How to facilitate
- It can be scary to be a facilitator because you might think that you need to know a lot about careers to help others with this program. I don’t think that’s true.
- Here are 4 ways I think you can be helpful when commenting on people’s workbooks or during sessions
- Link sharing and resource provision
- Just sharing links to interesting resources that you know about is good to do. When reading through someone’s workbook and you see that they are wondering about an issue, provide links to reading material on the topic that they can read about.
- Asking clarificatory questions on confusing things
- Even if you don’t know much about careers, you can still ask useful questions that help clarify people’s thinking. Aim to be Socrates and ask questions that get people to clarify their own thinking and notice new perspectives. Notice things that are confusing to you or that you don’t understand, and ask the participant to explain it to you. Having the participant do this will help the participant clarify their own thoughts.
- Drilling down on motivated reasoning by asking questions
- You can also help people avoid motivated reasoning by playing Devil’s Advocate and question their assumptions and conclusions. Be careful not to do this too forcefully and don’t make them feel like they have to change their mind; but ask open questions that get people to re-evaluate things that they might have been taking for granted.
- Providing your own quick takes
- It’s okay to provide your opinion, even if it's relatively uninformed. Just make sure that you’re being upfront about the things that you do and don’t know, and your relative confidence in your opinions. It’s important not to come across as falsely authoritative; but its always okay to share your thoughts on things as long as you are not misrepresenting your beliefs.
Other points to be aware of in-session
- Generic facilitation advice applies
- See our ‣
- Create a friendly environment; spend time on hellos & introductions
- Stress that the presentations are informal, and that we're all collaborating on trying to work out what's true
- They shouldn't be seen as a 'test' or something to worry about
- Similarly, when you ask for workbooks to be submitted so you can comment, make it clear this is just so you can have a peek at their thinking and be someone to bounce ideas off, rather than because you're 'evaluating' their thinking
Session by session guidance
Session 1
- Start with hellos and welcomes
- Keep it friendly, light, and fun
- Introduce my role
- Tell people to go to Exploring cause areas or Exploring job paths + Finding ways to make a difference or Next steps and optimising your year
- Walk through the ‘How this track works’ section
- Why I ask people to do workbooks in session → commitment mechanism to do the workbook properly
- What I mean about arguing for cause areas
- People rule out causes because they don't think they can contribute → want you to hold off judgment on that right now
- Take on the framing of 'what are the world's most pressing problems'
- Tell people to book in a 1-1 now and make a copy of the workbook
- Then start the coworking
- People can ask questions in the chat
- Remind people to ‘click the read more’ in the blue box of the workbook for more info
- Get people to fill out the feedback form [make your own version]
Session 2-5