Virtual Facilitation Is Here to Stay: Educational Design and Technologies to Promote Engagement, Diversity, and Co-Creation in Synchronous Continuing Professional Development Activities

Vjekoslav Hlede, PhD, DVM, reports on a three-hour workshop on virtual facilitation that focused on striking a balance between the need for guidance and control and empowering learners to innovate and uphold authenticity.  "Changes in context, like the digitalization of our society and changes in the mediums we use to enable collaboration (conference room vs. Zoom, for example), can profoundly impact how we facilitate online events," Hlede explains.  "In this workshop, our facilitators ... masterfully guided us learners through engaging learning activities and empowered us to better facilitate in the ever-changing digital context."  The facilitators applied Liberating Structures principles that enabled almost immediate organization and delivery of feedback among learners.  "Therefore, as learners, we had the opportunity to learn about good virtual facilitation, experience it, practice it and 'go home' with resources that will help us practice good virtual facilitation in our unique local contest," Hlede writes.  He suggests it may be valuable to discuss ideas on facilitating asynchronous virtual collaboration, and utilizing synchronous and asynchronous virtual and face-to-face communication channels for longitudinal learning events or communities.  Hlede writes the workshop "provides a hands-on experience in facilitating synchronous virtual events better, and it can serve as a good foundation for follow-up workshops or self-guided improvements on facilitation in different contexts."

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