Moving from Instructor to Facilitator

One of the greatest challenges for an instructor in a PBL unit is to adapt to the role of facilitator. Reflect on the following:

Will my role in the teaching/learning process change?

Adapting to the role of facilitator in a PBL unit will be somewhat challenging for me. As a communicative language instructor my lecturer/facilitator ratio is between 80:20 and 20:80. The range is large because of the fact that my student population largely originates from countries whose educational systems are predominantly based on the "sage on the stage" model. I start a semester at about 80:20 and move slowly toward the goal of 20:80 after certain skills including asking questions and participating in cooperative group tasks are practiced. The implementation of a PBL unit would have to take place during the second half of the semester when students are sufficiently acclimated to the "guide on the side" model. The challenge for me will be giving up that 20% lecturer role. In a language learning classroom, I'm not sure if instruction would be effective if the instructor moved into a 100% facilitator role.

What are the skills of effective facilitation?

• Grouping students according to their language backgrounds and individual skills
• Providing clear guidelines as to the goal of the project or activity
• Guiding students toward asking the "right" questions with adequate schema activation
• Asking students the "right" questions to support critical thinking skills
• Rerouting students in cases where their ideas may be irrelevant to the project's progression
• Modeling effective collaboration skills
• Demonstrating effective organization and time-management skills
• Monitoring collaborative groups to ensure that students are all contributing based on their individual strengths
• Providing support for individual students in the areas where they may need remediation
• Having faith in the learners' abilities

Will the students develop the competencies and skills needed to be successful?

As long as an instructor is always conscious of the fact that the class is made up of individuals rather than a homogeneous group of students coming into a course already prepared with the necessary skills and background knowledge to be successful, and as long as the instructor leverages this fact by individualizing instruction as much as possible, students will be able to develop the competencies and skills needed to be successful. Instructors can also utilize the knowledge and skills of advanced learners to assist in developing the skills of peers who need extra help understanding specific concepts and skills. This in turn develops peer relationships and mentoring skills of the advanced learners.

What changes will you need to make in order to become an effective facilitator in your PBL unit?

• Focusing on the development of effective collaborative group work
• Developing more effective schema building/scaffolding activities
• Providing models of excellent projects
• Reflecting on student reflections and peer evaluations
• Reflecting on my own classroom practices to ensure that I am actually making changes to match PBL