Student Facilitators

Nominate Student Facilitators

Materials required

Implementation procedure

Strategy in practice

None

Identify students in the group who are comfortable taking leadership roles and who also have a developed sense of intuition. In other words, you find that they can work naturally with many of their peers. Sometimes you can gauge this on your own; other times, you might need help. Contributor Jamie told us that she discovered her student facilitators based on surveys that she distributed each quarter. The surveys provided her discrete feedback on who individual students in her class felt most comfortable working with.
Explain to the facilitators their responsibility to moderate the discussion and ensure that each student’s voice is heard.
At the end of small group time, regroup as a class and ask the facilitator to summarize the group’s findings. Should you want to probe further, this may be a good time to ask individual students to speak more about their ideas after the facilitator has introduced them.

In her seventh grade life science class, Janine noticed poor retention day over day. The students seemed to be getting the material, but when she posed questions the following day, the class was never as sharp.

Rather than start off with questions, Janine decided to introduce a mini recap at the start of class. She divided the class into six groups of four and nominated a student facilitator per group.

Description

Student facilitators take on a teacher role for a portion of a class period to lead a discussion, a group activity, or even teach a lesson. In this section, we review the benefits of naming student facilitators within small group settings.

Things to keep in mind

There may be concern that facilitators reporting to the class on the group’s findings break the bonds of privacy or intimacy that small groups can create. This is a fair concern, but students often feel more confident speaking to the whole class about their ideas after they have had the experience of sharing them in the test ground of a small group.
As a teacher, you may have concerns that you’re asking a student to take on your role. Remember that you are only asking students to facilitate for a small portion of their learning experience. Moreover, naming a student as facilitator gives them an ownership over the material that can drive engagement and encourage deeper learning.
Placing students in the role of facilitator is a sign that you recognize and appreciate their leadership abilities. We recognize, however, that it does allocate significantly more responsibility on these students. If you are able, try rotating facilitators occasionally to share the power and responsibility.

To find the right facilitators, Janine crafted a short survey, asking “Who would you like to nominate as your group leader?” She hoped that this question would lead her to match students together who were generally compatible and who offered a good leader-supporter relationship.

Each day, she directed her students to get into their “recap groups” and put five minutes on the timer for the group to come up with one question, one fact, and one insight about yesterday’s material. The group facilitator recited their answers to the class. Then, when Janine wanted to dive deeper, she’d ask individual students in the group to talk more about their ideas.

“This often worked for quieter students because they seemed to feel more comfortable knowing that what they said had already been validated by their group and by me,” Janine said.

References:

- Cooperative learning. Retrieved December 11, 2016, from https://www.teachervision.com/pro-dev/cooperative-learning/48531.html

- "Jamie." (2016, October 19). Email interview.