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Particularly at
extended training events lasting several days, participants may
be spending considerable time in groups doing tasks. In such
cases, it's useful to have a `home group' which meets
periodically throughout the event.
1.
Explain the
rationale for having `home groups'.
Explain to
participants that
their home groups will remain the same in composition throughout
the course, and that in these groups they can share ideas or
problems they find
with their work in other groups addressing specific tasks during
the course.
2.
Promote
`ownership' of home groups.
It is often best if
these groups do not have a named coordinator or leader. It is
usually enough to give the home groups clear briefings regarding
the outcomes they are intended to produce at each stage in your
course.
3.
Whenever
possible, let home groups constitute themselves.
It can be useful if
you can find one way or another of allowing participants to
choose which home group they will belong to. This can, for
example, be on the basis of experience, or simply shared
interests.
4.
Give home
groups clear tasks to do.
As your course
progresses, ensure that whatever else home groups do, they
address particular tasks at each meeting. Make it clear that
they can also address any other tasks they think of – but not at
the expense of missing out the `named' task for the meeting.
5.
Give home
groups opportunities to report back.
It often helps to
make such groups productive if they know that they will have
five minutes at a forthcoming plenary to share the products of
their thinking and work.
6.
Encourage
home groups to develop their own product.
For example, set
home groups an ongoing task at the start of your course, and
invite them to build up data and evidence to support their
findings on the task, and to share all of this towards the end
of the course.
7.
Allow home
groups to be different.
It can be much more
productive when home groups are working on different tasks or
ideas, rather than all doing the same thing in parallel.
8.
Give home
groups sufficient time.
It is not enough to
have short meetings in between the principal parts of your
course. Giving a group a relatively short task to complete in a
whole hour can mean that the group goes on to do a lot of useful
thinking around and beyond the immediate content of the training
event.
9.
Give one
important thing (at least) entirely to home groups.
This shows that you
value their work. Make sure that the products of their work on
this task will be part of any overall collection of the outcomes
of your course.
10.
Make sure
that home groups have a home.
Try to ensure that
they
will always meet in the same place, to start with, at least, and
if possible try to generate a more `homely' atmosphere for these
meetings, for example by arranging that do-it-yourself
facilities are available for the making of tea and coffee. |
