Group Facilitation: A Research and Applications Journal
Issue 9, 2008
Sibrenne Wagenaar and Joitske Hulsebosch
ABSTRACT
In the fall of 2005, an event was organized for individuals from development organisations in the Netherlands to learn about new tools for collaboration at a distance, which grew into an inter-organizational, hybrid learning community about e-collaboration. The two authors used a community of practice-theory informed way of facilitating this community as facilitator-practitioners. The community grew from 20 to over 100 members. Its public community space expanded from an online discussion forum to include face-to-face meetings, research activities and a weblog. The private spaces were an equally important part of the collaborative learning landscape and consisted of joint projects, members of the community participating in the same trainings, as well as have informal meetings both on- and offline. The authors point out some principles for facilitators of learning communities who want to work from CoP-theory and provide ideas for stage-specific interventions. They conclude with a discussion and ideas for further research.
KEYWORDS
Community of Practice, Facilitation, Inter-organizational Communities of Practice, Group facilitation, online and face to face learning, Facilitator Interventions
Evaluating Group Interventions: A Framework for Diagnosing, Implementing, and Evaluating Group Interventions
Jacob de Lichtenberg and Manuel London
ABSTRACT
This article presents a framework for group facilitators to assess needs for interventions, select and/or design the interventions, and evaluate the effects of the interventions over time. The purpose is to help facilitators use existing intervention theory and research to guide their practice. Examples of interventions and related research are presented for the facilitation of group relationship development, idea generation, capacity building, performance reflection, and opportunities for change. A guideline is offered for using this knowledge to diagnose, implement, and evaluate group interventions.
Group facilitation, group interventions, needs assessment, outcomes evaluation.
