Week 2 Notes - FDO: The Deep Dive

Introduction

Now we have looked at how you will successfully launch FLO (by attending to pre-course preparation and Week 1), it's time to do the "deep dive" into the rest of the course: Weeks 2 - 5.

Each week in FLO is designed to provide resources and activities we consider "essentials" for facilitating online learning effectively.

The units follow a predictable pattern:

• readings/resources
• mini-sessions led by facilitation teams
• reflection and applying learning (journal shares, FLIF)

We recommend FLO Facilitators lead a mini session as a way to model for others how it can be done. In other words, the facilitation team that week is comprised of the FLO Facilitators. Here are some additional ideas to make the facilitation process visible:

• Make your planning forum  visible to all participants.
• Prepare the FLIF in a document instead of using the quiz tool and share it with all participants.

Taking on a mini-session is optional, of course. However, we have found that tasking a participant team with mini-session preparation when the workshop is barely underway creates a great deal of angst. 

Once the mini-sessions begin, they become a focus for the units, and so your work expands to include attending to both the "meta" part of the FLO workshop, as well as the people designing and facilitating mini-sessions. This is why putting the huge effort into Week 1 is important. You'll need to have helped most participants to be on board, able to navigate the site, and have a fairly good sense of the structure and philosophy/approach of FLO so that you can begin putting your energy and attention elsewhere.