I have outlined my initial response to this course’s focus on Digital Facilitation in a 3 (Questions) – 2 (Thoughts) – 1 (Simile) format below. I look forward to revisiting these thoughts and questions at the end of our course.
3 THOUGHTS about Digital Facilitation
I believe…
- it is important for a facilitator to give frequent and specific feedback and feedforward in a digital learning environment.
- it is important to incorporate some kind of ice-breaker and community building activity at the beginning of a new group of learners’ experience together
- short videos are an effective way for facilitators to make connections with the group, touch base, share updates, and model assignments.
2 QUESTIONS about Digital Facilitation
- What is the ideal size of a class for digital facilitation? Context and subject is so important, but still wondering about what is ideal to make it an effective learning experience?
- What is the best tool to promote discussion? I am curious about Mattermost as an alternative to the more rigid discussion forum structures of many learning management systems such as Moodle.
1 SIMILE about Digital Facilitation
An effective digital facilitator is like a multi-armed, wise, omnipresent guide.
I see digital facilitation as one that involves multi-tasking on a whole different level, than for example, face-to-face facilitation or learning environments. Many arms could be helpful. There are so many more tools, and channels of communication (i.e., discussion forum or app like Mattermost, email, synchronous sessions, blogs) to keep up with, particularly as a facilitator. On that same note, communication and feedback are critical elements of any course, and I see communication with students as a group, and with student questions on an individual basis, as potentially being more demanding (i.e., again due to number of channels of communication) in the digital context, than in a face-to-face learning environment.
Reference
Attribution
August 28, 2020 at 12:30 am
Great 3-2-1 post Leigh, and a wonderful metaphor for the facilitator. I am curious about the term feedforward. Can you expand on what that means?
August 28, 2020 at 8:22 am
Thanks for your feedback and questions, Clint. Are YOUR arms tired yet? 🙂
I started coming across the term “feedforward” in readings over the last year or so – and it really appealed to me. I was then able to identify when some instructors in the MALAT program were sharing more feedback, versus feedforward, on my assignments. For me, feedforward is about specific feedback that offers constructive feedback to apply to future assignments (or similar issues remarked on by facilitator/instructor). I think that feedforward has a more “natural” fit with assignments that are a part of a process; therefore, facilitator’s can more readily apply how their “feedback” could be specifically applied to future iterations of the draft or project (therefore “feedforward”).
Then I was worried I had “made it up along the way” as a style that appealed to me–so I looked it up! (My ageing brain tricks me sometimes.) But alas, it is real and out there! Here is a link to an article about feedforward that I like, written by Gonzalez (2018) https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/feedforward/, where she interviews Joe Hirsch (wrote “The Feedback Fix”). Gonzalez posits, “It turns out there’s a different way to give feedback that works a lot better, a way of flipping its focus from the past to the future. It’s a concept called ‘feedforward,’ which was originally developed by a management expert named Marshall Goldsmith. As far as I can tell, not a lot of educators are familiar with the practice of feedforward, and I really think if we learned how to do it and started using it more consistently, it could make a huge difference in how our students grow and how we grow as professionals.”
I like this chart from Gonzalez’s blog post – from the work of Hirsch, it sums a lot of the points up well in a visual format.
Feedforward-Chart.png
Reference
Gonzalez, J. (2018, January 21). Moving from Feedback to Feedforward. In Cult of Pedagogy. Retrieved from https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/feedforward/
August 29, 2020 at 11:39 am
Hi Leigh, the image of a Buddhist deity with several arms seems like a good depiction of how we are engaging and interacting with digital technologies. I believe the use of technology in education and how we should apply it to our learning environment really depends on the context, audience, and pedagogical soundness. This reminds me of the TPACK framework we learned in LRNT 527.
One of the potential pitfalls that we may encounter in digital education is the proliferation of digital tools and our attraction to them and the feeling that we have to use many of them to enhance our digital facilitation (I sometimes get caught up in this magnet of too many exciting digital tools). I agree that communication and feedback and feedforward are essential elements of learning and regardless if it is face-to-face or virtual facilitation, they need to be incorporated. Now the question is, what is the best way to engage learners to communicate and co-learn with us through feedback and feedforward?
September 1, 2020 at 9:20 am
Hi Sharon, thanks for sharing your thoughts and feedback. Always appreciated! 🙂 Glad you liked the image of a Buddhist deity with several arms as a metaphor for digital facilitation – and, as you say, how we are engaging and interacting with digital technologies. I completely agree with you, that “the use of technology in education and how we should apply it to our learning environment really depends on the context, audience, and pedagogical soundness.” Your point is fundamental and requires sound planning and reasoning. Bates (2015) maintains that the choice of technology or media has a direct impact on learner outcomes; therefore, as instructors, we need to choose deliberately, based on our learners’ goals and learning needs. Good point about TPACK Framework – and thanks for the reminder. We have looked at so much great content that reminders of connections are appreciated for my own learning.
And YES! The proliferation of digital tools and our attraction to trying them out – when there are new ones brought to our attention every day. Exciting and overwhelming at the same time.
Great question: “what is the best way to engage learners to communicate and co-learn with us through feedback and feedforward?” I liked some of the opportunities that we have been given in this program to BUILD ON assignments. Two that come to mind are LRNT 526 – when we created a draft or ‘outline’ of our final paper, and then worked with feedback and feedforward from Irwin. Secondly, I feel that LRNT 527 was a great opportunity to build on our Digital Learning Resource with regular feedback and feedforward from Jenni and our peers. I was able to, through the structure of both courses and assignments, to really apply the feedforward from our instructors/facilitators and the group. I REALLY learned a lot and grew a lot through both experiences.
Thanks, Sharon.
Leigh
Reference
Bates, A. W. (2015) Teaching in a digital age: Guidelines for designing teaching and learning. Available at: https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/ (Accessed: 15 July 2020).