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Collaborative culture

The Citizen Facilitator Can Keep a Small Group Moving Toward a Goal

By Robert J. Garmston
June 2007
The purpose of collaborating is to achieve collective results that participants would be unable to accomplish working alone. Expected outcomes include shared objectives, a sense of urgency and commitment, a sense of belonging, open communication, mutual trust and respect, realizing complementary diverse skills and knowledge, intellectual agility, interdependence in framing goals and approaches, and individual latitude in carrying out a design the group arrived at jointly. The levels of complexity, interdependence, skills, maturity, and leadership required to attain this level of collaboration are staggering. Clearly, arriving at real collaboration does not simply happen by forming a group, especially in school cultures that value and support independence over interdependence. Yet forming a group is the first step, and working with the group as it exists while maintaining a vision of the group as it may become is the second and most important

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Tasks of The Citizen Facilitator

  • Develops the agenda either before the meeting or with the group.
  • Opens the meeting.
  • Achieves role clarification for self and for members who may periodically and informally rise to facilitate or record.
  • Describes the task as a product — something the group will see or hear when done.
  • Calls on others to start the conversation.
  • Engages in conversation as appropriate.
  • Protects processes, especially one topic and one process at a time.
  • Watches for and initiates transitions.
  • Asks who will do what by when.
  • Calls for meeting assessment.
  • Closes Meeting.

References

Garmston, R. & Wellman, B. (1999). The adaptive school: A sourcebook for developing collaborative groups. Norwood, MA: Christopher-Gordon.


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Robert J. Garmston (fabobg@gmail.com) is an emeritus professor of education administration at California State University, Sacramento, and co-developer of Cognitive Coaching and Adaptive Schools.


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