Facilitation Mastery: Tips For Classroom Management
6:23PM Jul 19, 2024
Speakers:
Shannon Tipton
Jason
Renee
Tom
Douglas
Maureen
Noel
Monique
Bruce
Jose
Elizabeth
Colleen
Keywords:
facilitator
breakout rooms
people
put
conversation
participants
question
checklist
love
idea
classroom
good
class
feel
great
contribute
contribution
give
training
chat
There it is.
All right, everyone. Welcome to another learning rebels Coffee Chat. Today we are talking about classroom facilitation. Classroom management is something that we all really take for granted. But first, I want to welcome everyone into the room today. And if this is your first time joining a learning rebels Coffee Chat, don't let the conversation about the man on the moon and cheese in the moon caves dissuade you from returning or let it encourage you to return. But if this is your first time, please let us know in the chat. So that way we can give you the warm welcome that you deserve. Yes, this this is what happens when you get a bunch of storytellers together. Peter, welcome. Brandy. Welcome, Brooke. Welcome. Jose, welcome. The loose kind of weather you guys have it up there. I bet it's nice. I love Minnesota if it weren't for the winters.
coarsely. It's beautiful right now.
Yeah, I used to do some business up in Minnesota up. Now the name is escaping me where I was. But the drive was exactly six hours from my house to where I needed to be Eden Prairie. And it was just such a gorgeous drive making that drive up there. All right. Yes. Welcome, everybody. Welcome everyone. Bagels, Bagel salad with tinnitus. That what you're having for lunch? Yeah,
it's lunchtime. For me. I'm in Michigan here. So didn't want to be hangry for this meeting.
That's all right. Eat away. So for those of you who are new, this is a no judgment zone. We don't care. If you're eating lunch, we don't care what's in your coffee cup. It's your story. You can tell it however you want to. And if you want to be on video, you can. If you don't, that's okay, too. But let it be known that if you are in your jammies or eating lunch, or what have you, we don't care if that's what's showing on camera. We just want to see your face. But it's up to you. It's your choice. All right. And like I said, today, we are talking about classroom management. What I'd like to know is in the chat, let me know how many of you are facilitators, either instructional designer slash facilitators, or totally facilitators? What's What's your role in the facilitation process? So yes, Peter, you're a facilitator. All of the above Jason, I know Jason wears many, many hats. Sometimes I help from both sides, both roles, all of the above all of the above, we're all a bunch of busy people. We are designing the learning and now we're giving it as well. Everybody's got multiple hats on Sarah. I'm the instructional designer only instructional designer only sometimes Id only. And that's great. And I love having this conversation with people who are instructional designers only because it's super important. You know, the facilitators and the instructional designers have to be in lockstep. You know, when it comes to designing materials, because as as I have said before, and in the newsletter that went out
a
good is a good facilitator can save core content, but not the other way around. So you could have great content, but if you got a terrible facilitator, your good content is going nowhere. So it's important that instructional designers share their ideas for how the content might be delivered with the actual facilitator. Elizabeth, you're driving? Oh, yes, please don't. I appreciate you participating from your car. That's great. Like yeah, be safe. All right. Welcome, everybody. So here's what we are going to do today. So we're going to have this conversation about classroom management but I am going to break you up into breakout rooms in a few and if you are on your phone or your like Elizabeth in your car, just hang on you'll be in the main room with me and everything will be fine. And what I I want to do is because I realized that we were going to have a larger group today is I really wanted to hear from everyone. I wanted everyone's voice to be included. And that's why we're going to go into breakout rooms. And we're going to talk about specific topics, and then we're going to come back, and we're going to share our ideas for that. But first, I want to make sure or ask you, did you receive the participant focus checklist that I sent out on Wednesday? Did everybody get that? And what were your thoughts? I'm gonna put the link to it here. In the chat, just in case you didn't I ever sent anyone you come up, Mike. I'm sorry. I
think it's fantastic. Shannon.
Thank you. You're welcome. Yeah, I kind of had an epiphany. I don't remember what it was that I was doing. But I was like, You know what, as I was prepping for this conversation, and looking at my own classroom checklists, I was like, this is very me focused. You know, what happened to the person who's actually sitting in the seat? How can we make that happen? But put the link into the into the chat, so you guys can open it and have a frame of reference for where our conversation is going to go today? To take a look at that real quick, and tell me what stands out. So on that checklist, and for those people who are just listening, and you can't see, the checklist breaks down into four quadrants, and we are trying to look at the classroom, from the participants point of view. So a lot of times when we have our classroom checklists, we're dealing with things like logistics, right? How's the classroom set up? Does the PowerPoint projector work? Do we have our flip charts? Do we have our markers? Do we have our electrical tape? From a virtual perspective? Do our cameras work? Do our links work? Right? So they're all very facilitator focused? Right? Do we have all of our materials? Now when we look at this, from the participants point of view, it's a very different conversation. And so what are your thoughts about flipping the script on that? So go ahead and you can raise your hand, I'll see you if you do. Or you can open up your mic and just share your thoughts.
I'll share always flip the script, it's never about me. It's always about them, being you, whoever, whomever the them is, right. And I looked in the bottom left quadrant. And I love a lot. I like them all. But there are two that really jumped out to me. And one is how is peer to peer learning being incorporated into the session. And the plan B. Now the plan B fairness should be in all four quadrants. Because Murphy's law isn't a law. Because somebody thought about it. It's because it's real.
Yeah. Yeah. That's how a lot of these things come up. Right. It's like something happened. And that's how this rule became, in effect, or this process came in effect. And I have, I think we all as facilitators, we we have our plan B for what happens if the projector doesn't work? Right? What happens if the materials don't get delivered? We have all of those sorts of Plan B's. But we I don't know if we necessarily think about our plan B from a participants perspective. So you're, you've got your lesson plan, and you've got your slides on the on the wall. And no one's talking where you thought they should be talking. And this is especially true with virtual training. So what you know, that's where that's where that came from. And I agree with you, Douglas, that probably should be in all four quadrants. You know, what happens if that doesn't occur? What happens if they're if they've lost interest? Or the engagement isn't what you thought it would be? Or hoped that it would be? What's your plan B, for getting that to happen?
You want an answer? Is that a is that a rhetorical question?
You can answer me?
Never take no for an answer. Right? No, prisoners are prisoners. So well, they're all prisoners in the in the moment, but nobody, nobody gets Nobody gets to escape. Escape unscathed. Right. Which also goes As to the recognition and reward, it's like, how do you avoid favoritism? And it's very easy. They're all equally in trouble,
are equally in trouble.
Okay, maybe trouble is not the right word. But there. There's never a time that if if the group isn't understanding, or they're not talking that I, as a facilitator will, outside of giving them an opportunity to stop absorb, and, and formulate a decent response, right? Yes, indeed, is that every once in a while, somebody needs to break the ice, if they're not going to break the ice, I help them be the icebreaker, either as the as the saying goes either by volunteer or voluntold. And the only difference between the two, as you're both going to do it, and one of them you feel better about it.
True, good. If
you volunteer, you, you're still going to do it if you're voluntold. Right,
right. Well, how many of you seed the audience seed the participants. And what I mean by that is how many of you, you know, you, maybe you have a group coming in, and I can think of one training class that I had years and years ago, where I knew that the class is going to be difficult, at best. And so you reach out to a couple of people who you know, are going to be on your side, or who are active and you kind of plant seeds with them? To encourage them to be that first to step out or say something? Do any of you use that technique?
I've even been more deliberate than that. I've given them questions on three by five cards, and went around, like, when we come back from our break and said, Hey, we're gonna cover this when I asked for question if nobody actually asks anything. Ask this question. What
like that? That's a great idea. I love it. I love that idea. No, I thought I saw your hand.
I yeah, I use the same. And I deliberately choose like, if it's someone that might be in a position to help encourage others to participate, I tend to seeds specific questions or, or lead it a little bit more than just nudging pretty, push it pretty out there. And then if I'm moderating a particular topic, sometimes I just if I'm moderating, and I have a facilitator come in, and there's this usually a subject matter expert, I help that subject matter expert move along or, you know, pull in some of the questions that the audience might be too afraid to ask.
That's, that's great. I love that you got to sometimes those subject matter experts, they don't know how to provoke questioning. And they need help with that. debtless.
To carry on that, so I also do some producing for some other facilitators. If there's just dead silence, and, and they're doing their job of letting the silence happen, owning that uncomfortable silence. I'll pop in and be like, oh, yeah, somebody, you know, sent me a question privately of that era. And it's like, I'm lying, like through my teeth. Doesn't matter. Right.
Right. Exactly.
You don't feel bad. Oh, I
don't. Not even a little question and pass. Yeah. That was just me starting you guys to talk. Yeah.
Or the ubiquitous. Somebody asked me this question during the break. Right. There's there's that I've used that technique 1000 times, you know, just to kind of get the party started. Yeah. Yeah. Rude q&a. So that's a whole other thing, isn't it? It's those disruptive people, the ones in the sessions who insist on being the devil's advocate. Right. And so they think that that gives them license to, you know, be argumentative, or confrontational. And that's a that's a no go in, in my sessions. We don't tolerate that. And that's something that's a one on one conversation during the break, you know, but firstly,
Shannon, for that one, this is Bruce, with that comment in there. The route q&a In this case, was that part of the experience the learner will have after the training, so example the training is how do you present to vice presidents, they're going to be asking you rude, you know, rude questions, you need to be prepared for those and we put the learner on this a lot in the class. So it's still a safe space. But we're making them uncomfortable, because that's what's going to happen in their day to day jobs. Right?
And that the questions may not necessarily be rude, but they're going to be super direct.
Yep. And making them feel uncomfortable or pointed questions like, Why did you fail? It's like, well, no, I didn't fail. We failed. Here's the reasons. So Right. Doing that as part of the training. So even though it's a safe space, they are they, there's a chance they will feel uncomfortable.
I love that. And that's, that's a great thing to teach when you're doing communication classes. Or maybe if you're doing action learning sets, or project work, where you know, people are going to be in front of a panel, you know, having to present results, etc. So that's a great thing to remember to incorporate
your real people in the classroom. Oh, yeah. You could hold a whole hour long session. Oh,
I know we could we could do a whole separate Coffee Chat about classroom disruptors, maybe we will you know how to handle those clashes, right.
Believe it or defeat the disruptive?
Sure. Yeah, that was
can play both parts. Although I kind of I'm kind of diggin Douglass's take no prisoners approach. Thomas.
Hello, I drew in their mind is the dumb question solution. I mean, we always start out by saying, Okay, remember, there's no such thing as a stupid question, or? Well, of course, they still didn't, nobody does that nobody will buy into that whole concept. So what I did was, I told them, if you have a dumb question, or you think is a dumb question or a question you're afraid, pass, write it down on a piece of paper and hand it to somebody around you. And they have to read the question. So in other words, what you've done is you take it away from the person now the other person who gets it they have to read it doesn't necessarily mean that it's from them. So they kind of go ahead and read it. And no one really quite knows who exactly may or may not have given the question. So it kind of takes the fear away from somebody asking him a question or afraid somebody is going to come back at it. And it actually has turned out to be almost entertaining, in some ways, because you'd be amazed on how many people have questions that they were alluding to ask. And all of a sudden, now it's you get way more questions than I anticipated. So it worked out really well.
I love that idea. I've never, I've never thought about doing that. That's brilliant. That really is brilliant. Or could it could it also go to the write your questions down, put it in a hat, and I'll pull them out type of thing. You know, so yeah, we
tried that. But you're trying to get people to, you know, to even write it down. And then you know, find this time to put it in where this is, as you're talking, they can actually they hand it to somebody. And you know, they can under the table ID or you know, you can go ahead so it's kind of long. So it's cute in that way. It's quicker than putting it in the hat and waiting for a braid or something to get it. But like I told you, it's turned out to be more than one occasion quite entertaining. I'm
sure it has i That's such a great idea. That's that's a that's a big takeaway. For me. That's a great idea. The next time I do a live class.
One thing that I was thinking when he was talking about his example, was also making it anonymous. So what I might do is have something like a slideshow open or something like that, that maybe only I can see the thing. And then that way it looks like they're texting. So no one knows if they're sending me a question or not. And that way I can still receive it. That's one way I like to do it if people are nervous if they can see someone else writing and know that the question is coming from them, depending on how big the group is, but that's the way that I
like to do it. That's a smart idea. That's that's really smart. And I use Mentimeter. But I hadn't thought about using it like that hiding the screen so people don't see the questions coming in. So they don't feel as though they're being put on the spot. That's a good trick. I like it. What else you guys got? Before we go into our breakout rooms. I'm loving this exchange. This is what I'd hoped for. What else we got? Bruce? Yeah, I
like to do drop voting as learners are walking into the classroom. So I'll put up topics both what we're going to talk about but also some of the more topics they might not be willing to ask about. Typical on onboarding classes. People are wondering about, hey, how do I go about getting promoted? What is the you know, career path for my type of position? And I'll have those topics written up there and then hand each learner's they walk in three or four dots and they cannot vote what they want to talk about. So when the class kind of helps direct, all those questions that may not be willing to ask or topics they might not be willing to ask in class,
I liked that. I liked that voting is for that particular reason. And I also use dot voting for establishing their goals for the session. So I will put the learning objectives in human language up on a flip chart, and I'll ask them to dot vote, which one of those objectives are most important to them? And it kind of helps me know, where they want to focus the conversation.
I used to start when I was doing training for finance processors, I used to start with asking everybody, what do you expect to get out of this week. And we'd start and we just create a big list. And then at the end of the week, you go back and you double check it, or you know, as you hit each topic, you go Pesach, we did this one. Remember, you said that this is one of the ones you wanted? This is it. So we got we got through the whole list. And by the end of the week, you know, either we had checked everything off, or I had some follow ups that I needed to do.
I like it, and that does put the does put the participant in the spotlight, you know, because I always tell them, here's what the goals are for the class. But it really doesn't mean anything unless they align with your goals for the class. So help me understand what's important to you. That's usually how I kick off that conversation. And I think that it's good because it brings both things together. Okay, now, what we're going to do is to carry this conversation forward and let everybody have their voice, we are going to let me get my link here. There we go. I've just created something really simple, just put it onto a Google slide. So nothing fancy today. And we're going to go into four rooms. And you'll see on the slide, I'll go ahead and give you all the link. Now. You'll see on the slide that there are four columns. One column for one column is associated with each room. So room number, if you end up in room number one you're doing overall participant expectations. Room number two, psychological safety room number three, class engagement, room number four recognition and reward. And then another column for everyone. For things that you know, you want to add, or I might have forgotten, that we can add there to continue to build on our list. This is this is make sense to everybody. First off, let me know I see people popping in. So I I'm glad that the link worked. So we're all good to go there. And we are going to let's look, I'm in the wrong place here. I am going to let's see what time if we got here, let's go with 10 minutes to give you all some time to have a conversation and capture some notes. And as usual, what I'll do is I will correlate these notes, and I will send them back out to you in some form. So that we continue to build on our list. Now, for example, on LinkedIn, I posted this on LinkedIn yesterday. And I, I'll find the link and I'll put it into the chat so you guys can continue to contribute to that conversation. But a woman actually gave me a really good idea from a global perspective. She's like, here's some ideas from a global perspective, if you have people who are English as a second language, or you know, who aren't American, you know, so how do you deal with that. And that was a great addition that I'm going to put onto the list when I redo it. So if you have these continuous ideas, we'll continue to build this list. All right, and so let's see we're going to do four breakout rooms. And Is everybody ready? Or not? Yes.
John, can you just reiterate what is our what is it we are doing when we are in our breakout rooms?
You are adding more ideas. So you have the previous okay. Right. So you have the original checklist that I that I gave you the link to So continue to build on that is what you are doing.
Thank you.
Okay, let me get somebody just entered into the space. How
are we? How are we getting assigned our animals
don't know how Google does that. it I've always wondered that that's a good question. Douglas we'll just whoever whoever got
platypus high five good for you
All right, everybody off you go
Colleen Are you able to there's he got Colleen Are you able to join a room
Colleen
MS HILL
We're back. We're back
the horse costume.
Oh my goodness guys. Dog
state Nice. was named for girls. Yes.
What were you saying about difficult persist participants Shannon?
I am totally lost control to not like to start weighing fives.
Yes.
There's all right. You guys were very busy in in the breakout rooms, which was awesome. So I would love to take a moment to try to debrief this to put it into formal terms. Right? Let's review, shall we? Let's see what what you guys came up with. And So rule number one was all about setting the expectation. So there's a lot of ideas here about setting the expectations for the participants. So you've got a whiteboard to display questions, creates a community and gives us a way to address things that are out of scope. All right. Great idea. Love it. It's kind of like that parking lot. Adjacent idea. Always a good one. How are you going to ensure that the participants take advantage of that?
So where my perspective was with this, and it just says expectations is is dependent some courses I will start as we're talking about the objectives, what we're getting out of it, that whole asking them, you know, what do they want to get out of it and actually getting it out on the whiteboard? And then that's our checklist to make sure we're hitting what they are looking for.
Right? Yeah, when I was when I was doing that when I was using that in live classes, back when we were getting together in person. It was part of the introduction. Okay, tell us who you are, what your role is where you're from, and what you expect to get out of this class.
Yeah, I feel like it's an oldie but a goodie. It still works? Well.
It is. It is. So what do you do, though, with the people who, you know, who are the wallflowers of the group, you know, so the, you know, they have expectations of the class, what's your plan to bring everybody in?
Well, since it's part of the introduction, you know, they, they have to answer it. But I would also insist that everybody came up with something unique. So if somebody said, oh, I need to learn how to calculate this thing, you know how to do all the calculations like, right, this person had to calculate, you know, had to specify what they're going to calculate. And this person had to specify a different part of the process that had calculations and then this person had to do something different. So you had to have something that was unique from everybody else.
I like it. I
like it. Yeah. Or if they are like wow, I'm here for you know it, especially towards the end of that exercise, it gets harder. And so I might poke if somebody's like everything everybody else already said, that's what I'm here for. I might poke and say, well, specifically for you and where you're at in your role or your career. You know, what? How does? What are you getting? Right? And that gets them usually that extra half step to something new. Yeah,
right? Or if you only walk out of here with one piece of information, what is a
good one? Right? What's that one thing? What's that one thing, and you can have them write that down, you know, put it on a post it note and stick it up somewhere for those people who don't feel comfortable. Or you can put them kind of in pairs, and let them have that discussion, one on one for those people who don't feel comfortable in groups. So when we think about this, from a participants perspective, here's, here's the part that a lot of times we as facilitators get hung up on, is we are all for the most part, very comfortable in front of a group of people. And participants not so much this is our life, this is what we do. And did have someone share their expectations of a class in front of 30 other people or 10, other people may not feel that comfortable. So now how can we make sure and that goes to groom number two, which I'm going to jump to here in a moment, is making sure that everybody feels as though they're comfortable enough to contribute? And I think that's kind of the question here. How can we make sure that people feel comfortable enough to contribute? Elizabeth?
Can you hear me? Okay? Um,
your, your volume zero? Can you speak up?
What, uh, what about that? Was that better?
That's better, that's better? Sure.
Okay, one of the things that I do before the class starts, and people are coming in, I make it a point to go up and introduce myself and talk a little bit about the core, or maybe ask a question, who they are, why they're here. And then, you know, is just trying to establish that rapport from the very beginning, and make them feel comfortable from the minute that they walk in the door. And then, you know, if they don't say anything, or they don't volunteer information that I might say, you know, best when you and I were talking before class, you know, we kind of talked about whatever. So, that seems to help building the rapport before the fourth season starts.
I love that. That's such a great tip. I hate coming into a quiet classroom. It's not very welcoming. And I, I, the analogy that I use is, what if you went to a party? And you went into the party, and there was no music and no talking? How would you feel about that party? You know, you'd feel like that party is kind of dead. Or maybe you didn't feel welcome or what have you, you know. So, as facilitators, I think it's great that we come up and introduce ourselves. If you don't know the people, if you do know that people find a common topic to kick it off. But your setup should be done before the first person enters the room. You know, so you are free to talk have coffee, eat doughnuts, whatever. So I love that. I love that. Elizabeth, thank you for bringing that up. All right, so now, room number two psychological safety. What was that conversation like room to?
Rene, um,
we can, you know, we were a little quiet. We hadn't at times, we were thinking a lot. And so we were trying not to say things that we had already been said.
Hey, well, you guys got a lot of good ideas out here. I think when you let's talk about setting ground rules. So I think setting ground rules is a great place to start when we talk about psychological safety. How do we bring the participants into that conversation?
And I think what we meant by that was like the collective ground rules for that classroom not just giving them ground rules, but rather setting.
So what does that look like? And would there's a variety at a different ways to get people to contribute ground rules, I'd love to get some ideas as to, like the most common one, you know is like, everybody go up to the flip chart and write what's important to you what what else can we do to set some ground rules that let people feel as though this is a safe environment to contribute and learn?
Okay, I'm gonna go high, facilitated, and forever, I'm a former teacher. But some of the things that I have done is when you're going into a group, and you know that you're going to be doing a whole bunch of either group activities or everybody working together, I think there's comfort in knowing that there are going to be breaks that you can get up and go to the bathroom whenever you want to. So those things are just right off the bat things that provide interviews, I think. And then beyond if you're creating some, you know, class contract, or whatever you're doing in your training itself, I have done an activity where you put your pet peeves, your your learning environment, pet peeves, put 123 of them down on a post that no one idea of her post it No. And then everybody comes together with their post it notes and they group them according to like, ideas. And then from there, you change your negative into a positive. So if you don't like when someone talk over someone else, then your classroom or your training ground rule there is, can we all agree that we're not going to speak over someone else, especially when controversial topics come up? That kind of thing. So then you have your list, and it's really generated from everybody else. So it's hopefully the buy in is there.
Right? That I love that? And I and I see Bruce's comment. I agree with you, Bruce. I'd love those sorts of activities. But what makes this special? Is it Coleen or Colleen?
It's Colleen. Okay.
So calling what I love about what you just said, is the reframing of the negative. So if we, if we say, I hate when people speak over me, well, how can we reframe that to be more positive? We're going to let others speak, you know, or have their time or what have you. Love that? love everything about that. Thank you so much for bringing that up. Because I think it does that makes people feel safe. Oh, and the other thing that you said that I really love is a lot of types of ground rules are about, you know, I hate it when somebody talks over me or someone is argumentative, or whatever. But I love that you put the basics, you can start with the basics, it's okay for you to get up and go to the bathroom. You know, it's okay for you to do XYZ. Right. So I think starting off with those basics, let them know that we are going to treat you as adults. is so smart. I love it. Okay. Yeah, learner autonomy. I mean, I just, we treat them like adults are going to hopefully, act like, you know, good adults in the classroom environment. That's, that's what you hope to get back from that. Okay, now, let's see what time is it? Alright, let's real quick jump to recognition and reward. So the whole point with recognition and reward on my checklist was understanding. How are we going to acknowledge not expected behaviors, we expect people to ask questions, so we don't reward people who ask questions. We reward people who ask deep questions, who ask brave questions, you know, people who step out of their comfort zone. So how, what's your plan for that? You know, and I see here that, you know, we don't do that much with because you don't have the money. Right? So you work out a grant. So we have to rely on verbal recognition. And I think that's great. That's what we should be doing. How does that work? What's your plan for it? And so group group four, what was your conversation like?
Maureen so
there was a Yeah, we had a conversation and some of it was also an identifying what our anonymous animal was in the Google sheet because we can see other people's things. It was a late add even in the worksheet. This is something that I had done years ago, when it was a multi day program. But each person in their name badge was given like five stars or 10, star stickers or whatever. And throughout the sessions, if somebody asked that brief question or they asked a question or they made a contribution that was helpful to you in some way, you could go up and award that person, like kind of put a sticker right on. And so everybody had the same number of stickers. And then at the end of the, I think we did at the end of each day, or whatever, like, who has kind of like the most stars, because you could see who were those who were the people who were the most kind of helpful and contributed other people's overall learning. And then they got a nominal, they were putting a drawing for like, either like a professional book, or, you know, a gift card, Starbucks gift card, or whatever, it was something it wasn't like, you know, out of control, but, but more importantly, it showed others there, like it helped engage in conversation, Oh, I see a lot of stars, like, you know, what did you know what happened there, and you could just share then your learnings with other people. And contribution. So
yeah, I like that, Laura.
And I'm the one that wrote about the variable. And a lot of times the trainings we do so I in rural frontier, Nevada. So I usually know, a good number of the people that we train. And we are totally grant funded. So we do a lot of verbal recognition, having fun, but we also make sure that we recognize those who are not as verbal, right, because there are some who are very, very likely to add. And I've watched a number of them today on this who are, are out there with the ideas and everything. So one of the things that I make sure I do is recognize the ones are, who are more likely to be quiet. And if they contribute anything, to to recognize that, right, because I know it's a lot harder for some people to contribute even a little than some who are very verbal and very out there like I am to contribute. So I do a lot of that to make sure. And, and I think maybe the next time, they're more likely to contribute and work together.
You're absolutely right. And I love that sort of awareness that a facilitator has to have, it's easy for us to gravitate towards the ones that are always contributing, but having that awareness of those people who, you know, like I said, those are your wallflowers the ones that like to think and process before they actually say something. Right, and to kind of break that ice with them. You know, so if they've, if they've said something that is, you know, helpful or useful, acknowledge that sometimes it's just with words, and just telling them, you know, what, Laura, that was really useful. That was the best tip that I've heard today, you know, just something that lets them know that their contribution was not wasn't just Oh, a throwaway contribution, something that was really thoughtful, you know, and I think everybody appreciates that. So I love more that you are acknowledging the people who we kind of have to help break that ice. And that goes to both, you know, your recognition and reward column, but also your psychological safety column. You know, we're, how can we help bring people into the conversation, and we need to have a classroom management plan for that. So thank you for bringing that up. Now, Rubber Ducks is giveaways for good thoughtful questions. I love that. You know what, and here's something and maybe Noel might remember from, you know, back when I was doing classes for ATD is, I used to give away pencils. So if you had a good eye, if you had a good idea, or you answered a question, or you shared something that was helpful, I gave you a pencil, just so you know. And it was funny, it was something I could pick up 100 of them for like five bucks. But people were like, where's my pencil today? I want my pencil, you know, and it was like, so it doesn't have to be something, you know, hugely clever. I just like to give away things that were somebody's going to use again when they leave. So you know, you just never know what's going to work in a classroom environment.
All right, treasure chest. Those like little things. I used to have a treasure chest of like little things from the Target dollar spot or, you know, oh, what's the Oriental Trading Company or something like that? And it was just a box of fidgets and gadgets and gadgets and gizmos and just little cute things and and if somebody did something cool, it's like yes, you get to pick from the treasure chest
Yeah, I love that. And I used to do that to big toy box that I used to bring with me. Because you never know when you're going to find something or stumble upon something that's helpful, useful, cute, whatever. All right, so we have gone over time, in our conversation, no shock there. I appreciate everybody's contribution. So I'm putting a couple of things into the chat. If you missed my workshop for the AI as your instructional design psychic workshop, that was a couple of weeks ago, I'm doing it again, for training magazine. And the link for that is in the chat, that's a free workshop that I'm going to be conducting for them. And don't forget to go into the Events page, because on the events page, all of the August and September chats are already up, you know, so you can start registering for those even though don't think about it, whether or not you're free. You know, you guys know the drill, just register for them all. And you guys get the recordings, and it's all good. All right. And so on that note, I'm going to bid you all adieu, a quick adieu being that I know that we're way over time. Thank you for your contributions today. This was wonderful. It was everything that I hoped it would be. I knew you guys would come with great and new and fresh ideas, and great tips. And we're going to get all of this together. As usual. We'll send you the video and everything else. You'll get all of that from Amanda. So on that note I got I hope you guys have a great and wonderful weekend. Thank you for being with me today. Yay. Good job.
I have a great week. Have
a great weekend. Bye, Heather. Good to see you, Heather.