3.9 Encouraging other learners

If you look back to the different stages of facilitation and the skills required, you will see that they focus on helping learners focus on tasks, explore and discuss issues, and reflect on their learning. This does not mean that your role is to teach learners or to offer formal advice on their studies. However, as a facilitator, you can use your role to encourage learners to share ideas and respond to and reflect on existing posts.

Contributing to a conversation that has an academic purpose can be quite daunting for learners. They could be attempting to write in a way that sounds academic while not being offensive, and be painfully aware that whatever they write has an alarming permanency and is directed towards a largely unknown audience. Your role as a facilitator is to encourage learners to participate in the conversation and ensure it as a safe environment to learn in.

There are a number of elements that have been identified as being of importance in supporting effective learning groups (Cole et al, 1990).

These include:

• a climate of respect and acceptance for individuals in the group, irrespective of similarities and differences
• everyone’s contributions being acknowledged and valued
• listening being valued as much as talking
• openness in communication
• the development of clear processes for making decisions
• the leader taking responsibility for the process of the group
• clarity in the setting of goals and tasks
• problems being faced openly and constructively.