ASSESSMENT OF EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATORS’ COMPETENCE IN FACILITATING SCIENTIFIC PLAY- LEARN ACTIVITIES IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION CENTRES IN DELTA STATE

The study identified the scientific play-learn activities practiced in early childhood education centres in Delta state and investigated the academic qualifications of the early childhood educators. It also assessed the scientific play-learn skills of the early childhood educators and examined the relationship between early childhood educators’ qualifications and scientific play-learn activities facilitation skills in the study area. These were with a view to providing succinct information about early childhood educators’ competence in facilitating scientific play-learn activities in early childhood centres in the State. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. The population of the study comprised all early childhood educators in the State. The sample for the study consisted of 360 early childhood educators drawn from the three senatorial districts in the state using multistage sampling procedure. One self-designed instrument titled ‘‘Early Childhood Educators’ Competence in Science Play-learn Activities Questionnaire’’ (ECECSPAQ) was used for data collection. The data collected were analysed using frequency count, percentage, and regression analysis. The results of the study showed that 29.5% of early childhood educators in all the centres practised gravity, 22.3% practised motion, 16.4% practised electricity, 46.4% practised sound, and 24.2% practised air and wind. The results further showed that 16.1 % of the early childhood educators had senior school certificate, 11.4% had ND certificate, 20.6% had TC11 and NCE, 14.4% had HND, 4.7% had certificate in Nursery and Primary education while 10.5% also had certificate in science areas. The results also showed that early childhood educators possessed very low level of scientific play-learn skills (21.90%). The results finally showed a significant relationship of early childhood educators’ qualifications on scientific play-learn activities facilitation skills (F = 2.547, p < 0.05). The study concluded that early childhood educators possessed low competence in embarking on rich scientific play-learn activities necessary to promote science learning in children.

The impact of COVID-19 on the delivery of interprofessional education: it's not all bad news

During the COVID-19 outbreak, most face-to-face teaching and practice-based learning placements were suspended. Universities provided ongoing health and social care education, including interprofessional education, using online technology. Focusing on changes in the delivery of interprofessional education, this second article in a series on interprofessional education provides an international perspective through facilitators' case reports. It considers the key factors that enabled a rapid shift from face-to-face to online interprofessional education, and the key aspects that had to change. The significant changes reported from literature and case reports reflect on remote and online learning, the duration of education sessions, individual and team learning aspects and facilitation skills.

Picturing the researcher: Using photovoice to document the research assistant experience during the COVID-19 pandemic

The article is a reflection by two graduate research assistants (GRAs) who experienced the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the in-person interactions through which qualitative researchers usually learn about human experiences. With in-person research curtailed, the authors were compelled to think creatively and find other ways to continue their research and develop meaning. The researchers reflected on their experiences as GRAs for the study ‘Thriving in Canada: Learning from the (photo) voices of women living on a low income engaged in action research to improve access to health and social services’. Taking advantage of pandemic-related study delays, the researchers explored the photovoice method in more depth and used photovoice to document their own lived experience as GRAs, and their learning. They practised self-reflexivity and worked to improve their visual-based photovoice facilitation skills. This illustrated essay is the story of the authors’ experiences over the past year working as GRAs during the COVID-19 global pandemic.

Reflective writing: a tool to support continuous learning and improved effectiveness in implementation facilitators

Background Implementation facilitators support the adoption of evidence-based practices and other improvement efforts in complex healthcare settings. Facilitators are trained to develop essential facilitation skills and facilitator effectiveness is typically evaluated post-implementation, but little is known about how facilitators apply and adapt didactic knowledge after training, or how learning and refining experiential knowledge occurs during the facilitation process. We propose the use of reflective writing as a tool to document and support facilitator learning and facilitator effectiveness. Methods Using an instrumental case study of the Coordination Toolkit and Coaching (CTAC) project, we explore the use of reflective writing by facilitators to support their learning and effectiveness. Six primary care clinics participated in weekly hour-long facilitation calls over a 12-month period to implement quality improvement projects related to care coordination. Two facilitators completed templated reflections after each facilitation call for their assigned sites, totaling 269 reflections. We used the declarative-procedural-reflective model, which defines the process of skill development in clinical practice, to qualitatively analyze the reflections. Two independent coders used content analysis principles to code text that captured facilitators’ observations, evaluations, interpretations, and communication. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze reflections by facilitator and by code within and across reflections. Results CTAC facilitators primarily used the reflections to summarize the calls (observation), assess the facilitation process and the tasks and activities they used (evaluation), document their thoughts about how to improve their own effectiveness (interpretation), and describe their communication with implementing teams. Ninety-one percent of reflections included observations, 42% interpretation, 41% evaluation, and 44% facilitator communication. In total, we coded 677 segments of text within reflections: 39% represented observation, 20% interpretation, 18% evaluation, and 23% facilitator communication. Conclusions The process of reflective writing allowed the CTAC facilitators the time and structure to evaluate their facilitation and to think critically about how to adjust their facilitation in response to their observations and interpretations. Reflective writing is a feasible and acceptable tool to support and document facilitator learning and effectiveness. Trial registration The project was registered with ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT03063294) on February 24, 2017.

Measuring resilience: by whom and for whom? A case study of people-centred resilience indicators in New Zealand

PurposeResilience has become a priority of most agendas for disaster risk reduction at different scales leading to an increase demand for measurement of resilience. However, resilience is mostly defined, assessed and measured by outsider experts rather than by those primarily concerned – local people. This article presents the development of people-centred indicators of resilience in New Zealand. It details both the process and outcomes of these indicators.Design/methodology/approachThe study draws from participatory methods to develop a six-step tool kit for people-centred indicators of resilience. The people-centred indicators were implemented with four communities in New Zealand in 2019 and 2020.FindingsThe paper highlights that people are capable at defining and assessing their own resilience. The indicators enabled people identify and measure areas of low resilience and foster dialogue between locals and practitioners to strengthen it.Research limitations/implicationsPeople-centred indicators also have limitations and pose challenges. Their development requires strong facilitation skills; it limitedly enables comparison across communities and implies downward accountability.Practical implicationsThe findings should stimulate discussions about who should measure resilience and for whom such measurement is it for. It provides a tool kit that can be used by practitioners and policy makers to measure and strengthen community resilience.Originality/valueMost resilience indicators is outsider-driven and limitedly involves local people. This study uses a radically different approach placing people at the centre of resilience measurement.

Lived Experience of Disability Equality Training Facilitators: Narratives of Disabled People From Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

This study explores the lived experiences of becoming and continuing as facilitators of Disability Equality Training (DET). This study was conducted in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, one of the countries where DET has been strategically implemented. Nine facilitators were selected by purposive sampling for semistructured interviews. Thematic analysis was applied to the narrative data for exploring themes with consideration to chronological sequence, namely, before, during, and after DET training of facilitators (DET–TOF). The narratives indicated that DET facilitators had varied personal backgrounds, including experiences of discrimination. Their stories also indicated that some interviewees not only obtained views on the social model of disability and facilitation skills but also reframed their past life experiences both during and after the DET–TOF. While this study considers the potential criticism of the social model, which is the foundation of the DET, these findings can provide helpful insights for future agents of change who engage in a society.

Complexifying Facilitation by Immersing in Lived Experiences of on-the-fly Facilitation

Background: Describing the role of a facilitator often results in to-do lists resembling a recipe or a laundry list to follow. Such lists fail to grasp the inherent complexity of facilitation and are not very useful in guiding facilitators when, why and if they should intervene in the unfolding live performance of that day. Aim: To develop a deeper understanding of on-the-fly facilitation by analyzing rich empirical accounts of in-situ facilitation episodes. Intervention: Six facilitation episodes were through purposeful sampling selected from a body of hundreds of interventions in forty-seven performed crisis management training exercises in Swedish municipalities. Each full-day crisis management simulation-game had between fifteen and fifty participants involving politicians, administrative managers and crisis management staff. Method: An auto-hermeneutical phenomenological analysis of six lived experiences of facilitation episodes was conducted to understand what the facilitator observed and how a facilitation intervention was applied. Results: On-the-fly-facilitation is instantaneous, but draws simultaneously on awareness of the past, present and future. Facilitation needs are foreseen during design and they influence current attentiveness and coaching. Unfolding game-play needs to be grasped quickly. Potential future consequences of intervening or not intervening are evaluated within a limited window of opportunity. Due to these circumstances, facilitation is multi-skilled, arbitrary and fallible. Such muddiness of on-the-fly facilitation requires courage from the facilitator. Conclusions: In order to better understand how facilitation skills and roles actually are performed, the facilitation literature desperately needs a larger number of rich empirical accounts of interesting in-situ facilitation. Elaborate analysis of such lived experiences could develop understanding as to how available skills, situational circumstances as well as the unfolding interaction between players and facilitators actually develop into a facilitation intervention. This could generate more complex theoretical understanding of how to apply facilitation skills, in addition to theories that list what skills a facilitator should master.

From novice to expert: methods for transferring implementation facilitation skills to improve healthcare delivery

Background There is substantial evidence that facilitation can address the challenges of implementing evidence-based innovations. However, facilitators need a wide variety of complex skills; lack of these can have a negative effect on implementation outcomes. Literature suggests that novice and less experienced facilitators need ongoing support from experts to develop these skills. Yet, no studies have investigated the transfer process. During a test of a facilitation strategy applied at 8 VA primary care clinics, we explored the techniques and processes an expert external facilitator utilized to transfer her skills to two initially novice internal facilitators who became experts. Methods In this qualitative descriptive study, we conducted monthly debriefings with three facilitators over a 30-month period and documented these in detailed notes. Debriefings with the expert facilitator focused on how she trained and mentored facilitation trainees. We also conducted, recorded, and transcribed two semi-structured qualitative interviews with each facilitator and queried them about training content and process. We used a mix of inductive and deductive approaches to analyze data; our analysis was informed by a review of mentoring, coaching, and cognitive apprenticeship literature. We also used a case comparison approach to explore how the expert tailored her efforts. Results The expert utilized 21 techniques to transfer implementation facilitation skills. Techniques included both active (providing information, modeling, and coaching) and participatory ones. She also used techniques to support learning, i.e., cognitive supports (making thinking visible, using heuristics, sharing experiences), psychosocial supports, strategies to promote self-learning, and structural supports. Additionally, she transferred responsibility for facilitation through a dynamic process of interaction with trainees and site stakeholders. Finally, the expert varied the level of focus on particular skills to tailor her efforts to trainee and local context. Conclusions This study viewed the journey from novice to expert facilitator through the lens of the expert who transferred facilitation skills to support implementation of an evidence-based program. It identified techniques and processes that may foster transfer of these skills and build organizational capacity for future implementation efforts. As the first study to document the implementation facilitation skills transfer process, findings have research and practical implications.

Online learning facilitation in border guards’ foreign language training

The study aims to analyze the effectiveness of teaching English online to cadets of the border guard educational institutions using learning facilitation techniques in order to enhance the effectiveness of foreign language training of future border guards within the system of distance learning. The research has revealed the peculiarities of organization of online facilitation skills development for the border guard trainers in European Union border guard agencies under the auspices of European Border Guard Agency. The modern online learning facilitation forms, methods and tools used for teaching future border guards English language have been presented. The effectiveness of the acquired by border guard trainers' facilitative skills was tested during an Intensive Online English Language Course for Border Guards at the National Academy of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine. Analysis of the results of employing facilitative methods and techniques during the course provide their effectiveness. According to the results, the average score of the participants increased from 3.98 to 4.23. The obtained results testify to the efficiency of the facilitation skills development of the trainers of the Border Guard agencies.

Leisure activities in the outdoors: learning, developing and challenging

This book presents various studies on leisure activities in the outdoors. Indeed, the benefits of being outdoors in a leisure context are widely acknowledged across a range of disciplinary perspectives (including tourism, therapeutic recreation, camps, education, adventure and recreation) (Humberstone et al., 2015). These benefits include the development of health and wellbeing, social/interpersonal skills, leadership and facilitation skills, personal, emotional and reflective abilities, confidence and identity creation, and technical skills.