Encouraging participation
12. Encouraging participation
Ask yourself, “How can I make the material…
- More meaningful and relevant?
- More enjoyable?
- Clearer and more straightforward?
- More specific to the area, culture, practices?
- More inclusive or participatory?
- More varied?
- Immediately useful?
- More closely linked to the changes brought about through iSIKHNAS?”
Lay the right foundation - start getting participation early in the first few minutes of the first day
Use simple tools throughout the course
- take a poll,
- ask for opinions,
- ask for questions, concerns or issues,
- put a different point of view forward and ask for views.
- Do a mini-quiz
- Have a competition between two groups
- Give your role of facilitator to someone so that they can run a session on a subject they are comfortable with
- Break into groups and share the discussion facilitation job around
- Deflect questions back to the group instead of answering them yourself
- Use every participant’s name and ask for direct comment
- Break into groups and then have groups report back, then use that as the basis for discussion.
- Get people standing and moving about, and using the equipment or resources.
- Use good body language that demonstrates the importance of every participant and invites participation
- Use pauses in discussion and during questioning so that it gives people time to digest, build thoughts, draw on evidence and experience, and make arguments.