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Learning circle facilitation, as with any kind of group facilitation, is a dynamic and exciting skill. The best way to learn is to leap in with an experienced facilitator and learn by doing it. There are opportunities to do just this at the National Gathering. Contact Educators for Community Engagement if you would be interested in being trained or getting some experience facilitating learning circles. No two learning circles are alike, as they take shape based on the people that form them, so take this check list as a guide not as a set of rules.
A FACILITATOR CHECK
LIST
Questions to ask myself about my
facilitating.
• Am I talking too much ?
• Am I taking the temperature of the room?
• Are we paying attention to nonverbal cues?
• Am I sticking with “the circle” go-around or am I allowing cross talk?
• Did I establish ground rules?
• Am I revisiting the ground rules?
• Have I revisited and re-assessed the original questions with my co-facilitator?
• Am I being sensitive to different participation styles?
• Am I being flexible to meet group needs?
• Do I have several different tools for dealing with group dynamics?
• Am I starting to teach?
• Am I keeping an eye on where we want to go?
• Are the questions, discussion/stones dropped in the pond going deep enough?
• Am I all practicing close listening?
• Am I moving from “just listening” to commitment to action to problem solving?
• Am I attending to participants interaction with space and pace?
• Have I come up with an effective starting question?
• Did I and my co-facilitator discuss our strengths and weakness and divide labor as facilitators?
• Did I explain the process and set an agenda?
• Do I have some way of processing material that effects me deeply?
• Do I have some practice to help me stay focused, centered, and attentive?
• Do I take time to check in with my partner re their needs, what they are seeing, and what they think? Did I listen deeply to them?
• Do I clearly articulate my needs as a partner?
Questions
regarding group dynamics:
• Are participants sharing air time equally?
• Is the conversation too academic?
• Are we staying with stories?
• Whose agenda are we following?
• Are we allowing cross talk?
• Are we allowing oneupmanship?
• Are participants talking about what they know not what they’ve experienced?
• Are some participants talking too much/too little?
• Is the group focusing on one person’s issues/fixing one person’s problems?
• Are people engaging in rants that do not feel authentic?
• Are participants owning the process and holding each other accountable?
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