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| Students Speak Toolkit > III. Appendices > Appendix F. Facilitator Training Materials |
We recommend that you plan at least one three-hour training session and at least one additional practice session for all facilitators.
The main goal of the training is to explain the basics of focus groups, model effective facilitation techniques and behaviors, and allow the fledgling facilitators to observe, reflect, and then practice themselves.
If you are conducting a district-wide effort, you may want to train all facilitators at the same time or conduct separate sessions depending on the kinds of facilitators you've recruited - one session for school counselors and one for students, for example. Alternatively, you might separate the training's according to different school levels.
If you are conducting an individual school effort, you may want to train more facilitators than you can use in a single set of focus groups and then draw names by lot. (Keep in mind that this approach will not lead to carefully matched pairs of facilitators.)
In this appendix, we begin by showing you two agendas for facilitator training sessions. We then present materials on the basics of facilitation and the duties of the facilitator. If you are training educators, parents, or community members to serve as facilitators, you may need to make minor changes in the language; all the basic principles should still apply. We also provide some specific tips for training counselors, particularly those in elementary schools, to serve as facilitators. Finally, we present information on ground rules and an example of an effective opening.
You may also view the sample facilitators' guides we provide. A facilitators' guide includes the questions the facilitators will ask during the focus groups, as well as other important instructions. You will need to create your own guide for all facilitators.
You may incorporate any of this information into your own facilitator training. Feel free, also, to use this information in the materials you give facilitators, such as the guide or tips booklet. You may use materials just as they appear here for either copies or overheads, provided you credit the Partnership for Kentucky Schools and Roberts & Kay, Inc. as the sources of the materials.
On the next few pages, we'll show you two agendas we've used for facilitator training sessions. We developed both agendas for three-hour training sessions. We used the first agenda when training high school students to facilitate middle school groups in Jessamine County. We developed the second agenda for a training with middle and high school students from five Fayette County Schools.
First, a reality check. While we planned a three-hour agenda for the Jessamine County sessions, the trainings were shortened by the school system on the days the training's actually took place. Transportation, testing, lunch hours, and more all intervened in our sessions, and might intervene in your situation as well. Still, you should make a real commitment to doing whatever it takes to hold a three-hour training session.
Three hours should be an absolute minimum amount of training for students who are facilitating for the first time. Six or eight hours would be much better and would give the student facilitators far more confidence, and far more ability to put these skills to use in other situations.
If you are incorporating facilitation training as part of a course curriculum or as a significant part of a service club's work for a semester, more training hours may be possible. If you can only do one training session, aim to carry it out two weeks before the pilot groups or actual focus groups. If you are spending more time on developing students' facilitation skills, you can hold the training farther in advance of the actual focus groups, provided you offer some kinds of reminders and tips in the few days just before the groups take place.
If you are tape recording the focus groups, be sure to give the facilitators some experience using the recording equipment (how to set it up, when to press "record," etc.). It may sound basic, but believe us, it's important. Often facilitators are so busy preparing themselves to facilitate that they forget about the recorder. Yet if the groups fail to get recorded, a lot of your effort has been wasted.
Here are some ways to supplement your facilitator training:
Conduct one or two practice sessions with the facilitator pairs. At one Fayette County middle school, for example, several teachers participated in a mock focus group led by the student facilitators. At a Fayette County high school, work team members pulled together a group of male students to serve as participants in order to give facilitators more practice asking the questions. Adults sat in on the sessions. One educator and work team member indicated that all work teams "definitely need to do this [practice]."
Run at least two pilot groups (one male and one female). Student facilitators can gain a great deal of experience posing questions to participants who resemble the target population and experimenting with facilitation techniques. If possible, record the sessions or have an adult on the work team "listen in" on the groups (using headphones outside the room or some other strategy). At one Fayette County middle school, work team members taped the pilot groups; educators then listened to the tapes on their own time and provided feedback to the middle school student facilitators.
Facilitation background materials:
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