The Professional Development in Facilitating PBL (Foundation) Programme is critical in helping faculty at RP effectively teach using principles of good teaching in the context of PBL. As part of their continuous development, staff will go through a facilitator certification process after at least 2 semesters of classroom experience in RP.

The certification process will entail faculty members submitting a teaching portfolio, doing a video recording of their facilitation in class and attending an interview by a certification panel. They will receive feedback about the quality and effectiveness of their facilitation as part of their professional development.

Portfolio requirements:

1.      Please include the following in the cover sheet of your portfolio: Name, Department, Date of joining RP and List of PBL workshops you have attended so far.

2.       Do a video recording of one of their classes (all 3 meetings). The video should show that the facilitator understands PBL facilitation through the application of appropriate facilitation skills. The facilitator must be able to demonstrate his understanding of PBL facilitation by being able to apply a range of skills necessary for effectively facilitating students' learning. The understanding of facilitation will be assessed using the video and their explanations of their actions in the classroom.

Facilitators are to observe at least 1 other certified facilitator prior to video recording of their class.

3.      Review the problem which you facilitated for the class which was video-taped and write a short critique. The faculty member must be able to review the problem in terms of the critical facilitation issues that emerged when facilitating the problem. This review should be written up and if necessary elaborated on during the interview. Please attach the problem statement, scaffolding materials, 6P and facilitators’ sheet of that problem in the portfolio.

4.     Illustrate using a selection of student reflections how they have helped to foster a self-directed learning environment. The facilitators should use evidence of students' reflection journals to explain how students have become more independent and reflective through the course of their facilitation.

5.      Do a simple analysis of students' assessment including a correlation between daily grades and student performance on understanding tests. Daily assessments are designed to measure students' understanding. The expectation is that as understanding develops on a daily basis, this should lead to (for the cohort in total) an overall positive correlation (correlation need not be strong) with performance in the understanding test. Faculty should be able to explain if asked in the interview how they exercise holistic judgment.

6.      Draft a personal teaching philosophy statement. This should reflect the beliefs facilitators have about teaching and learning. Facilitators should be prepared to elaborate if necessary in the interview.

7.      Submit a list of all the RJ questions that have been used last semester. Facilitators should be aware of the role of RJ in the process of students’ learning and justify how their RJ questions help prompt meaningful reflection.

8.      Watch your video recording and identify two instances of good facilitation. Include (1) a brief description, (2) the DVD chapter and (3) the start times of both of the video segments in your portfolio. You may be asked to share you rationale for choosing these instances of your facilitation in the interview. A facilitator must be able to identify strategies to meet desired learning goals in the classroom. It is the explicit awareness of these goals and purposeful application of strategies that facilitate the learning.

9.      Analysis of Student Feedback. Facilitators must be able to identify, using some type of analysis of student feedback, their strengths & weaknesses as facilitators and articulate how they have responded to the feedback, such as strategies they have implemented.

10.   Be prepared in the interview to describe how they would approach a problem that is new to them. Facilitators should be able to demonstrate empathy for what students need to do when faced with a unique problem. Facilitators will be asked to focus on how they establish understanding of the problem and the possible observations and learning issues that could be generated from the problem.

Contact Ms Poornima Devi for more information about the certification timeline and schedule.

Please click here for the list of certified facilitators.

“Download template for Facilitation Observation Sheet (based on expectations of the 3 meetings and portfolio)”

updated 5 Nov 2008