2.2 Setting out facilitation skills
You will now look at the skills required for an online facilitator.
Activity 2
Looking at the summaries of the facilitator role in Table 2, and drawing on your own experience of online conversations, decide what skills a facilitator needs. Some of these skills have already been listed in the table.
It might be helpful to think of these in terms of:
- technical skills, such as posting comments
- social and communication skills, such as encouraging participation and respect
- mentoring skills, such as summarising, commenting on and checking ideas and issues raised.
| Technical skills | Communication and social skills | Mentoring skills |
|---|---|---|
| Posting comments and receiving replies | Encouraging participation | Summarising discussions Checking issues raised Encouraging further study |
- You may wish to make a record of these in your learning log.
Discussion
The list of skills you have come up with will be things that you do, such as posting and summarising comments, while others will be about how you interact with people. These ‘doing’ skills, that reflect mastery and proficiency in something you have learned to do, are often referred to as hard skills. Whereas, the skills associated with communication, relationships and getting on with people are called soft skills. Although it can sometimes be difficult to decide which skills are hard and soft, remember that hard skills tend to produce something concrete, such as a message or a summary of a discussion.
It is also likely that these skills may change over time, with technical and communication skills required at the start of the conversation or when new people join, and the mentoring skills required more as learners become involved.
If you need some more information on what type of skills count as ‘soft skills’, an online careers advice service, The Balance Careers [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] , has some useful guidance on this.
Hard skills that you are good at might include managing the technical side of the forum, such as posting messages and being able to write effectively. Soft skills that you are good at might include encouraging other learners and being positive about their contributions. In terms of skills you need to improve, it could be that you are less good at knowing how to summarise discussions.
You may also feel that you need help in dealing with conflict and how to diffuse difficult situations when they develop.
2.1 Understanding the skills required of an online facilitator