entering the room.

• Walk around the room and make sure that everything can be seen from every seat. Check for loose cords on the floor and other hazards.

• Memorize the first few sentences you will say.

• Practice with the audiovisual equipment. (This point cannot be repeated too many times!)

• Choose comfortable clothing (especially shoes) that makes you feel good and look professional. A nice guideline is to dress one step above your audience. For example, if your audience wears work uniforms on a plant floor, you might want to wear khakis and a golf shirt. If your audience is business casual, you may want to wear a tie or suit.

• Keep water with lemon available in case your throat gets dry.

• Breathe deeply before you begin talking; if your breath gets short during the first few minutes (hyperventilation), breathe deeply in through your nose and out through your mouth a few times. You can even do this surreptitiously while a participant is making a comment or asking a question.

• Keep your knees slightly flexed; if you lock your knees, your circulation may become impeded and cause you to become lightheaded.

• Smile, relax, and have fun!

When facilitating in an online or virtual environment, you need to think about some of the previously mentioned guidelines, but this new environment is different and thus involves thinking about other things. To prepare yourself for the virtual or online classroom, follow these guidelines:

• Participate in a train-the-trainer program designed for facilitating the virtual classroom if you are a novice in the virtual classroom or online environment. Consider co-facilitating a virtual classroom delivery for practice.

• Prepare yourself for facilitating a session where there are no visual cues from the participants and where there may be more of a lag time between your questions and their answers. Try working with a peer using the phone—call them and ask a question, and then have them delay responding for about five seconds.

• Practice vocal skills (no monotone, have energy and conviction); this is an important connection to the learners.

• Make sure you are comfortable with a hands-free headset, allowing you to speak and annotate at the same time.

• Have the number for technical support readily available.

• Build rapport with the participants.

• Send a welcome message to all participants at least a day before the first session.

• Check all microphones before beginning the session.

• Keep your email running to communicate with any participants who try to contact you.

You should also learn and become familiar with the technology and the capabilities of the virtual classroom, including how to:

• Get online and enter the classroom; be able to reconnect if the Internet connection goes down.

• Start or stop the session recording.

• Access and use any media, including PowerPoint presentations, videos, documents, the whiteboard.

• Recognize when a participant has a question or comment, or is distracted. Many systems have an icon to let you know when a participant is not being attentive.

• Engage participants in polling, which can be used for taking real-time surveys.

• Send a private message to individuals or a public one to all participants.

• Encourage chats for real-time communication between learners, as well as between learners and facilitator.

• Share presenter or moderators rights so that participants can lead a discussion or make a presentation.

• Mute your mic or that of a participant.

• Use the emoticon tools, including:

the green check mark, which usually means agreement

the red x, which usually means no or disagree

smiley faces, which usually indicate mood

a coffee cup, which usually means away

an exclamation mark, which means check for their attention

a raised hand, which is for making a comment or asking a question.

Aside from these guidelines, it is the organization’s responsibility, not the facilitator’s, to prepare the learners for the online and virtual classroom environment.

Greeting the Learners

Be in your room for a suitable time before the start of the course so that you can greet learners as they arrive. Try to arrive at least 30 minutes before the start time. On the first day, you should plan to arrive earlier so you can make sure the room is arranged properly, as well as distribute material, hang wallboards and posters, check the audiovisual equipment, and make other preparations. Once the participants start arriving, welcome them by introducing yourself and shaking hands. Show them where to sit, what materials are available, and where the refreshments are located.

For the virtual classroom and online learning, send a welcome message to introduce yourself, provide an overview of the course, and attach course objectives and expectations. Provide your bio to all learners and ask the learners to provide their bios. Reading the learners’ bios can help give you a sense of their experience, knowledge, and skills. You can also encourage the learners to read one another’s bios.

In the first virtual class, briefly introduce yourself and consider asking participants to provide brief introductions. In addition, have the learners download the course objectives and expectations for viewing, and be sure to ask if there are any questions. Use your communication skills to develop rapport. Listen to participants’ ideas and comments and incorporate them in the discussions. Use their names when interacting with them, which should be relatively easy because you have a visual roster of everyone in the session.

Huggett (2013) states that a geographically dispersed audience feels disconnected and the facilitator needs to develop a sense of community for a more collective experience. An icebreaker can help reduce barriers or learner inhibitions. Another option for continued community development is the coffee shop forum. Here learners share more personal and family information like vacations, job changes, and accomplishments and recognitions. Remember, the threaded discussions, discussion boards, team discussion forums, and chat can also engage learners and build commonality in thought and application to the job.

Your Physical Presence

Remember at the beginning of the book when the assumption was presented that you already possess basic presentation skills? This is where much of your physical presence comes into play. Here are some things to focus on and remember:

• Modulate your voice by changing your pitch and volume appropriately. Monotone puts people to sleep. Also, watch out for the rising inflection some people put at the end of a sentence—it makes every sentence sound like a question! This also applies to the virtual classroom. Modulating your voice in this environment can be more difficult because there may not be a visual connection. So, be careful of becoming monotone.

• Use a physical stance that feels comfortable for you. You may want to videotape yourself and watch for distractions you may not be aware of (for example, playing with a marker or paperclip while speaking, too many gestures, or not enough gestures). Some tips:

Place your feet firmly on the floor.

Flex your knees slightly.

Maintain an erect posture.

Keep your hands away from your face and out of your pockets.

Watch out for distracting physical habits.

• Take your time; don’t speak or move too fast. Use a pace that feels comfortable. This also applies to the virtual classroom.

• Make eye contact with all the participants as you speak. This would only be applicable to the virtual classroom if there were individual cameras in use or possible videotaping.

Learners will mirror your physical energy, sometimes at an unconscious level. Model the energy level you want to create with your posture, tone of voice, and physical movement. If you sit down or lean against a table, or model low energy in some other way, they will do it too, by leaning back in their seats, not participating, and so forth. Don’t allow yourself to droop physically—especially right after lunch. The learners will follow your example, and you’ll all be snoozing! If your session is being videotaped for later distribution, these ideas also apply.

Opening Activities

When your course begins, the first things that happen set the tone for the rest of the time you are with your learners. It’s tempting and feels organized to the facilitator to make the first activity informational—that is, the facilitator does the talking and it’s all about “Welcome, here’s who I am, here’s our schedule and agenda, here’s where the restrooms are, and so on.” However, this is not the best way to begin.

When you start the program in a way that forces the learners to be passive, you set the tone for passivity for the rest of the course, which makes it more difficult to engage the participants. Additionally, this puts the focus on you, not the learners, and that breaks the cardinal rule: It’s about them! Instead, get the learners active and involved with each other in the first activity. You not only demonstrate engagement and involvement early on, but also will increase the learners’ comfort level with one another.

In addition to setting a participative tone, good opening activities help the learners relax and become receptive to learning. Your opening activity can help break the ice and encourage sharing. For example, you can go around the room and ask the participants how many years of experience they have. Add up those numbers on a flipchart to see how much collective experience resides in the room. Another idea is to have the learners introduce themselves. An active way to do this is to have learner pairs interview each other and then introduce each other to the group.

You can also conduct some quick, on-the-spot polls, surveys, or discussions that give you more information about the learners’ backgrounds and skills. Or, introduce some group activities to gather the learners’ expectations of the course. Then, when you present the agenda, you can refer to their comments. These ideas can also be incorporated in the virtual classroom.

Here are some important considerations for choosing your opening activity:

• Make sure the comfort level is a good match for the learners at hand.

• The shorter your course, the shorter your opening activity should be. For a four-hour course, your opening activity might take 15 minutes; in a multiple-day course, it might take two hours. A five-day course might have an opening activity that takes the entire first morning. It’s your call to decide what needs to happen to set the stage for your content and for learning.

• If your learners already know one another, focus the opening activity on content or on their expectations, not just on introductions.

• Watch out for the silliness factor: Depending on your audience and organization culture, you might not want to go very far in the opening activity. As long as you create active involvement and participation, that’s OK. Even a small group discussion in which they share, then a large group in which you collect what they shared, is still participative.

When your opening activity is over, and learners are relaxed and comfortable, that’s the time to launch into the introductory material, sometimes called housekeeping items. For the virtual classroom and online learning, these may include:

• a review of the course objectives, deliverables, and expectations

• an explanation of the master table and learning modules, team discussion forum, coffee shop, threaded discussions, and discussion boards

• how to use chat

• how to submit work

• the various forums.

Discuss any preferred contact times (office hours) and methods of communication (email, Skype, and any internal communication system). You should also indicate how and when feedback will be provided.

Ground rules are behavioral expectations that the facilitators and learners have of one another to support the learning. Developing ground rules can be an excellent opening activity. Depending on your assessment of which activity will work best, you can:

• present a list of proposed ground rules and facilitate an activity in which the learners react to and revise them

• facilitate an activity in which the learners propose their own ground rules and then come to consensus or vote on them.

When the ground rules are established, post them so they are always visible. Learners should decide on a way to call out one another if a ground rule is broken. Depending on the formality of the environment, this can be as low key as pointing it out verbally, all the way to throwing paper wads at the offender.

Ground rules are also important for the virtual classroom. These can be developed in an activity format, charted on an electronic whiteboard, and then electronically posted for the remainder of the course. A team charter can set the ground rules for team expectations, roles and responsibilities, and resolving issues. Online learners also need to know the facilitator’s expectations for assignments, interaction, mutual communication, coaching and feedback, and learner flexibility.

Many of your ground rules can be tailored to the organizational environment. Some typical ground rules that work in many environments include:

• All learners participate actively.

• No question is a dumb question.

• Return punctually after breaks and lunch.

• Turn off or set cell phones to silent mode and return calls during breaks.

• Challenge each other respectfully.

• No interruptions or side conversations will be tolerated except course-related chats for the virtual classroom.

• Ask questions and make comments that will help make the learning yours.

• Everyone has the right to pass the course.

• Discussions that occur in the room stay in the room to maintain confidentiality.

Some additional ground rules for the virtual classroom could include:

• Raise your hand to comment or ask a question.

• Mute your mic when not speaking.

• Use emoticons when appropriate.

• Enter the session on time.

• Check the microphone to ensure it is working properly.

• Know how to chat or provide written comments (privately to the facilitator or for group viewing) when appropriate.

• Don’t engage in other web searches while in class.

Personalizing Your Facilitation

Another aspect of getting the learning off to a good start is personalizing the course and materials so that they reflect your expertise and style as a facilitator. The more the materials fit you, and the more comfortable you are, the more conducive the climate is to learning. Personalization allows you to capitalize on your own talents.

Your Materials

One aspect of personalization is simply reviewing the materials and knowing what comes first, next, and so on. Identify the content that you think is most critical and plan how you will emphasize it. Identify the content areas that you want to expand on when you get to that part. Think about and prepare for the most likely learner questions and comments.

Examples and Stories

Prepare examples and war stories from your own experiences that will illustrate content points. Practice telling these stories so that you are prepared to emphasize the points that are most illustrative. You can even leave out part and then finish it later, or you can ask the group, “What do you think happened next?”

Winging it with examples and stories doesn’t work. You can get off schedule in a big way. If you select a story or example to tell on the spot, you might end up stealing your thunder for a later content point. Or, you could get to the end and realize that the main point isn’t really relevant to the content at hand. Some facilitators even get to the end of a spur-of-the-moment story and realize that not only does it not make a point, but the punch line is offensive. Always think through your examples and stories.

Humor

Speaking of punch lines, humor in general must be addressed. Appropriate jokes and funny stories can be very effective in making a point and establishing a comfortable climate. Here are a few tips for using humor, jokes, and funny stories:

• The humorous item must be relevant to the learning and content at hand.

• Telling a story or joke just for fun takes the learning off track.

• Practice telling it so you know what to emphasize or exaggerate, and so you don’t forget the punch line.

• Make sure your joke or story is clean. This cautionary note may seem obvious, but for some facilitators, it isn’t. Using even mild curse words is offensive to some learners, and it makes you look unprofessional. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that if your audience swears, you can, too. Part of your role is to model professional behavior.

• Be sure the joke or story can be told effectively in the online or virtual environment.

The other caveat that should be obvious is to avoid using jokes or stories that stereotype racial groups, age groups, ethnic groups, the sexes, or other characteristics of people that are not related to the learning experience. That includes your own group, whatever it may be! It’s not OK to make jokes about your own ethnicity, age, sex, or whatever, because not all folks who are like you will agree with you. And, joking about one’s own group doesn’t give license to joke about other groups!

Use humor to be inclusive, not exclusive. All the learners might not get the joke if you make a humorous reference to a current event or a current movie. Be prepared to explain the punch line, or don’t use the reference at all. One of the worst things a facilitator can do is exclude a learner.

One last point about stories and humor: If telling jokes and stories isn’t your strong suit, it’s perfectly OK not to do it. There are other personalization methods that might work better for you. Some people are simply not good storytellers: They are too fast or too slow, or they forget the punch line!

Take advantage of your uniqueness. After all, the word personalize means that you can do something that comes from your own talents to enhance the learning. Are you a juggler, an amateur magician, a poet, a songwriter, or an artist? The list of talents that you can use to make learning points goes on and on. Here’s an example: A facilitator was a professional rock musician in a former life. In a course about teamwork, he divided his class into small groups and gave them all percussion instruments (triangles, maracas, finger cymbals, and so forth). He taught each small group a specific rhythm with their instruments and allowed them to practice. Then, he had one group begin with their rhythm and had each group add their rhythms one by one until the whole room was rocking with an orchestrated percussion beat. What better way to make learning points about teamwork and synergy?

Getting It Done

This chapter discussed the many factors involved in preparing for a learning event and establishing the learning environment. Now, in Exercise 4-1, you have an opportunity to assess yourself using a checklist and to make plans to accomplish the items that you haven’t yet completed.

Exercise 4–1. Are You Ready to Facilitate a Learning Event?

For the planning list below, check yes or no to indicate whether you have performed the task. If yes, summarize the results or findings; if no, list the actions you will take to complete the task.