Facilitator Competency Behavioral Indicators

Building Capacity in Computer Science (CS) Education and Student Near Peer Classroom Mentorship

Developed by Jim Burruss for Hay/McBer

You may be having a negative impact or turning people off if you are doing:

  • Presents material without dialogue
  • Presentation of material is confusing or inaccurate
  • Intervention is apparently disruptive

You may be having a negative impact or turning people off if you are doing:

  • Invites participants’ comments and opinions.
  • Presentation of material is clear and accurate.
  • Acknowledges people as unique individuals rather than stereotyped categories

You may be helping people feel heard and feel connected if you are doing:

  • Encourages participants to express their opinions completely.
  • Acknowledges participants’ insights and opinions.
  • Explains concepts in the language of the audience.
  • Generates concrete examples to illustrate abstract concepts.

You may be clarifying individual and group understanding if you are doing:

  • Asks participants for specific data to support their assertions
  • Uses specific participant data to support one’s assertions
  • Invites participants to challenge each other’s assertions
  • Challenges participants to support their assertions with specific data

You may be enhancing deeper learning if you are doing:

  • Identifies causal links in the immediate data that’s presented
  • Acknowledges links between what people (including oneself) are saying/doing and meaning/feeling
  • Acknowledges new information that would change one’s stated opinion



Example using the three Facilitator Competencies.

Accurate Empathy

Presents material to participants without dialogue. 

Invites participants’ comments and opinions.
Encourages participants to express their opinions completely.
Acknowledges participants’ insights and opinions. 
Uses paraphrasing and restatements to clarify participants’ ideas.

Explicitly checks the accuracy of one’s interpretation of participants’ behavior.
Shares personal experiences that facilitate the learning process for participants.
Identifies primary concerns of others. 
References specific comments or behaviors of participants to illustrate a point. 
Acknowledges the link between what people are saying/doing/and meaning/ feelings.



Conceptual Flexibility

Presentation of information is confusing or inaccurate.

Presentation of material is clear and accurate.
Explains concepts in the language of the audience.
Generates concrete examples to illustrate abstract concepts.
Asks participants for specific data to support their assertions.
Uses specific participant data to support one’s assertions.

Summarizes key themes in group discussions to give them closure.
Uses analogies or metaphors to clarify a concept or principle.
Identifies causal links in the immediate data that is presented.



Cultural Sensitivity

Process or timing of one’s intervention is apparently disruptive.

Acknowledges people as unique individuals rather than stereotyped categories.
Invites participants to challenge each others’ assertions.
Challenges participants to support their assertions with specific data.
Invites participants to offer suggestions that reconcile differences in opinions.
Acknowledges the functional basis for expressed opinions/ behavior of  participants.

Presents own views as an alternative paradigm for addressing participants’ issues.
Invites participants to challenge one’s own assertions.
Checks out one’s assertions against specific experiences of participants.
Offers specific suggestions that reconcile apparently different opinions.
Acknowledges new information that would change one’s stated opinion.

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