Castro, Danilo V.

Education Unit Earner, Luzon Colleges in Science and Technology

August 2018

TEACHER AS FACILITATOR

But before we talk about how the teacher can be a facilitator, we must comprehend the
meaning of a facilitator. A facilitator is the person who assists a group of people in
grasping at their common targets and in achieving them without any intervention on
his/her behalf. Therefore, when we say the teacher has to play the role of a facilitator in
the classroom, this means that the teacher should not be the king who controls the
activities of the learners. He /she should grant the learners some space to let the spirits
of creativity and innovation. In other words, the learners must get involved into an active
participation that would be represented in argumentative discussions and teamwork
activities, so that the process of learning become comprehensive.

Being a facilitator in a classroom means being a successful teacher. This means that one
builds constructionist classes where there are mutual positive and active responses from
the teacher and the learners, and even among the learners themselves within the one
classroom.

Teacher as Facilitator The teacher's role is to guide and assist students as they take on
more responsibility for their learning. Teacher as a facilitator requires a change in
standard teaching approaches. This approach can be combined with other strategies.
Activity Description: Envision the class as a ‘social-system’ that requires direction not
instruction. With as little explanation or direction as possible present the class with a
problem, concept or idea and an expectation about a final result or objective. The problem
should: • Be well-conceived • Meet course/class objectives • Be appropriate for the time
allotted • Require collaboration and discussion Students should discuss in small groups
or pairs to arrive at the final answer – the teacher should circulate from group to group
listening, answering questions and redirecting where necessary. Final answers can be
submitted in written or oral formats. Facilitating learning may take many forms. The
purpose of the facilitation is to move the responsibility for learning from the instructor to
the student. One way to do this is give the students an explicit list of "learning objectives"
for classroom sessions, reading assignments and homework assignments — the list
contains concepts that are important for them to learn from the assigned exercise. The
list establishes a framework into which the students fit bits of knowledge as they
encounter them. Another benefit is that the list also forces the instructor to keep the
classroom sessions on target. Rather than providing a brain dump that is known about a
particular topic, focus is on the listed concepts. If lecturing, put the list on the board and
check off each concept as they are discussed (Liebman, 1996). Something to keep in
mind, to make this method active students need to learn to self assess whether they
understand the concepts or not. The self-assessment may or may not be instructor
guided. There may be a need to help students assess their learning initially and then allow
them to work independently as the semester progresses. Simply, listing objectives and
checking them off doesn’t necessarily have impact on student learning – particularly if the
objectives aren’t well conceived.

References: Herrick, Richard S. (1999) “Using data pooling to measure the density of
sodas: An introductory discovery experiment” Journal of Chemical Education, 76(10); pg.
1411 Liebman, J.S. (1998) “Will This Be On the Test” OR/MS Today - February 1998 -
Issues in Education http://www.lionhrtpub.com/orms/orms-2-98/issuesined.html Neville,
Alan J. (1999) “The problem-based learning tutor: Teacher? Facilitator? Evaluator?”
Medical Teacher, 21(4); pg. 393
What does it mean?
As a facilitator, you plan and scaffold children's learning based on your understanding of
how they learn, their interests, needs and abilities.

Observing and monitoring children’s learning will help you to better cater to their learning
needs. To further enhance children’s learning and development, you can work with
families to help children make connections between what goes on in school and at home.

How can you do it?

You can:
 Make use of teachable moments to stimulate and extend children's thinking
 Design the environment purposefully to nurture children's sense of wonder and
curiosity, as well as eagerness to learn
 Use a wide range of teaching strategies to engage children actively
 Observe and monitor how and what children are learning and use the information to
help them make connections and build new understanding

Example
This video illustrates two of the iTeach principles, Teachers as Facilitators of Learning
and Children as Constructors of Knowledge, in action in the classroom. The teacher
explains the importance of facilitating children’s learning by breaking down an activity
into bite-size tasks, modelling the process of carrying out the task, giving clear
instructions and asking open-ended questions. This also provides opportunities for
children to explore, discover and gain new understanding of themselves and the world.