Pedagogical Skills Training Conducted

Community-Led Accelerated WASH (COWASH) organized a training and facilitation skills trainers’ training for the  federal and regional COWASH specialists from 9-13 November 2015 in Hawassa, the capital city of Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR).  

The pedagogical skills training in which more than 30 people participated was officially opened by Arto Suominen, Chief Technical Advisor of COWASH Federal Technical Assistance Team. Wishing everyone a very fruitful training week, he called upon the participants to make use of the training and maximize the learning through experience sharing.  

The facilitation skills training program which was designed and facilitated by Alana Potter, Human Development (HD) specialist, aimed at equipping trainees with the necessary skills and knowledge to support effective capacity building.

Conducive learning environment, facilitation skills, giving and receiving constructive feedback, designing training and presentation skills were some of the major focus areas of the pedagogical skills training conducted.

Alana repeatedly noted that it is important to consider and give due attention to the existing experiences and skills of the participants while designing and administering adult learning. She also underscored the need for the trainer to address of the identified skill gaps the primarily objective of the training. It is the role of the facilitator to facilitate the learning process and ensure “each one teach one,” says Alana.   

An overwhelmingly large number of participants found the training very relevant. It was reported in training evaluation report that about 86% of them said the training is useful in their work. Most of them also noted the training was participatory.

Many participants also said the training has given them an opportunity to learn new facilitation skills.   More than half of the participants said they will adopt ‘facilitation’ as their main training methodology. Based on the skill they got from this training, others said they decide to revise and redesign their PowerPoint presentations and materials to be more supportive towards learning. All of the participants stated that they will work hard to make training sessions interactive and lively in their future training sessions