Education Skills For Practice Development: Understanding Self In Group Facilitation

Our Experience of Facilitating a Group Session

Discuss about the Education Skills for Practice Development.

Group facilitation is a process where one member engages to assist group members in achieving something or solving a problem. It involves sharing ideas and opinions to come to effective decision making (Bens 2012). As our group activity was based on understanding self in group facilitation, it is important to have an understanding of self and self-concept to proceed with the session. Self-concept is a collection of self-schemas related to part, present and future self-behaviour. It includes elements such perception of professional performance, academic performance, self-identity and dignity. It is centred around cognitive development which interacts with a person’s self-esteem and intellectual knowledge to give idea about personality of an individual (Hattie 2014). This essay is based on the group activity of understanding self in group facilitation and it will reflect on our group activity of facilitating a short session on the topic. It required members in the group to identify individual facilitation skills. The essay describes the experience of engaging a group in the topic and deconstructs the experience using the John’s framework of structured reflection. It will help in the understanding of how understanding self-concept will help in facilitating a group session.

Our experience of facilitating a group session is described according to Johns Model of Reflection. The first step is to describe our experience and significant factors of group activity. We were a total of four members and we were assigned a group activity of understanding self in group. In order to facilitate a successful group activity, our first objective was to interact with our peers and get to know what idea do each members have about self-concept in groups (Kaner 2014). We decided that we will first note down our negative and positive self-concepts and then ask other member to give an opinion about our personality according to those self-concepts. This activity was important because it will help in smooth function of group in any activity.

Group facilitation is a method of working with group of people by sharing ideas and opinions to critically identify basic needs and develop a solution to achieve those needs. Facilitation can be done in many settings such as a teacher facilitating a student, therapist facilitating a client or a professional facilitating their peers (Schuman 2012). It was important for me to have effective facilitation skills to guide the members together and train them for the assigned topic. To facilitate the group of peers in the task, i first made the group clear about what I want to achieve and our main goal was to effectively present the concept of understanding self in group in front of everyone. This type of discussion helps in understanding what a team wants to achieves and facilitates better coordination of group (Killen 2006).  The interaction began by asking questions related to the topic and emphasizing on the level of involvement of each members. The first step in understanding self in group is to understand what we are as a person and what values shape my personality. This question was for all members in the group and the members need to record their self-understanding in a note book. Self-concept is related to understanding ones motives such what we like and we do not like in our surrounding or personal habits (Hirschmüller et al., 2013).

Key Influencing Factors in Facilitating Our Group

After sharing each other’s views on self-concept, our ideas on the topic broadened. While some member stressed more on their physical appearance as part of self-concept, others thought about how they interact socially as part of understanding themselves. It meant an obese member thought that she is not confident because of her physical appearance and her obesity restricts her in life. Similarly other members reported she has good skills in knowing a person as she interacts a lot in social gathering. While liked to keep to themselves, other wanted to always be surrounded by many friends and relatives. Thus, this interactive session with group on our topic helped us to understand that there is great diversity of opinion on self-concept. This is influenced by cognitive development, influence of thinking pattern of parents and the environment in which a person lives. Impact of all this factor together composes the characteristics of an individual (Marsh et al., 2013).

To facilitate a successful group session, our role was to interpret others opinion to know what they are trying to express and encouraging them in case of good actions. Self-concepts about each member can also be determined by their past or recent feelings on a task. My motive was to activate all members to engage and express their feelings. It began with conversations like-‘ Let’s take some time out to know ourselves better and express what we think of ourselves’. Another advantage of this activity is that it will help all members to know about the bad and good qualities in each other. This will help in building a strong group and coordinating activities according to skills of members (Sessa and London 2015).

The key influencing factors in facilitating our group was to work according to the principles and values of facilitation. In order to facilitate effective group facilitation, it is necessary to consider the context within which the facilitation takes place. It also depends on commitment to implement the change process (Wardale 2013). This included understanding both verbal and non-verbal expression of members, not reporting the discussions in the group to other group members, respecting individual contribution to task, giving equal opportunity to all members to direct the group and regard each members sharing activity as valuable. We also wanted to create an inclusive environment and to understand this we would question ourselves like-‘what do each members bring to the group?’ or ‘What do i offer to the group?’ or ‘what issues are a challenge for me?’. The first step towards creation of an effective environment was to set ice-breaker questions so that each member introduces themselves and get to know each other (Montano and Kasprzyk 2015). I wanted to breakdown any feeling of shyness and wanted everyone to be actively involved in the activity. I also stated my intention of forming the group and explained to the members that we need to work on understanding self in group and each one of them have to list down their strength and weakness about oneself. This will be useful at the time of presenting the topic to the audience. I also questioned about the intention of participant and asked them why understanding self is important in groups.

Importance of Understanding Self in Professional Setting

After interaction with the groups the key strength and weakness of each member became evident. Different perspective about the reasons for understanding self in group in different setting became clear. Some were of the opinion that this understanding will help a multi-professional health care team to tackle medical emergencies efficiently. This will help in coordination of activities so that individual skills are utilized and the team performs their best up to their potential. One member also stated that if health professionals know the skills to self-assess their strength and weakness, then they can also teach patients how to self manage illness. Torres et al. (2010) study also focused on how healthcare professionals use their knowledge and perceptions to teach patients to manage their diabetes. They also participated in facilitation group with patients to discuss about their health practices, how to effectively self-manage diabetes and identify challenges that patient face in diabetes self-management. The research findings showed that issues in self-management occurs due to inappropriate attitudes of patients too. The health care professionals intervened to make patient understand they need to understand their self needs first and their strengths and weakness so that they can according take steps to manage complications in diabetes. In the context of other profession, the opinion was that understanding self will help in developing their own professional values.  Health professionals like nurses will be more confident in work as they will work according to their strengths and they will avoid any weakness to come in their path of success (Kristoffersen and Friberg, 2015).  The different view about the importance of understanding self in professional setting was commendable and i was now more confident that we will be able to accomplish our task successfully.

We were trying to develop an organized group which contribute to completing the topic of understanding self-in group. However, we also face some challenges in the process when conflict arose between our members. Our facilitation criterion was to complete our presentation before allocated time and interact well with co-ordinators. We still faced problem during the preparation of the task because the group dynamics was not working. Though each member had good grasp on the topic, but they forget that we are working as team and we have to be prepared so that each member works together in a synchronized way to present the topic to the audience. The problem arise when each of them were working individually not as a team. We all had to prepare our list of advantages and disadvantages of understanding self in group and each member had to explain their weakness and strengths one by one to the audience. Conflict arose because some members were too dominating and talked too much (de Wit 2015). Other members started feeling that they are given equal chance in discussion. There group members started developing grudges among themselves.  Our motive was to engage in interactive discussion on the topic, but it turned into an argument with each members.

Challenges Faced and Its Resolution

I tried to deal with the above problem and my approach for a dominant participant was to stop him mid way and redirect the questions to other participants. I also gave the dominating member another task of observing others and reporting their activities to me. This transition from an avid talker to an observer worked and it diverted his attention and developed the sensitivity of the person too. A contrasting challenge also arose when some members did not wish to talk or participate in group discussion. Henningsen and Henningsen  (2007) explained that marginal members have a negative effect on other group members and the key knowledge possessed by such person is lost if they do not share such information. Hence, to remove the negative effect on the team, I also decided to approach the person to remove negative influence on the group. I realised the person might be too shy to speak in front of everyone and so I decided to arrange for a smaller group discussion. This helped the participant to be at ease and gain confident to speak in a small group. This made the participant less conscious and reduced the fear of answering gibberish or wrong answers. I also encouraged them to write their views on blackboard in case they were felt shy to speak up. In order to tackle arguments in group, i decided that no discussion will be left ambiguous. It mostly arise because many members had different values about the understanding self (Gaertner and Dovidio 2014). I intervened to make them aware this is an individual concept and the answers will different according to different person perception. I listed down both sides of the argument and just commented on what can be a strong point that we can include in or presentation and what were too vague to be taken. During interactive session, I also made sure that members do not go off the track and start discussing on an irrelevant topic (Corey et al. 2013). Hence, I always intervened to stop any off the track topic abruptly.

After the above process of facilitating a new group, involving them in a discussion and addressing challenges in the group, our major accomplishment was that we were now prepared without learning material on the topic of understanding self in group. We had prepared an attractive presentation were all information were summarised systematically. It first began with introducing the topic of self-concept and then explaining the importance of understanding self in professional setting. The presentation was an effective way to display to the audience the benefits that a person can reap in their profession if they understand their self-identity and strengths. For example nurses can benefit by understanding how appropriate communication skill facilitate delivery of high standard of nursing care (Hemsley et al., 2012). The second task for us was to work on how deliver the speech on the topic as a team. For this we needed to strengthen our communications skills. Another task for us was to make all members aware about the criteria for facilitation. This knowledge will help us in successfully completing the group facilitation process.

The first criteria for facilitation focussed on organization of team such as how a team completes the task within given time frame and how is the relation between co-facilitators. The main objective was to evaluate group contributions like reflection on the topic, idea generation and recommending opportunities for change (de Lichtenberg and London 2008).  While stating the first criterion to the participants, I also explained them how we will excel in this part. I instructed them that we will present ourselves to the audience in such a way that they get a feeling that we work well together and we also respect the time given to us for the task. Therefore the intention was to facilitate smooth flow of presentation where each member participates in a synchronised way to put forward their understanding on self-concept to the audience (Duarte 2013). The second criterion was related to content which meant that whether a group had clearly identified the topic, stated the objective of group session, supported their views by recent literature or not. They also wanted good integration of concepts along with the use of an effective teaching resource (Coopman and Lull 2014).

Regarding preparation for our second task, our content was ready and we just needed to integrate our concepts and explain it through a relevant You Tube video. The participants were now engaged to find an appropriate video on self-understanding which the audience like nurses and other professional groups can easily assimilate (Mc Carthy et al., 2013). Accordingly, we found a video on ‘How we perceive ourselves through self-understanding. The video explained the stepwise way by which a person tries to contemplate who they are. It gave explanation about different perspectives of a person’s understanding of self-concepts. Hence, we were well prepared for second part of the criterion too.

The final criterion included marks on facilitation itself such as how the facilitation proceeded. Credit was given to clear introduction of topic, logical sequence of group activities, using appropriate terminology to explain the topic, ability to attract viewer’s attention, communicating effectively, being enthusiastic while speaking and ending with a clear conclusion on the topic (Allan et al., 2013). To succeed in this part we needed to completely hone our communication skills. Our groups preparation for effective communication were as follows-

The above mentioned criteria were the things that affected my decision making. I made all decisions according to the criteria for facilitation. I first wanted to observe the body language of each member while they were speaking. Their manner of speech should not be monotonous and audience should not feel that they are confused about the topic (Garmston and Wellman 2013). I observed each members delivery of speech and I found that some were speaking too fast. I stopped them in between to explain them that the speech should not so hasty that audience miss out what we are saying. There should be clarity in expression and members should also present themselves in an enthusiastic manner (McCroskey 2015). This will give positive vibes to the audience. The second task was to prepare the team to attract attention of audience through their communication skills. It meant working on both verbal and non-verbal message. Tone of voice is a powerful indicator for audience and hence each member needed to work on the tone of voice to express their message to audience. I also stressed that they need to work on volume and pitch so that audience do not feel that group member are nervous or they are in fear (Beebe and Masterson 2014). It was also important that members understand the non-verbal message of audience such as what effect the listener is getting about their speech. They should accordingly divert the attention of audience. A relaxed attitude was important to make sense to everyone that the group are in control of each other. If one member falters, then instead of getting nervous they should immediately take actions to repair the situation. With immense practice in this area, our group also excelled in this area and where confident on the day before our presentation (Hackman and Johnson 2013).

This section is a reflection on what our facilitation group was trying to achieve and what we actually achieved on the day of our presentation. With extensive training on our topic, our group attained the necessary expertise to pass on the information to others. The presentation will enhance transformational practice development and understand the dynamic of working in a multi-professional team such as the health care team (Crisp, J. and Wilson, V., 2011) As it was our last presentation after every group had given the presentation, we felt that we were on the disadvantaged side. This was because by then everyone in the class was sleepy as they already had listened to a lot of topic. We started with introducing ourselves and our four member group were divided into two groups. Two members listed down the advantages of understanding self and another two members listed down the disadvantage of self-understanding. We were moving to each activity in a synchronised way although we faltered some times. To generate more attention of audience who were already sleepy, we immediately started explaining our topic through a You Tube video. This was an effective strategy as many people now started paying attention and listened enthusiastically to what we were saying. We finally concluded the topic by stating what will be the implications of self-understanding on building professional values and career.

What we achieved became evident from feedback from the tutor. By analysing the feedback we got to know that they our group worked well together but sometimes they were unprepared when a new question arise from the audience. We got good point for our content on the topic and integrating them with support from video. However, we got low points on clarity and sequencing on activities.

After this experience, our group were very happy because we were able to successfully complete most of the criterion. Our strengths included politely attracting attention of the audience, linking the concept with the role of health professionals and our manner of summarizing ideas on the note board. With this experience, i will be able to effectively facilitate a group to a short session. I would also improve my facilitation skill in the future by working on sequence of activities and clarity of expression of groups. Hence, with this experience my moral knowledge regarding the effective facilitation skill has increased and it will be beneficial for me in the future.

Hence, from the reflection on experience of facilitating a group to short session, we can conclude that successful facilitation can be achieved by following a systematic process to involve group members to achieve certain objective. In relation to the group preparation for the topic of understanding self in group, this essay provided the sequence of actions taken to prepare the group members. It started with discussion on individual perception self-concept and then taking steps to address conflicts in the group. The focus was also on effective delivery of speech and utilizing appropriate communication skill to engage the audience. The feedback from facilitator gave us an understanding about our group’s weakness and strengths in group activity. The experience is useful for all of us develop ourselves in our professional career.

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