Reframe Your Perspective: Stop Viewing Virtual Facilitation as a Stopgap Measure

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This blog was collaboratively authored by Pam VanHorn, Ph.D., Chief Consultant for VanHorn Educational Consultants and Abigaile VanHorn, Ph.D., Director of Curriculum Development at the Sigma Chi Leadership Institute. All content and related graphics are copyrighted.

If you read only one article on virtual facilitation, let it be this one.

Whether you are an administrator, teacher, student, manager or employee, you likely have developed opinions about virtual meeting platforms. COVID-19 has forced many of us to retool in digital, web-based technologies as Zoom meetings become the modus operandi of organizations. Regardless of role or industry, we can benefit from an examination of our perspectives and strategies in our utilization of virtual collaboration tools. 

Before we delve into the details, let’s proceed with expectation alignment, a key tenet that underlies virtually everything we do. This step is essential to setting the stage for a successful experience (whether it be teaching, leading, facilitating, presenting, or expediting organizational goals. Aligning expectations with your students, clients, teams, audiences, or participants is crucial.

In that spirit, and so that you can make an informed decision about whether or not you will read further, here is the value proposition we provide:

The Internet is flooded with articles and blogs that promise to provide a panacea to the real woes of operating in a virtual setting. You likely have a few examples in your inbox right now; one clear indication is if they start with phrases like “Seven Steps to” or “5 Tips for…” While such articles might offer one or two unique ways to address a challenge, there is a fundamental problem with that approach. The very titles of those articles presume the existence of a pesky (at best) or pernicious (at worst) issue. The problem is with perspective.

This article will offer you specific, actionable best practices for a positive and effective virtual facilitation experience (both for the facilitator AND the participants). 

Start With A Shift in Perspective

First things first, let’s stop viewing virtual facilitation as a problem that needs to be solved. We understand that the current socio-political climate certainly sets the stage for this particular storyline. That being said, it is a disservice both to facilitators and audiences to start with the presumption that their virtual webinar or workshop is a “runner up” experience or a “stopgap” measure.

As many of us have come to realize, there will not be a return to normalcy as we once knew it. The world is facing a crisis, and we need to revolutionize our thinking and our methods. The future normal will be different than our known normal, and we would do well to begin adjusting our expectations now. 

Let’s pay homage to Thomas Kuhn and shift our paradigm. While we are not talking about mounting scientific anomalies that cause a crisis in an existing theoretical framework, we are talking about a crisis nonetheless. In response to ubiquitous challenges of an existing paradigm comes (in Kuhn’s own words), “a proliferation of compelling articulations, the willingness to try anything, the expression of explicit discontent, the recourse to philosophy and to debate over fundamentals" (1962). This sounds oddly prescient given our efforts to adjust, retool, and rethink current methods as we deal with the upending of our status quo.

For better or worse, our paradigm has experienced tectonic shifts in the past few months. Rather than awaiting a return to “business as usual” (which is unlikely) or lamenting the infusion of virtual webinars, meetings, and workshops into our schedules (Zoom fatigue is real), what if we opted for innovation and creativity? What if we embraced the retooling and shifted the expectations surrounding virtual facilitation? Rather than viewing virtual facilitation as a substitute and stopgap measure, let’s start with the presumption that virtual facilitation is an opportunity to reach a greater number and variety of people in a more resource-conscious fashion.

You might be asking yourself, “How do I do that?” After shifting your perspective, move to embrace the essentials of virtual facilitation. 

Embrace The Essentials

Enlist a Facilitation Team

Co-facilitation is ideal, but this statement is predicated on two key points. Tandem facilitation works best when the two individuals have a rapport with one another and have clearly outlined the elements for which each is responsible. While two individuals can make up a team, we suggest that you add to your facilitation roster by including a designated discussion board monitor. This person manages questions, responses, and engagement in the virtual chat box. Lastly, if you have the bandwidth, utilize a platform manager. This individual is responsible for driving the virtual platform from start to finish. They handle scheduling and meeting or webinar setup, email communications to participants, technical difficulties during the session, and survey dissemination after the session.

In an ideal world, your virtual facilitation team would include the following:

  • 2 Co-facilitators

  • 1 Discussion Board Monitor

  • 1 Platform Manager

  • 1 Small Group Facilitator per breakout room

We have certainly seen successful virtual facilitations with fewer, or even more individuals, but this arrangement seems to work best.

Vary Opportunities for Engagement

We have found that facilitators or co-facilitators should present information for no longer than 10 minutes. We will call these presentations of 10 minutes or fewer “mini-lectures.” Mini-lectures should be punctuated with a variety of opportunities for audience engagement. Large group activities, small group activities in breakout rooms, and periods for reading, writing, and reflection will adequately differentiate mini-lectures in order to maintain audience attention.

Consider intentional placement of the following engagement activities:

  • Ice-breakers for community building and introductions

  • Reading time (with specific protocols for review and corresponding action items*)

  • Reflection time (this is especially important in longer workshops)

Give Your Participants and Your Participant Materials the Attention They Deserve.

When possible, provide your participants with an agenda and participant materials more than 24 hours in advance. Consider sending an email reminder with the meeting details, meeting link, and participant materials two weeks prior to the event and again 24 hours prior to the event. Participants appreciate having an outline of the agenda that includes scheduled breaks. This allows them to schedule other important daily business and will allow them to stay more focused on your content. Participant materials help maintain audience engagement, provided they are polished and aligned with your presentation. Remember to keep your slides short and sweet. Save deeper content for the participant materials.

Consider the use of the following as you develop your participant materials:

  • Graphically enhanced, fillable PDFs

  • Protocol outlines for reflection or reading time (e.g., highlight key elements, underline concerns, star questions, etc.)

  • Group norms with space for participants to add any agreed upon ground rules

Include Small Group Activities, Especially for Longer Webinars

We strongly recommend the regular and intentional use of breakout rooms for sessions that are over one hour. That being said, breakout rooms can provide more opportunities for disruption than learning if not utilized effectively. We encourage training and utilization of a small group facilitator per breakout room. It is also useful to identify a participant who will report the highlights of your small group’s discussion to the larger group. In order to maximize participation, we suggest that you institute a policy where everyone is expected to contribute. 

Consider incorporating the following activities into your webinar:

  • Pair & Share (groups of two, participants share their results/answers/findings with each other)

  • Reflect & Connect (groups of 2-10, participants are first given an opportunity for individual reflection on a topic and then share how their insights connect with the webinar content)

  • Continued Questioning (groups of 3-15, participants answer specific questions or develop new questions as they relate the webinar content to their individual roles, departments, or teams; the group offers insight on possible connections)

Establish and Clearly Communicate Facilitation and Participation Guidelines

We want to maximize attention and participation. Like expectation alignment, it is necessary to establish participation guidelines at the start of your workshop. The establishment of communication norms will promote respect and community-building. Norms will help mitigate distracting participant behaviors while encouraging participation.

Similarly, as a facilitator it is useful to communicate your facilitation protocols. For example, will you utilize the hand raising function? Do you expect everyone to contribute at least once? Will you have a virtual “parking lot” where you save meaningful questions for a more appropriate time?

Consider the following to ensure clear communication and continuous engagement:

  • Utilize a facilitation spreadsheet with participant names and engagement activities. 

  • Identify a member of your facilitation team to keep track of participation.

  • Incorporate methods to ensure randomized participation.

  • Offer some ground rules (e.g., “lead with positive intent,” “listen to understand,” or “what is said here, stays here”) to start and then ask participants for their own suggestions.

  • Make sure everyone understands the guidelines and agrees with the group norms before continuing.

Survey & Share the Results

After establishing participation ground rules, review the objectives for your time together. This helps orient the participant and sets clear expectations. You can begin aligning expectations and gauging participant knowledge through the utilization of a short survey. This will help you tailor your facilitation to the specific needs of the group. It also provides a valuable benchmark for assessing learning. When possible, utilize live survey questions to help align expectations and show the achievement of learning objectives. This is a powerful framing tool. When possible, show attendees their initial levels of self-assessed knowledge, reiterate the objectives of the session, and then reveal post-workshop knowledge levels. This reminds participants that you followed through on your “contract” for your time together. It reinforces the message that their time was well-spent. We also encourage you to email a more formal evaluation and feedback instrument immediately after the event. After you have analyzed the survey data, a follow-up email with summarized results can serve as a useful touchpoint for continued communication as well as a reinforcement of the content.

Consider the following as you integrate evaluation in your workshop:

  • Investigate survey technology platforms appropriate for audience size

  • Incorporate pre- and post-assessments of participant knowledge

  • Utilize formal feedback mechanisms with standard questions for comparison over time

  • Share results with intentionality to reinforce learning and framing

Review, Rehearse & Repeat

Practice, practice, practice! We cannot overemphasize the importance of rehearsals. This does not mean you need to spend all day in a full-dress rehearsal, but it does mean that you clearly review roles. Virtual facilitation comes with its own set of challenges in addition to traditional facilitation issues. Technical difficulties, awkward silences, and clunky transitions can be distracting. These challenges negatively impact participant attention and buy-in thereby hindering the achievement of learning outcomes.

Consider the following suggestions to ensure a quality learning experience for participants:

  • Conduct a run-through 24-28 hours in advance.

  • Practice facilitator transitions and main talking points to streamline communication.

  • Test hyperlinks, survey technology, and breakout room functions to ensure a seamless participant experience. 

Can virtual facilitation be challenging? Certainly. But we only hamper our ability to effectively facilitate in this new environment if we approach it as a problem, a temporary fix, or a stopgap measure. Reframe your perspective of virtual facilitation as an opportunity to innovate and engage wider audiences.

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References

Kuhn, T. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. University of Chicago Press. 

(c) 2020, VanHorn Educational Consultants. All Rights Reserved.