How to make the most of the Digital Space

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Welcome, Facilitators!

This list of tips and suggested activities has been compiled over the past few years through trial-and-error experiences, iterations and of course suggestions from other virtual facilitators! It’s a live document and will be added to and edited as we continue to learn and experiment with new approaches to creating engaging and meaningful interactions online!

Step 1: Prepare your Participants

Doing what you can to set the container before they get into the ‘room’ will help the participants prepare to show up in a way that will serve the cohort experience. This can be done through an email outlining basic guidelines for the participants.

Example:

Keep in mind, this is more than a webinar. You’re a participant, not an observer - so get involved! We don’t want [the facilitator] to feel like they’re on some sort of live-TV show! Interact, share a thought, ask a question, etc. Setting up the ‘room’: Since you’ll be participating in this virtually, we won’t have a shared physical space. Instead, we ask that you set up the environment from where you’ll take the video call in a specific way: Dial in from a private space where you’ll feel comfortable sharing - no loud coffee shops or places where you’ll feel you need to censor or hold back in your participation. And, just as we agreed in Seminar 1 - there’s no sharing outside our virtual, private space. Bring everything you need into the room with you - leaving to get coffee refills or snacks is distracting! Bring everything you need into your space with you - imagine we’ve closed the doors and that we’re all in a cosy space together. We’ll have set time for breaks during the session. Leave work at work - that means set your calendar to ‘away’ and notifications from emails and texts are off. We’re here to be present for just a few hours with each other. We can do it! Sit close to the screen so we can see your face. Don’t sit with a window behind you or you’ll appear in a shadow. We want to see your smiling face! Check your technology in advance. We expect that you’ll have a working webcam. We know it can be easier to dial-in on your phone, but you’ll miss half the communications, and the cohort will miss half of yours if we can’t see you. Test your webcam at least a day or two in advance to confirm it’s working. Use an external microphone or headset. Your computer’s microphone won’t be as good no matter how good it is - it’s important we hear your voice! If you have any questions or need help getting set up, please reach out before date to get set up or do any testing. Looking forward to seeing you!

Step 2: Prepare for your Session

Here are a few tips to help you prepare for your session and a few key differences from in-person facilitation:

Tool	Description
Prep your tools & screen set up	Prepare your tools and resources in advance. If you’re planning to share your screen at any point, have your slides or presentation open. You may find it easier to use an external monitor so you have 2 screens to be able to always see the faces of your cohort and the screen your sharing or facilitation guide you’re referring to open at the same time. This enables you to share your screen while maintaining eye contact and an eye on the participants.
Opening: Warm-up the room	At the beginning of your session it’s important to open with an activity that gets everyone active right away, and helps them get familiar with participating in an online session. A good warm-up activity will: Give everyone a minute or two to participate, building comfortable with the format and tool, especially if they haven’t used Zoom before Demonstrates why you’ve asked them to follow a few behaviours: Stay on mute: they’ll practice going on and off mute to speak. And, inevitably someone will leave their mic on and they’ll experience why it’s distracting or makes things hard to hear for everyone Raise your hand to speak OR nominate the next person to go Some suggested activities: Share your name, your location and… … the book you always recommend … one thing you’d do on the weekend if you had no plans … something exciting that happened this week What’s in a name - use ‘chat’ to have them write out the spelling of their name (as we have them write it on the board in the in-person sessions) Use of chat: Depending on the size of the group, doing a full round table where everyone speaks might take up a lot of time (suggest you allot ~3 minutes per person, depending on the prompt). Even if you say “in one minute, share __, __ & __”, they will talk for longer. Instead, you may wish to use the chat to have everyone type out their reply to a prompt and then you can read them out loud to the group.
Your energy	Since many of us associate screens with either work or entertainment, you’re going to need to adjust your own energy. It’s easy to fall into a “this is a virtual meeting” format and give long lectures or feel the need to be very professional or put together - let that go! Lean more to the entertaining side of the spectrum - be your most energetic and expressive self and dial it up a notch. It may feel unnatural for you, but what translates through the screen will be engaging energy that keep the group excited to pay attention and bring their energy up to match yours. Note: we’re not suggesting you need to be silly, goofy or ‘fake it’. What we mean by entertaining is just to be as expressive as you can so that your emotions and energy don’t get lost in translation through the screen.
Prepare yourself for silences	Silences feel longer when you’re online. What is likely to be just a few seconds can feel like minutes. As much as you’ve practiced sitting with the silence in your in-person sessions, note that it may feel longer by a factor of 2x online and you may feel the need to feel the silence. In fact, the silence may be felt even more strongly online because you’re staring at each other's faces, while in an in-person session you may distract yourself by looking out the window, to the floor, etc. One tip is to glance at the clock when things get a little quiet. Note the time as a way to anchor yourself to how time is actually passing, versus how much time it feels is passing.
Set expectations	At the start of the call, you’ll want to remind the group of the email that listed the ways to prepare for the session (see above). You may also wish to add reminders for how you expect them to participate. It helps to ground the expectations in what they already know and do in your in-person sessions. For example, you may wish to directly address the use of the chat function. We’ll be using the chat function at specific times during the session today. When prompted, we’ll all turn to the chat to use it. When we’re in a live discussion or someone is sharing something with the group, I ask that you refrain from using the chat. If you imagine we’re all in our in-person room together, this would be the equivalent of having a little side-chat or whispering to the person next to you. You wouldn’t do it in the room, so please don’t do it in our virtual room today. Here are a few other suggested expectations you may wish to set / reinforce: How long they’re expected to stay today. We’ll end at 5:00PM today When they can expect a bio-break, snack break or meal break What they’re expected to do on those breaks (ex. Eat your meal together or in a small breakout group) Add any of your own, of course!
Set norms at the start (or reinforce existing)	Setting or reinforcing existing group norms at the start is important. Setting Norms: You’ll want to have a few suggested norms typed up to start Share your screen and then give participants the chance to suggest edits Do this for 3-5 minutes Reinforcing Norms: You’ll want to remind the group of the norms they set in their in-person or previous sessions Prepare the ‘translation’ of any norms from an in-person session to the virtual space For example, if the norm is to actively listen to each other, then the translation into the virtual space looks like not checking emails or doing other work on your screen, nodding or using thumbs up signs when you agree, etc. Give participants to add any virtual-room-specific norms Getting Agreement for Norms: An active way to ensure everyone agrees to follow the norms, and also to tease out if anyone needs one-on-one follow up if they’re feeling uncomfortable is to do a ‘blind’ agreement: Everyone close your eyes Good, now that everyone’s eyes are closed, I want you to give me a thumbs up if you agree to follow the norms we’ve just set. Keep your thumbs up and eyes closed until I say so If you are uncomfortable with any or all of the norms set, please give me a peace sign (that’s 2 fingers up) and I’ll reach out to you separately to discuss Good, thank you everyone, now you can put your hands down And now you can open your eyes It’s often good to have a quick break at this point if there is anyone you need to follow up with so you can do so privately.
Close	There is a general rule for gatherings that we don’t close out with logistics, so make sure you do your reminders and announcements before your final close. It is important to maintain rituals that you do in-person in your virtual room. If you typically close with a roundtable share-out of a reflection or aha, make sure you plan your time for this.

Tip 3: Tools to Keep Things Active

It helps to have a few prompts or activities up your sleeve to use to keep the group active and their energy up. It reminds them that they’re a participant, not a spectator of what’s happening! You can plan to use these activities at specific moments, or keep them in your back pocket to pull out to help manage the energy in the room.

Tool	Description
Group Stretch	When you sense the group is getting restless or tired, a stretch break is always a helpful way to get the blood flowing again. In an in-person setting, you can get everyone to stand up and stretch it out, and there’s no reason you can’t do it virtually, too! Get everyone to stand up where they are and stay in front of their webcam. Then lead the group through a quick stretch… “Arms all the way up. Now lean to the left, and then lean to the right. Ok, who can touch their toes? Let’s see it!”
The ‘Shake Down’	This is a popular warm-up game used in theatre and improv to ‘shake out’ all four appendages. It can get quite active, so if you’re going to use this one, make sure everyone has a lot of space. The “shake down” works as follows: We’re going to start by shaking out our left arm, counting down from 8, then we’ll shake out our right arm from 8, then left leg from 8, then right leg from 8. Next, we’ll repeat the order - left arm, right arm, left leg, right leg - counting down from 4, then again counting down from 2, then finally we’ll count down from 1! Ready? GO! It’s really silly and energizing and results in lots of laughs and a feeling of ‘waking up’ if anyone is looking a little drowsy!
Last one back has to…	Often when you give a “5 minute break” it actually may extend to 8 minutes or more. This can be especially disruptive or frustrating when you’re in a virtual space because you can’t go find the person to bring them back to the room. One option is always to just start without them, however this may not necessarily motivate behaviour change. One way to inspire the group to return on time is to set an embarrassing enough action or task that they’ll want to avoid, but that the last one back has to do. This could be something lik, sing the first few phrases of their favourite song, share an embarrassing story or pledge to do a big, inconvenient favour for a fellow fellow.
Sign language	Let them know that since it’s harder to speak out loud without talking over each other, if they want to express themselves, they can use sign-language! Thumbs up = I agree/I like it ‘Jazz hands’ = Cheering/”Woohoo”/Great news! Raised hand = I have something to add/I’d like to speak next Add your own or ask the group to come up with any that make sense for them. We suggest keeping it to 3-5 actions or it’ll get hard to remember them all.
Group photos	Group photos are always a fun thing to do! We’ve found they’re a great way to end the session - everyone knows they can log-off the call until the group photo has been taken. You’ll need to make sure you know how to do a screen-capture on your own computer to do this. Have everyone strike a pose - some suggestions: Thumbs up High fives “Cheers” with your coffee mug or water glass “Moose antlers” Silly face “Point” to the person next to them If you’re meeting over a series of days or weeks, you might want to snap a different photo each day!
Raise your hand if...	This can also be used in a warm-up activity to acknowledge shared experiences/attributes in the room, or highlight diversity. Raise your hand if you… Are from the Bay Area? Prefer coffee to tea? Tea to coffee? Can’t decide? Completed your pre-work 10 days early? 5 days early? 3 days? Waited until the last minute? Still haven’t submitted it? Agree with the author? Disagree? (great for being able to call on someone to share their opinion after… “Kate, why do you disagree?”) Add to this list!
Breakout rooms	Use this for small-group discussions or pair work just as you would in an in-person session. We suggest using the chat to communicate timing to let them know when they may want to wrap up discussion and can expect the breakout rooms to ‘close’. This helps to avoid the closing of the breakout room cutting someone off mid-thought as best as you can.
Props	Use of props is a great way to include visual cues. You may wish to use them as a facilitator, or you may come up with a norm that involves using a prop. For example, you may instruct everyone to bring an item to the session and can then use it to indicate they have or have not spoke if you’re doing a round table: Once you’ve shared your name and where you’re from, hold up your item so we know not to call on you again
Use a timer	If you’re doing a round of presentations or giving each member of the group equal time to speak/share, you may find it helpful to use a timer that either they can all see or hear. This helps keep them accountable to how much ‘air time’ they’re each taking. It can be helpful to explain the importance of keeping to time for fairness to each member, and also to the remainder of the cohort to hear and gain equal exposure to the diverse experience and perspectives in the room.