Evaluating Facilitation Skills
Facilitating a virtual gaming simulation effectively requires planning and preparation to motivate and engage learners. A successful virtual gaming simulation experience goes beyond simply offering learners access to a virtual simulation and requires a facilitator to understand the learners’ needs and create a welcoming and inclusive virtual space. Virtual facilitators use numerous techniques to engage learners, communicate effectively, and manage group dynamics and behaviors during the virtual gaming simulation. Continuing professional development is key to further strengthening facilitation skills. The Healthcare Simulation Standards of Best PracticeTM provides excellent strategies for staying current in the evolving field of simulation.
There are a number of ways for educators to obtain feedback on their role. They can start by asking their learners for feedback. This can be done formally using written feedback or informally through verbal feedback. They can ask an expert facilitator to participate in some sessions and provide critical feedback, or form a group of peers to review each other’s sessions and provide critical feedback. Another option is to co-debrief the virtual gaming simulations, then provide an opportunity for both facilitators to debrief the experience, in other words to, ‘debrief the debriefers’ (Cheng et al., 2015). Being open to feedback is critical to growth in the role as an educator facilitating virtual gaming simulation.
Examples in Action: Co-Debriefing
When preparing to teach using virtual gaming simulation, a faculty member, new to virtual debriefing, wanted to be sure the debrief would be effective. The novice faculty invited a faculty member experienced in virtual debriefing to co-facilitate the debriefing session. Before the session, the two faculty met to plan the session and discuss individual roles and responsibilities. They agreed to support each other and work as a team during the debriefing. They took turns facilitating and deliberately modeled respect for each other. After the session, they met to debrief their own debriefing session.
Examples in Action: Assessing Facilitation Skills
After teaching with the mental health virtual gaming simulation for two semesters we wanted to evaluate our facilitation techniques. We posted two open-ended questions online and asked learners: “What are we doing well when facilitating the virtual simulation?” and, “What should we change or improve? ” We sifted through the responses, coding key concepts and identified major themes for the analysis.
