Week three: Assessing the needs in your setting

Welcome to week three!

This week will guide you through conducting a needs assessment in your setting, which will help narrow your focus, scope and goals for your facilitation.

Focus of the week

Watch the following video for an overview of this week’s theme:

Download the video content in written form here.

Read

This week, use the following resources to guide you in your needs assessment: readings and resources are as follows:

• Needs assessment questions: These questions can help get you started but adapt this according to your setting. Remove irrelevant questions and add in missing questions!
• Facilitation plan: This is the same template that was provided in Module 1. Part 3 of this facilitation plan template provides a space for you to record the findings from your needs assessment.
• Facilitator Resource 1: Reflective cycle as facilitation planning tool: This resource was also provided in Module 1 of the course. It offers a planning tool for your facilitation. This week, focus on Step 2: Narrow your focus, scope and goals.

Do

Your task for this week is to conduct a needs assessment.

The purpose of this needs assessment is to contribute to your objectives for your facilitation plan and ensure that the format you select addresses the needs and restrictions of teachers. This will likely involve conversations with your fellow teachers and perhaps also school leadership. Your needs assessment will of course depend on your setting, but some of the things you should ask about and document are:

1. How many colleagues you would like (and it is feasible) to work with.
2. How much time is available from yourself and your colleagues and how often you are able to meet.
3. What the best ways are to meet to discuss (e.g. online, f2f, blended).
4. Individual teacher needs to be addressed through your facilitation (i.e. the learning objectives).
5. Individual accessibility needs.
6. Institution-wide needs to be addressed through your facilitation (i.e. what are you hoping that the school / institution will get out of the facilitation?).
7. Potential challenges regarding engaging in teacher collaboration in your setting.
8. Ways to mitigate the above challenges.

You can write the answers to these questions in Part 3 of the facilitation plan template.

Aim to also address step 2 of ‘Facilitator resource 1’ to narrow your focus, scope and goals. Answer the questions: ‘What exactly would I like to change within my setting through my facilitation?’ and ‘What are the potential barriers / limitations?’

Remember that you don’t need to figure out all the details for your facilitation plan now but you should have a fairly completed plan in place by the end of the course. This will become your learning product that you will need to submit to receive a Certificate of Completion.

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