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Guide for facilitators
Guide for facilitators
This short guide provides information and advice for facilitators on how to make the best use of the course when working with individuals or groups.
What is Reflecting on Transitions?
This is a flexible, online reflection and planning course developed with and for new migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, and the organisations supporting them. It is built around the stories and experiences of a range of learners from diverse backgrounds and speakers of other languages who share their lives in text and audio. Activities, such as creating a timeline or listing personal skills and qualities, take the user through a process of self-reflection. The aim of this is to help learners understand the value of the knowledge and skills they’ve acquired in their life, especially since arriving in the UK; for example, in gaining work experience and looking for employment. The process of reflection is helpful for planning and making decisions about the future.
The course is completely free, and can be used with learners individually or in facilitated groups – or a combination of the two. It could be completed over a couple of intensive sessions or over a few weeks. Some ideas on how it might be used are set out below. The course is designed to be used online, but can also be downloaded and used without internet access on a computer or an e-reader, or printed out and completed with just pen and paper.
Users record their activities and learning in the Reflection Log document, or by simply using pen and paper: this then provides them with a record of their reflection and planning journey.
In addition, as they work through the course, learners can choose to answer quiz questions about each session. These are mostly multiple choice or matching exercises designed to give users insight into how other online courses might work. These quizzes are completely optional and designed to be enjoyable. Successful completion of the course quizzes earns the learner a digital badge acknowledging their achievement of the learning outcomes.
Who is the course for?
The course is for anyone of any age or at any stage in life who is interested in thinking about their situation, reflecting on their experiences and thinking about their present and their future.
Reflecting on Transitions includes detailed information about career planning. This may be useful for people thinking about employment or returning to studies that they may have had to put on hold while making important changes in their lives.
We know that many learners will not be in a position to change very much about their life or situation now, but the process of reflection will help them to identify and value the skills and qualities they have developed through their experiences.
Throughout this course, other short online courses are suggested for learners from diverse backgrounds, including speakers of English as an additional language. These courses could also suit learners with little time or opportunity to attend courses or groups in their area. Learners may consider studying these courses because they are thinking about further informal or formal study; others may want to study a course that could help with work experience and transferable skills. Some people may be interested in taking courses that relate to their community or experiences; others may want to try something completely different just for leisure. These short courses are available for free on OpenLearn.
Some people may decide not to study at all because they want to make time for other activities or they realise this is not the right time for them to start something new.
How long does it take?
There is no fixed time. Reflecting on Transitions has five sessions with each taking about one hour to complete. However, it all depends on how you choose to work through the course. You may be working with individuals on a one-to-one basis or facilitating a group as they progress through the course, taking time for group discussion and sharing ideas. There are suggested times for how long activities might take but you could take much longer. We suggest spreading the activity over a few weeks so that users can take time to consider ideas and thoughts as they progress.
How can support centres use this course?
Bridges Programmes and The Open University supported the Women’s Empowerment Group through their reflection journey. They worked as a group and individually through the activities.
We suggest that one or more members of staff complete Reflecting on Transitions in the first instance, to get an idea of how it might fit with other courses and resources already on offer in your area. The activities in the course are suitable for anyone, and it would give support workers a feeling for the reflective process and how this is helpful in terms of recognising skills and qualities and informing future plans.
The course is flexible and adaptable and allows you to think about how best to promote it and integrate it into the services and benefits you provide locally.
The ideas below have come from a range of organisations, including those that have already made use of courses like this to support individuals to reflect and make plans.
- Use it on a one-to-one basis to support a learner by arranging a series of individual sessions to discuss the activities they have completed at home.
- Incorporate it into other courses you run, such as encouraging users to learn information technology skills or financial planning. The course works well as a practical way to test and motivate learners to use newly acquired IT skills.
- Deliver it online to groups in remote or rural areas, or for those who simply can’t get along to meetings. You could think about using social media, email, phone or even develop a webinar (a seminar held over the internet) to talk through the course and support users who can’t meet in person.
- Encourage individuals to come along as a first step towards thinking about getting back into study or finding out about other options for making positive changes in their lives. Sometimes people know they’ve got to do something, but they’re not sure what. This course is a gentle and flexible first step towards working out what that something is.
- Encourage those who come along to your support groups to have a go. You don’t have to deliver the course at set times, but you can discuss key parts of it while each person works at their own pace at home or within the group.
- Introduce the course alongside a range of other learning choices, such as Open University Access courses, FutureLearn MOOCs or free OpenLearn courses.
- Perhaps you’ve got limited time and clients already have a clear idea of what they want to do. If so, pick out the parts of the course that will meet their needs. Look at Sessions 4 and 5 (the career and action planning sections) to help them work out their next steps in the workplace or in making a career move.
What do learners get if they successfully work through Reflecting on Transitions?
My Reflection Log
Users will have recorded their thoughts and plans for their future in their My Reflection Log. This doesn’t have to be completed on a computer – it can be done with pen and paper. What’s useful is to keep all the notes, thinking and reflection in one place, as this becomes a reference for whatever they choose to do next.
This record might help in conversations with careers advisors, potential employers or college staff, or in discussions with social or health services, for example in exploring a work placement or volunteering role. Users should finish the course with an action plan to match their chosen goal, whatever that might be.
Reflecting on Transitions badge
Completing the quizzes in order to gain a Reflecting on Transitions badge is optional. However, we know that recognition for studying and completing online free courses is important to learners. It can be an enjoyable way to consolidate learning as well as a way to prepare for accredited online learning, or to demonstrate the acquisition of transferable skills and competencies to potential employers.
The Reflecting on Transitions badge shows that learners have gained an understanding of the process of reflection and personal planning and have achieved the learning outcomes listed within the course.
You can find out more about how to complete the quizzes and how to gain a badge in the introduction section of the course and on these pages:
If users complete the quizzes successfully they will gain an online badge – a record of their successful completion of the course. Read more about badges in the introduction to the course or in the Badges and quizzes section.
How to get started
Users simply go online and can get started immediately. We recommend creating a free Open University account, as this is necessary in order to complete the optional online quizzes and to gain a course badge. If users choose to record and save their thoughts in the Reflection Log electronically, be sure to remind them to save their documents in a secure location.
Users can start and stop working through the course as they like. It’s completely flexible and there’s no time limit. Repeat a section, print sections off, photocopy them or project the course (or parts of it) from a computer onto a screen for shared viewing – it’s up to you and whoever is completing the course.
Feedback and finding out more
Although you don’t have to register yourself as a facilitator or a support worker, it would still be great to hear from you. We’d like your feedback about how you’re using the course, so please take a few moments to complete our survey.
Acknowledgements
Reflecting on Transitions was developed by Lindsay Hewitt and Christine McConnell of The Open University in Scotland in collaboration with Bridges Programmes.
Lindsay Hewitt and Julie Robson adapted the course for inclusion of digital badges for learners and front-line staff and support workers, respectively. The related course quizzes were developed by Julie Robson (The Open University) and Jonathan Sharp (Bridges Programmes). The course was edited by Lindsay Hewitt and Jennifer Nockles (The Open University).
We are hugely grateful to Bridges’ clients, Mo, Ying, Eric and Natalia, whose stories have informed the development of this course and bring to life the activities within it.
Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence.
The material acknowledged below is Proprietary and used under licence (not subject to Creative Commons Licence). Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this unit:
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Bridges Women’s Empowerment Course: photo by Biffy Hall for © The Open University
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