{"id":248,"date":"2020-10-11T15:14:23","date_gmt":"2020-10-11T19:14:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0029\/?p=248"},"modified":"2020-10-21T21:06:15","modified_gmt":"2020-10-22T01:06:15","slug":"the-use-of-questions-in-facilitation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0029\/the-use-of-questions-in-facilitation\/","title":{"rendered":"The Use of Questions in Facilitation"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Our facilitation topic this past week was &#8220;The use of questions in facilitation&#8221;\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">and it spurred many of us to explore how we can better employ questions in our professional contexts.\u00a0 As a wrap-up for the week, we want to share some themes in responses to the <\/span>&#8220;Ticket out the door&#8221;\u00a0<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">activity.\u00a0 This was the guidance provided for the activity: \u201cThis week&#8217;s topic was the role of questions in facilitation.\u00a0 Upon reflection, what lingering questions do you have on this topic?\u00a0 Is there anything you would like to share about your learning this week?\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/h1>\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400;font-size: 12pt;font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">The group shared many key takeaways from the week, including:<\/span><\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\">\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400;font-size: 12pt;font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">Instructors \/ facilitators must be adept at both asking and answering questions within their learning environments.<\/span><\/h1>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\">\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400;font-size: 12pt;font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">There are many different kinds of questions and they can play different roles (e.g. exploratory questions to probe basic knowledge; prompting students by asking challenging questions).<\/span><\/h1>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\">\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400;font-size: 12pt;font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">Technology provides an opportunity to ask questions in a multitude of ways, thereby enabling us to engage more learners than we otherwise would.<\/span><\/h1>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\">\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400;font-size: 12pt;font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">The potential for bias should always be considered carefully in learning design (e.g. deportment can help or hinder the effectiveness of using questions in facilitation, depending on your audience).<\/span><\/h1>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\">\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400;font-size: 12pt;font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">Constructive controversy and asking questions are closely linked.\u00a0 For example, more ownership of the learning experience is placed with the learners themselves; questions can be deployed to support a constructive controversy environment (e.g. defuse or explore a situation).<\/span><\/h1>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\">\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400;font-size: 12pt;font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">The role of questions and the resulting \u201cmeaning-making\u201d aid learners in building both cognitive presence and social presence.<\/span><\/h1>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400;font-size: 12pt;font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;font-size: 12pt;font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">One respondent made a very interesting suggestion: \u201cWhat if &#8216;asking questions&#8217; becomes part of the team charter exercise\/document at the beginning of a workshop? Giving learners the &#8216;permission&#8217; to ask questions of others to create a better understanding of the topic\u201d.\u00a0 We think this is a wonderful idea that could help create a rich, interactive learning experience; while simultaneously supporting the application of constructive controversy, with its many benefits.<\/span><\/h1>\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400;font-size: 12pt;font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Another respondent shared a lingering question:<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u201c<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">How can we avoid bias in the development of questions for facilitation? Are there any resources devoted to this topic?\u201d\u00a0 We came across many resources that spoke to overcoming bias in facilitation, including a couple we would recommend: <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/web.stanford.edu\/group\/resed\/resed\/staffresources\/RM\/training\/facilguide.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Stanford\u2019s Guide for Facilitating Group Discussions<\/span><\/a> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">(2019) and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/royalroads.skillport.com\/skillportfe\/assetSummaryPage.action?assetid=RW$475:_ss_book:49772#summary\/BOOKS\/RW$475:_ss_book:49772\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Secrets of Facilitation: The SMART Guide to Getting Results with Groups<\/span><\/a> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">(Wilkinson, 2012).\u00a0 The latter offers valuable advice in chapter two on how to construct an effective, open-ended \u201cstarting question\u201d that will encourage rich dialogue.<\/span><\/span><\/h1>\n<h1><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In conclusion, we want to thank you again for making this week an interesting and intellectually-challenging experience. It was wonderful to see so many of you espousing the benefits of questions in facilitation, while also recognizing that care must be taken to ensure learning objectives are met.\u00a0 If you are interested in a deeper exploration of the use of questions in your facilitation practice we would highly recommend<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/link-springer-com.ezproxy.royalroads.ca\/book\/10.1007%2F978-94-6091-855-1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Socratic Classroom: Reflective Thinking Through Collaborative Inquiry<\/span><\/a> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">(Chesters, 2012), which explores Socratic pedagogy; a \u201ccollaborative inquiry-based approach to teaching and learning suitable&#8230;to all educational settings (p. vii).<\/span><\/span><\/h1>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our facilitation topic this past week was &#8220;The use of questions in facilitation&#8221;\u00a0and it spurred many of us to explore how we can better employ questions in our professional contexts.\u00a0 As a wrap-up for the week, we want to share some themes in responses to the &#8220;Ticket out the door&#8221;\u00a0activity.\u00a0 This was the guidance provided &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0029\/the-use-of-questions-in-facilitation\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The Use of Questions in Facilitation&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lrnt528"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0029\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0029\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0029\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0029\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0029\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0029\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":259,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0029\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248\/revisions\/259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0029\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0029\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0029\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}