Module 4 |

Facilitation
Techniques
Summary Facilitation Techniques

Atributtion 4.0 Internacional (CC BY 4. 0)

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Content
Facilitation Techniques.......................................................................................................................... 2
1.- Cooperative Learning .................................................................................................................. 2
2.- Brainstorming................................................................................................................................. 3
3.- Case - Studies ................................................................................................................................. 4
4.- Game based learning.................................................................................................................... 5
5.- Inverted classroom or flipped classroom .............................................................................. 6
6.- World café ....................................................................................................................................... 7
7.- CBL (challenge-based learning) ................................................................................................ 8
8.- Company / employer visits......................................................................................................... 9
9.- Focus group discussion ............................................................................................................. 10
10.- Job shadowing ........................................................................................................................... 11

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Facilitation Techniques

1.- Cooperative Learning

Through cooperative Learning students work in small groups to accomplish a common

learning goal with the guidance of the teacher. Cooperative Learning involves
structuring classes around small groups that work together in such a way that each
group member's success is dependent on the group's success.

Cooperative learning strategies offer students the possibility to learn by applying

knowledge in an environment more similar to the one they will encounter in their future
work life. Students work together in small groups to help themselves and their
teammates learn together while solving challenges identified in the business world
through the support of company representatives.

Cooperative working students learn important entrepreneurialskills and assumption of

responsibility that one cannot learn through lectures and traditional classes.

Teachers get the chance to work on core competencies and on students’ communication
and soft skills, which are valuable for students’ success in life and work, integrating them
in academic curricula.

Cooperative learning exercises can be as simple as a five minute in class exercise or as

complex as a project which crosses class periods. Therefore, cooperative learning can be
easily integrated into curricula according to specific needs and availability.

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2.- Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a technique to stimulate a creative process where a person or a group,

ideally 10-15 persons, sits down with a problem in mind and spontaneously contributes
solutions to that problem.

An easy way to generate new ideas is by answering a question. Participants can find a
judgment-free space to meet and reflect with each other to reach an innovative solution
for the specific problem by aggregating all the spontaneous opinions or suggestions
given by each group member.

During this session, the group members are just required to share their ideas or speak
out the mind in front of other members and need not worry about how realistic or
feasible the solution is.

The goal isn’t a perfect idea, it’s lots of ideas, collaboration, and openness to wild
solutions. In the real business world doesn't exist only one solution but multiple
solutions. Brainstorming should encourage students to find different and innovative
solutions and at the same time show them different ways to work with others and use
time effectively.

In order to engage your students in a more stimulating discussion and come up with
innovative approaches you can consider inviting people from different business context
and areas of expertise that have different points of view.

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3.- Case - Studies

Case studies have the power to engage, influence, inspire, and enliven the exploration of
entrepreneurship — and bring concepts to life. Teachers should select cases that are
brief and possibly from the local business context, in order to present learners with local
role models with whom they may easily identify and put themselves in the shoes of the
protagonists and to feel inspired.

Case studies are usually short articles describing cutting-edge real-world business
examples that illustrate key problems confronting contemporary entrepreneurs or
principle in detail to introduce theories or topics related to the course.

To facilitate dynamic case discussions, teachers should provide ample information about
the social context and identify entrepreneurship tools and concepts that would be
appropriate for each of the protagonists to adopt, which teachers can elaborate on to
enable students to grow their repertoire of entrepreneurial skills and apply them to their
own businesses’ idea.

Case studies should include a variety of business industries and cover various
entrepreneurial stages such as firm start-up, growth, and management. In this regard,
case studies are chosen to address real-world issues that young entrepreneurs would
face, such as a lack of financing, market access, opportunity recognition, and so on. Cases
can be related to business stories that students already know something about so they
can enjoy expressing their views on challenges the entrepreneurs faced, or can be cases
entirely new to students so they are intrigued to identify opportunity for a new business.
In any case, as a teacher you can dig into case studies with students to stimulate their
critical thinking skills.

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4.- Game based learning

Because Entrepreneurship is an innovative and active oriented activity,

entrepreneurship education should move towards learning-by-doing, active learning
and experiential methodologies, characterized by engaging the students as active agents
in the learning process, requiring them to do and react upon meaningful learning
activities.

Students must do more than just listen, and be engaged in solving problems, write,
discuss and other active process. Game Based Learning is one of the active learning
approaches offering an engaging and safe opportunity to develop the entrepreneurship
competencies.

Game based learning could be a useful tool for building a learning space in which learners
could test experiential learning paths. In fact, serious and simulation games have had a
significant effect on classroom education as well as on training programs, increasing the
learner’s motivation, and enabling them to embark on engaging and challenging learning
paths.

The use of a serious game is a useful instrument for boosting entrepreneurial attitudes,
entrepreneurial intentions and entrepreneurial behavior. Moreover, the use of serious
games is often integrated into blended educational models, thus creating an opportunity
for teachers to exploit their potential in specific parts of traditional learning paths.

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5.- Inverted classroom or flipped classroom

Flipped learning (also called inverted learning) has transformed conventional in-
classroom learning activities into out-of-classroom activities and vice-versa. In this
approach, students are responsible for their learning process, and new information is
transmitted to them when they are out of the classroom.

As the class time is not used to transfer knowledge, the students can be engaged in
hands-on practices and activities. The literature has reported the use of flipped learning
in various disciplines including business education. According to these studies, flipped
learning offers an interactive and dynamic learning environment and enables students
to actively participate in the class activities and engage in the learning process.

As a consequence, shifting from traditional teacher-centred instruction to flipped

classrooms, as one of the student-centred approaches, may positively influence
students' engagement, attitudes, and academic performance.

Flipped learning also equips students with the knowledge and skills required in the real-
world business environment enhancing learning and academic performance and
fostering practical knowledge and communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and
problem-solving skills.

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6.- World café

The World Café is a user-friendly technique for creating meaningful and cooperative
dialogue around questions that count. As an organizational or social design process the
World Café offers a practical way to enhance the human capacity for collaborative
thought.

Born out of the worldwide interest in dialogue methodologies and readily applicable to
organizations and communities, it catalyzes dynamic conversations and opens new
possibilities for action. In a World Café dialogue, small, intimate conversations link and
build on each other as people move between groups, cross-pollinate ideas and make new
connections around questions that really matter to their future career perspective.

The World Cafe is an engagement process designed to take place in a relaxed

atmosphere aimed at uncovering group wisdom.

The World Cafe methodology is based on the belief that 'we are wiser together' and that
the future can be shaped 'through conversations that matter'.

This type of outline thinking can help to focus the discussion while enabling team
members to gain a multi-stakeholder perspective on this issue, drawing not solely on
educators but also on other “key players” in the entrepreneurship education ecosystem.
Inviting key players from your network, such as representatives of the business world,
from the local or international scenario, that can be inspirational and challenging for the
world café.

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7.- CBL (challenge-based learning)

Challenge-based learning is a technique for teaching and learning which revolves around
students collaborating in teams to select, define and engage with one or a succession of
authentic, locally or globally relevant challenges which have more than one solution or
none at all. Solution is typically not known yet or prepared in advance by the teacher.
Students are encouraged to take ownership of their challenge by being given the
autonomy of choice and options while working in self-directed teams.

The teacher is responsible for facilitating the challenge-based learning environment.

This means a radical shift from the “sage on the stage” to a coach who needs to provide
scaffolding for a learning environment to unfold around interdisciplinary challenges.
This requires the teacher to recognize the participatory character of this learning
environment and accept a need to be flexible.

To face an interdisciplinary challenge, students work in teams, often together with

students from different disciplines. To support student teams, teachers and experts
from different fields, or business people, can be involved as valuable partners that
provide sources of knowledge, actively collaborate with the students, function as
evaluators of the outcome or even provide challenges to be solved.

The intended learning outcomes of CBL are knowledge on the one hand and
competences on the other. In addition to disciplinary competences, students’
development of transversal competences can be fostered. In particular, competences
that support the entrepreneurial mindset such as collaboration, communication,
problem solving, creativity, critical thinking, transdisciplinary competence and digital
literacy can be developed and improved through CBL.

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8.- Company / employer visits

Company Visit is an instructional activity that allows students to meet an entrepreneur

and learn about his or her work environment. This will allow students to come into
contact with individuals who may serve as positive role models, help make their studies
more meaningful, and provide them with useful tools for their career. It also provides an
opportunity to get a foot in the door and broaden their network of contacts.

This activity will help students to think about their personal objectives and the best way
to achieve them, and provide a model for success that highlights the factors that
contribute to it. It will also equip students with an example of a possible career choice by
introducing them to entrepreneurs or intrapreneurs who work in a field related to a
course or program of study.

Teachers should support students before and after the visit to make it a meaningful
experience. Before the visit students should define their personal expectations and
objectives, and draw up a list of questions.

After the visit, the students should be given the opportunity to reflect on their
experience and analyze what they have learned. This step is very important: it provides
closure and serves as an important anchor point for the activity. Without it, the entire
activity may be of little value to the student. It is also a way for teachers to evaluate the
activity and motivate students.

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9.- Focus group discussion

A focus group is an information-gathering technique where a selected set of participants

gather together for a guided discussion regarding a particular area which has been
identified as the focus. It involves the collection of information through group
interaction on predetermined topics. For example, a group of students may gather to
explore in depth a number of issues related to the implementation of business ideas in
the emerging economic scenario.

During a Focus Group Discussion teacher can share some materials about
entrepreneurship to trigger discussion. Since young students to become entrepreneurs
should face many challenges such as the limitations in capital, business plan and location,
the trigger material could describe small businesses with limited capital and staff to
enable students to put themselves in the shoes of the main role and reflect about the
strategy to overcome such challenges.

Both students and teachers can benefit from a Focus Group Discussion: teachers can
collect information about student’s opinions and feelings concerning the topic of
entrepreneurship while students can listen to each other's needs, problems and
concerns, and feelings of satisfaction and dissatisfaction.

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10.- Job shadowing

Job shadowing is not a new concept. Traditionally, students have been encouraged to
visit a company and observe a professional in their daily world of work. Job shadowing is
a good opportunity to gain exposure to new careers through a supervised observational
experience in an approved business/industry setting. Such experiences should be
directly supervised by the teacher and integrated within specific academic courses to
allow students to observe skills learned in the classroom. This experience differs from a
regular company visit since students get the opportunity to observe a leader actually
performing the regular duties of his/her occupation and to see first-hand what
requirements are necessary to pursue certain careers.

This will help interns to gain an understanding of the industry and the position and to
reflect if they have the required set of hard and soft skills and stimulate learning of new
ones.

In the context of entrepreneurship, it gives students an insight into the working life of a
leader by offering a snapshot into the day-to-day life of a professional, which again helps
them to become familiar with the processes involved in running a company.
Every job shadowing experience is different, depending on the topic of the project,
profile of the hosting organization and the skills of the job shadower. Therefore, teachers
can customize the experience according to student learning needs.

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