Tips for Facilitating a Week in Change11 MOOC

A friend asked me to share any tips I had after facilitating week 8 of the massively open online course (MOOC) Change11. In the interest of openness, here is a copy of my response! I clarified my hasty email a bit and added a few more things in [brackets].

At 01:44 PM 12/22/2011, you wrote:

Nancy —

Last summer I agreed to facilitate a week of the change11 MOOC — I don’t know how to say no, I’m afraid. I’ve been so caught up in other responsibilities that I really haven’t followed it much so far. I know you facilitated a week. I have a presentation ready and some texts. Any tips on what I should expect/do during the week?

Hiya Friend

Haha, I don’t know how to say no either and I did week 8 in the midst of a massive Autumn of travel. I should have my head examined. But it turned out really great because I deeply connected with a few people… we resonated! (See theseprevious posts for more background.)

I, unlike most of the other week facilitators so far, did NOT prepare anything. I was aiming for experience and reflection and, besides, no time to prepare. Ha! What is important is to decide on your live events and get them on the calendar. [meaning days and times — remember this is global so consider time zones].One of the biggest complaints so far is these things are very last minute and people can’t get them on their calendars.

Then kick of the week with a live event (which seems to focus energy in this very diverse group) and then follow the hash tag. [My event was focused on a few key questions I put on slides in the synchronous meeting room white board. You can see the before and after versions here. I also did an DLT one on Tuesday and the wrap up event on Friday.  ]

What I did to see who was writing or tweeting was to add a #Change11 tag to my Tweetdeck and to read the #Change11 daily  that Stephen sends out with a pretty good collection of links. Then I followed the links and left comments on as many blogs that I found relating to my week. That took a bit of time, but the feedback was that this was really meaningful to people — particularly since we talked a lot about connection in week 8. Then I did a wrap up live event on Friday where Stephen and George peppered me with academic questions which I, frankly, didn’t relate to very well. But we had fun and that was ok. Then I wrote a wrap up blog post and included as many links as I could find to give everyone a little link love and recognition of their inputs for the week.

I followed up a bit more the week after, then returned to Change11 lurk mode. 😉 (see herehere  and here)

The reason I did the follow ups was because I was also talking about something that was a learning edge for me. It wasn’t “complete” and thus learning from everyone’s input was of value to me. Some may find this onerous work (and time consuming.) YMMV.

…deleted personal message…

Waving with lots of warm holiday choco-thoughts. Happy Solstice!

N

4 thoughts on “Tips for Facilitating a Week in Change11 MOOC”

  1. I loved your reflection and your statement: I, unlike most of the other week facilitators so far, did NOT prepare anything. I was aiming for experience and reflection and, besides, no time to prepare.

    I believe you and many other skilled online and face-to-face facilitators are always prepared. It’s all at your finger tips, isn’t it? What does preparing for a class, course, or presentation entail? Is there a relationship between teacher preparation for a class and student satisfaction? I believe it’s more about the connection that develops as a result of the teacher’s ability to help the participants find relevancy and feel good about themselves as learners.

  2. Nellie, just getting back after Holiday Slack-off. Your observation about finding relevancy really resonated.

    I think there is a relationship between preparation and engagement, but as you note, it may NOT be about content prep.

    Also, here is a snippet from Stephen Downes in OLDaily about this post:

    “Tips for Facilitating a Week in Change11 MOOC
    Nancy While, Full Circle Associates
    ————————————————————-
    http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=56875
    We had Nancy White as a guest presenter in #Change11
    http://change.mooc.ca this fall and she did a wonderful
    job, introducing us to concepts like ‘social artistry’.
    This post is a pretty good look at the task of presenting
    from the other side. It’s interesting to see how the course
    and the work were perceived by somebody dropping in for a
    week. She writes, “I followed the links and left comments
    on as many blogs that I found relating to my week. That
    took a bit of time, but the feedback was that this was
    really meaningful to people — particularly since we
    talked a lot about connection in week 8.” One thing I
    regret about this course is not being able to do as much of
    that follow-up myself as I would like.
    Comment: http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=56875
    Direct Link:
    http://fullcirc.com/wp/2011/12/23/tips-for-facilitating-a-week-in-change11-mooc/

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