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Module 3: Facilitation and Engagement

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The training curriculum is currently undergoing final revisions and quality checks. All materials will be released shortly. Until the official release, please refrain from using, distributing, or implementing any part of these resources.

Learning Objectives

  • Learning Objective 1 (LO1): Identify essential trainer skills.
  • Learning Objective 2 (LO2): Summarise key aspects of learner engagement and the role of the trainer.
  • Learning Objective 3 (LO3): Identify methods to make trainings inclusive and accessible.

Total Module Duration

1 hour 45 minutes

Learning Objective 1

LO1: Identify essential trainer skills.

Learning Activities

  • Activity (15 mins): What makes a good trainer? Ask learners to think about a time they had a good trainer in a workshop, training etc. and list some of their qualities.
  • Presentation (15 min): Introduce trainer skills and the role of the trainer in the training.

Materials to Prepare

  • Activity on what makes a good trainer.
  • A list of skills that a good trainer has and other things to consider for delivering a good training.

Instructor Notes

Activity:

  • What makes a good trainer? The goal of the activity is to get learners engaged about the key qualities they recognise in a competent trainer.

Presentation:

  • The presentation should introduce the role of the data steward as a trainer. The focus is on the skills needed to lead effective trainings. Specific skills can include but are not limited to active listening, facilitation, effective questioning, inclusive facilitation, ability to encourage participation, and time management.

Resources

Input for presentation and activities:

  1. Chapter 16., Section 2. Developing Facilitation Skills - Main Section | Community Tool Box. https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/leadership/group-facilitation/facilitation-skills/main. Accessed 24 Mar. 2025.
  2. FSG and Karen. "Inclusive Facilitation for Social Change." FSG, 17 Aug. 2023, https://www.fsg.org/blog/inclusive-facilitation-for-social-change/.

Learning Objective 2

LO2: Summarise key aspects of learner engagement and the role of the trainer.

Learning Activities

  • Presentation (10 mins): Discuss different ways to engage learners. The presentation can also discuss briefly how adults learn and how to keep them motivated.
  • Group work (15 mins): Ask learners to identify one or two topics that they will be training on. In pairs, ask them to discuss how they will keep learners engaged with the topic.

Materials to Prepare

  • Presentation on engagement techniques and training adults.
  • Group work on engaging with training.

Instructor Notes

Presentation:

  • The instructor introduces the importance of engagement in training. The instructor can discuss how repetition (in different ways) is useful for remembering concepts such as using written text to back up speech because hearing and seeing helps to remember concepts.
  • Engaging the learners: The instructor can introduce the idea of the trainer as a performer. A good trainer knows how to keep the attention of learners which can vary depending the modality of the training (face to face versus online). Little tricks could include varying speech patterns, tone, and intonation.
  • The instructor should address that teaching adults is different from teaching children and discuss some key aspects (Resource 1).

Group work:

  • The instructor can explain how learners are engaged via learning activities. Ask learners to come up with one engagement technique which they can demonstrate or explain. At the end of the group work the instructor can also emphasis to the group how motivation and demotivation works (Resource 1).

Resources

Input for presentation and group work:

  1. On Learning and Training | Open Science Training Handbook. 13 Apr. 2023, https://open-science-training-handbook.gitbook.io/book/03onlearningandtraining.

Learning Objective 3

LO3: Identify methods to make trainings inclusive and accessible.

Learning Activities

  • Group work (25 mins): In small groups, develop together a code of conduct to use in trainings or facilitate the development of a code of conduct for the current training that is being given.
  • Activity (25 mins): The instructor provides example situations where accessibility and inclusivity of trainings can be improved. The learners can discuss best practices.

Materials to Prepare

  • Group work: Prepare example code of conducts.
  • Activity: Preparing some real life examples of code of conducts and what violations can look like.

Instructor Notes

Group work:

  • The instructor can introduce the learners to code of conducts and how these can be developed during a training. Codes of conduct are important to improve inclusivity. Resource 1 and 2 can serve as examples.
  • The instructor can engage the learners to think about the components of a code of conduct and the group activity can focus on developing one for the current training. Learners can be encouraged to explore their institutions own websites and see if they have their own institutional codes of conduct.

Activity:

  • The instructor should introduce how accessibility in trainings can be improved by taking into consideration disability, language, inequality in digital access and overview of practical tools that enable accessibility in the presentation (Resource 3).
  • The instructor can adapt this exercise based on first-hand experiences and other established guidance.

Resources

Input for activities:

  1. How Can You Establish a Code of Conduct for a Facilitation Community? https://www.linkedin.com/advice/3/how-can-you-establish-code-conduct-facilitation-community-8hzhc. Accessed 24 Mar. 2025.
  2. "GitHub Community Code of Conduct." GitHub Docs, https://docs-internal.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-community-code-of-conduct. Accessed 24 Mar. 2025.
  3. Accessibility - The Turing Way. https://book.the-turing-way.org/community-handbook/accessibility.html. Accessed 24 Mar. 2025.
  4. Filiposka, Sonja, et al. D2.2 Methodology for FAIR-by-Design Training Materials. Aug. 2023. DOI.org (Datacite), https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.8305539.