Facilitation Essentials Training Program
Request/need: While in the Learning Operations team at Meta, I created training and learning experiences for and with our partners to let them do their work in a more efficient and effective manner.
One of our teams’ services was to create learning experiences and if needed also facilitate the training they needed. But, several partners had expressed interest of being able to facilitate themselves. They wanted to be better at facilitating training to improve the training outcome for their participants.
Goal: With this specific training program we had the goal of training our partners to become great facilitators.
Solution: We created a program consisting of two hands-on training sessions for individuals and/or teams with the requirement to complete an assignment at the end of the training, before receiving the Facilitation Essentials Training Program Certification.
Results: 20+ certified and trained facilitators across global teams, ranging from training specialists to managers and global leads.
Medium: Zoom, Workplace, email, Google Drive
The Training Program
Program Components
The Facilitation Essentials Program consists of 5 modules, separated into two training sessions of each two hours long. In the first training session we covered modules 1 to 3. In the second training session we covered modules 4 and 5. Each training consists of hands-on activities, meaning active participation was expected from participants.
Ice breakers
Objectives
Mini lectures
Activities
Videos
Case studies
Evaluations/Reflections
Discussions
Program Topics
The sessions were separated into a first session that focused on beginners and an intermediate second session.
Some of the topics that were brought up in the first session were:
Knowing your audience
Adult Learning theory
Training vs. Presenting
Topics that were brought up in the second session were:
How to use questions to your benefit
Difficult situations (case studies)
Preparation Checklist
The last assignment
The Last Assignment
The last assignment involved the upload of a short video (max 5 minutes) of the participants facilitating a few slides from our program for an imaginative audience/or real life colleagues. Whatever was most convenient to them in that time. The goals were to see if they were able to transfer the skills from our training program to an actual facilitation. The slides were chosen in such a way that they would have to pivot, provide a mini lecture, share their experiences and more. All participants made a great effort to take this seriously and show their facilitation skills.
Evaluate
Redesign
Test
Repeat
As instructional designers, it is important for us to collect quantitative and qualitative data and feedback to enhance learning experiences. We utilized a brief survey to gather feedback from our participants.
Two significant feedback points that called for redesigning were:
1) Adding a third session for questions and answers regarding the last assignment or any other queries that participants might have.
2) Offering the program to interested teams and individuals beyond our direct organization. Word was spreading positively about it.