Online facilitation, in broad terms can be described as the act of managing the learners and the learning through an online medium.
| Beginner | Intermediate | Expert | |
| Supporting online learning | Recognizes challenges faced by participants. | Recognizes challenges faced by participants and provides support to participants. | Recognizes challenges faced by participants, provides support to participants and anticipate participants’ challenges. |
| Engages in knowledge construction by participating in discussion. | Facilitates knowledge construction by using questioning and providing feedback to participants. | Onlinecommunication skills | |
| Participates as a group member and uses time effectively. | Manages individuals and groups, uses time effectively and paces discussions. | Manages individual and groups with ease, uses time effectively and paces discussion appropriately. | |
| Social Skills | Participates in making a welcoming and enabling learning environment. | Creates a welcoming and enabling environment and attempts to build trust amongst participants. | Creates a welcoming and enabling environment with ease and builds trust easily amongst participants. |
| Recognizes why individuals are not participating. | Possesses some strategies for engaging individuals who are not participating. | Possesses a range of strategies for engaging individuals who are not participating. | |
| Acknowledges diversity and is aware of interpersonal role in potential conflict. | Acknowledges diversity, is aware of interpersonal dynamics and attempts to manage diversity and conflict. | Acknowledges diversity, is aware of interpersonal dynamics and manages diversity and conflict constructively. | |
| Communication Skills | Writes clearly and concisely online. | Writes clearly and concisely online and produces engaging messages encouraging participation. | Writes clearly and concisely online, produces engaging messages encouraging participation and communicates in multi-modal forms. |
| Participates in social networks by participating in discussions and accessing resources. | Participates in social networks by participating in discussions and accessing and sharing resources. | Participates in social networks by participating in discussions, accessing and sharing accessing resources, and initiating and facilitating groups. | |
| Technical Skills | Navigates the learning environment. | Navigates the learning environment easily and is able to provide basic technical support in relation to learning environment to participants. | Navigates the learning environment easily and is able to provide advanced technical support in relation to the learning environment to participants. |
| Uses basic tools such as email, chat, and discussions in online environments. | Uses advanced tools such as wikis, blogs and online meeting rooms in online environments. | Uses advanced tools such as wikis, blogs, and online meeting rooms in online environments and manages learning environments. |
Facilitation skills include:
- engaging the learner in the learning process, particularly at the beginning
- appropriate questioning, listening and feedback skills
- the ability to provide direction and support to learners skills in participating in/managing online discussions (i.e. a mix of probes and supportive comments to extend conversations, and encouraging deeper level engagement)
- articulation of reasoning, knowledge, or problem solving processes – assist participants to become more aware of their own thinking and reasoning and assisting them to inquire into others’ thinking and reasoning
- summarizing and weaving conversations which keep students focused and assist in making the communications more manageable
- a capacity for relationship building
- attendance to the social aspect of learning as well as to the learning tasks
- motivational skills.
Source: http://marylandonline.org/coat/documents/Are_you_a_good_candidate.pdf
Discussion Weaving Example:
This example of weaving from the Commonwealth of Learning Online Course called “Developing and Teaching Online courses” demonstrates the importance for instructors to have a positive attitude to online teaching and an ability to be innovative and experimental (risk taking).
Self-Reflection Activity
Do a self-assessment of your online facilitation skill, think about where you are now and identify 3-4 things you would like to develop further.