9 Feb, 2023

Surviving Awkward Facilitation Moments

By |2023-02-15T00:01:41-05:00February 9th, 2023|Categories: Speaking & Facilitation|Tags: , , |0 Comments

Plan, reflect, and prepare for next time.

As a core component of my work, facilitating meetings and workshops occurs frequently. Whether for a client meeting or more publicly in a workshop setting, I’ve played around with my facilitation style based on audience and subject matter. Each time I facilitate, I learn something about myself.

And as the world continues to reopen, conferences and meetings that transitioned from in-person to online during the COVID-19 pandemic are returning as in-person events.

From handling logistics and planning your meeting or workshop structure, to being fully present, facilitators consider many things to ensure the experience is educational and enjoyable for your audience.

Despite our level of preparedness, sometimes things don’t go as planned. You can’t control everything, but some awkward moments are easier to navigate in the moment, while others require reflection and planning to avoid them in the future.

Consider these crucial facilitation aspects as you develop your strategy for reducing awkward logistical and audience moments as much as possible:

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19 Jun, 2019

Try This: Context ​vs Content

By |2021-08-19T20:39:50-04:00June 19th, 2019|Categories: Workshop, Program, & Curriculum Design|Tags: , , |0 Comments

Like a glass of water, the content of your workshop is contained within the context.

Next week, I’ll be facilitating a presentation and discussion on the reproductive justice framework for a client organization that provides health services to underserved individuals and their families along with partnering with community-based organizations and government agencies.

The client’s project is a learning collaborative that brings together local healthcare providers to adopt best practices for the provision of contraception within primary care, post-abortion, and postpartum settings.

It’s been a while since I’ve presented on RJ for an audience like this, and I’m pretty excited about it. So much so, that it’s reminded me of my goal for creating a Try This blog around the topic of context versus content.

In short, content is what you talk about, while context is how you talk about it.

Think about a glass of water. The content is the water while the glass is the context. Like a glass of water, the content of your workshop (the activities, group discussions, etc.) is contained within the context (or topic of the workshop).

In my case, the content of my presentation is RJ, but I’m presenting the information within the context of clinical and primary care settings.

However, in the client’s case, the participants in the learning collaborative will be looking at how they can provide patient-centered care (content) within the context of RJ.

Another way to look at this consider context within the context (haha) of big-picture thinking. Context is the surrounding atmosphere, the circumstances, perspectives, and intentions that form the foundation of the topic. Content is the activities, details, and events.

This activity is ideal for:

  • Anyone who has a workshop, presentation or training coming up and you’re tired of throwing together haphazard workshops, presentations and trainings

Here’s what you need:

  • Sheets of paper or an erasable whiteboard 
  • Writing utensils (pens, pencils, markers, or dry erase markers)

The steps:

Take your preferred writing utensil and either a sheet of paper or erasable whiteboard and create a diagram, like this:

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22 Mar, 2019

Try This: I Like, I Wish, I Wonder

By |2021-08-19T20:27:39-04:00March 22nd, 2019|Categories: Workshop, Program, & Curriculum Design|Tags: , , |0 Comments

This this activity out and let me know how it goes for you.

I’ve used “I Like, I Wish, I Wonder” as a way to get quick feedback from my program and workshop participants.

Adapted from the Stanford Design School’s “I Like, I Wish, How to” process, I first used “I Like, I Wish, I Wonder” during an evaluation project with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s sexual and reproductive justice campaign. The campaign’s Community Engagement Group facilitated local gatherings in the five boroughs to gather insights into how various demographics were advancing Reproductive Justice in their communities.

Due to the gatherings being large in scope and attendance, we 1) needed something quick for the participants to fill out before leaving, and 2) wanted to develop an easy-to-understand evaluation process that was easy for DOHMH staff to volunteers to administer onsite (as I was not able to be at all gatherings) and for participants to not have much of a problem completing. Also, it was a lesson learned in developing an evaluation tool that generates honest constructive feedback AND helping staff and volunteers learn how to look for generated themes by a variety of participants.

This activity is ideal for:

  • Staff responsible for developing and overseeing the implementation of programs, services, and strategies
  • Gathering quick feedback in a time-crunch
  • Breaking out of the standard survey construction model
  • Staff interested in building their skills and confidence in qualitative data collection and analysis

Here’s what you need:

There are two ways to implement this process:

  • Option 1: Sheets of paper, writing utensils
  • Option 2: Butcher paper or a white board, a marker, writing utensils, post-its

The process:

For option 1: Have participants divide their sheets into four quadrants labeled “I Like”, “I Wish”, “I Wonder”. (You can also have sheets that already have the labels typed out. You’ll have an empty quadrant, and I’ll explain what to do with it later.

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1 Aug, 2018

Ask Nicole: How to Bring Ideas to Life in Your Workshop or Training

By |2021-08-19T20:14:35-04:00August 1st, 2018|Categories: Workshop, Program, & Curriculum Design|Tags: , , |0 Comments

Have a question you’d like to be featured? Let me know.

The purpose of a workshop or training is inform your audience of key concepts in a manner that is engaging. And your job as the trainer or facilitator is to keep the interest of your audience.

There are a variety of reasons why someone may zone out in your workshop or training, but the most important reason (I believe) this occurs is because

Your audience isn’t fully understanding the subject matter. 

Ability aside, some people aren’t able to grasp or recall subject matter just by listening to you speak. But there are some tricks you can keep up your sleeve.

Here are some tricks I’ve used to bring ideas to life in my workshops and trainings:

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28 Jun, 2017

Common Workshop Terminology

By |2021-08-19T19:43:14-04:00June 28th, 2017|Categories: Speaking & Facilitation|Tags: , |0 Comments

Many workshop facilitators have their own style of facilitating, including using their own words or phrases to convey key concepts across to workshop participants. Or sometimes, you may have been in a workshop and have heard terms that you weren’t familiar with and may not have been comfortable asking about them.

Here are some terms I’ve either used for a long time or recently came across that made a lot of sense for me, and resonated with the participants I’ve used them with. Feel free to use the terminology that resonates most with you, or try all of them and see how they resonate with your participants:

Download

I discovered this term from one of my clients. To “download” means to share information you’ve learned. For example, if one goes to a training or workshop or decides to do more research on a topic on their own to share with others, they share what they’ve learned in the hopes that others will absorb the information. Think of downloading a new program on your laptop or desktop and saving it for future use.

Parking Lot/Bike Rack

Sometimes a participant will ask a question that you’re unsure how to answer. Or maybe you and the participants are so engrossed in an activity that asking a question might disrupt the flow of engagement. Saving the question for later in a “parking lot” or “bike rack” allows the facilitator to come back to the question or comment at a later time. You can create a parking lot/bike rack by dedicating a section of the room for participants to write questions or comments on post-it notes to place in that area. Towards the end of the workshop or if there’s a break in activity, go back read some of the questions or comments to share with the rest of the participants.

Modeling

Modeling” is demonstrating something to your participants. If there is an activity that may be very intricate that it may take participants some time to understand, you show them what to do. Whether it’s showing a movement or performing a writing activity, modeling allows participants to see what they need to do.

Unpack

Sometimes a participant may make a comment or ask a question that receives a level of reaction from participants, and it may be something you’re interested in exploring further. So you’ll respond, “Let’s unpack this.” Unpacking means to take a deeper dive into a topic as a means to uncover more information. It’s important to do this in a way that doesn’t make a participant feel put on the spot, so do this in a way that honors the perspective of the participant while also allowing everyone to add their own insights.

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This Is A Custom Widget

This Sliding Bar can be switched on or off in theme options, and can take any widget you throw at it or even fill it with your custom HTML Code. Its perfect for grabbing the attention of your viewers. Choose between 1, 2, 3 or 4 columns, set the background color, widget divider color, activate transparency, a top border or fully disable it on desktop and mobile.
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