How To Teach and Facilitate Small Groups
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Dont forget to refer to the resources in the right hand column which may help you.
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You are given permission to cut and paste anything out of Paddy McEvoy's book.
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Remember to see permision for any material that does not belong to you or Paddy. A permission request form can be found in the left hand column.
Pages: 30 sides of A4 (or less)
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Overall aim of this chapter: to give the reader (TPDs and trainers mainly) some basic principles on facilitating small group learning. An illustration of the different ways one might facilitate a group (with case examples) would be helpful too. Don't concentrate too much on troubleshooting dysfunctional groups as that is covered elsewhere.
- Setting the classroom climate; Maslow; Group rules - purpose and examples; group games - types of games, give a few examples or links to good books on games; the importance of the perfect circle (encourages people to talk, breaks down barriers - even a oddly shaped circle can break this); p13-22 Once Upon a Group by Kindred; Dumping baggage: what feelings associated with things outside the group are coming in? (p59 Once Upon a Group); (also chapter 3, Groups: a guide to small group work by Elwyn)
- How would you like people to refer to you in the group (p23 Once upon a group)
- Personality Assessment of group members (be brief): (chapter 5, Groups: a guide to small group work by Elwyn) - quick thing on MBTI and/or Transactional Analysis and/or Honey & Mumford and or Behaviour Style Identification (see this bit of Bradford VTS web resources on this section)
- Agenda setting: being clear about the purpose of the activity/task
- Useful openings
- General guidance (chapter 4 & 5, Groups: a guide to small group work by Elwyn):
Being sensititve to equality and diversity ( sexuality, ethinicity, gender are the three biggies)
facilitation styles
facilitation methods: how to choose which method (?table): Gibb's reflective cycle, pairs, triads, snowballing, sequenced reports, crossover groups, role play, games (chapter 5, Groups: a guide to small group work by Elwyn):
Task vs maintenance (p30 - 42 Once Upon a Group);
Group problem solving and decision making(p53 Once Upon a Group);(ch 14 Groups: a guide to small group work by Elwyn)
T he importance of silence (p67 Once Upon a Group)
When the party falls flat (p73 Once Upon a Group)
Being too academic (P74 Once Upon a Group) - How to facilitate each stage of Tuckman's forming, storming, norming and performing model (chapters 6-8, Groups: a guide to small group work by Elwyn)
- Other methods: de Bono Hats for problem solving, Balint for exploring the dr-patient relationship
- How to Use the Flip Chart
- Evaluating the group process (ch9 in Groups: a guide to small group work by Elwyn)
- Leadership & Nurturing
- Co-leadership - not always easy; guidance and tips (p47 Once Upon a Group)
- Giving feedback in groups (brief please as covered in another chapter in detail): p70 Once Upon a Group; ch4 in Groups: a guide to small group work by Elwyn
- Closing the session (relate to consultation with a patient ie summarise, FU, deal with unfinished business, close on a positive note) ; people often wait until the very last moment before saying what's really on their mind (p69 Once Upon a Group)
- Running a group checklist (p75-80 Once Upon a Group)
- A book list on group games
- An example of a small group session used at HDR: to illustrate the above principles (eg ch 12 Groups: a guide to small group work by Elwyn). I will probably put this on the web and link it with a web reference to keep the page numbers down. (We'll have a specific section on the web solely for the book)