5LD03 Facilitate Structured Learning and Development Activities for Groups is concerned with the central skill of the learning and development profession: enabling learning to happen in a room full of people. It covers the work that goes on before a session, the craft of running it, and the often neglected question of what happens afterwards when learners return to their jobs.
The unit approaches facilitation as something distinct from teaching or presenting. Where a presenter holds the material and delivers it, a facilitator shifts the balance of control towards the group, creating the conditions in which people learn from the activity, from one another and from their own thinking. Much of the unit is about how that shift is achieved in practice.
While the principles it covers apply broadly, 5LD03 places particular emphasis on face-to-face facilitation. Online delivery is treated separately in the optional unit 5OS02, Advances in Digital Learning and Development.
5LD03 is one of three pathway units in the Organisational Learning and Development diploma, alongside 5LD01 Support Informal and Self-Directed Learning and 5LD02 Design Learning and Development Programmes to Create Value. The three form a natural sequence: 5LD01 addresses learning that happens without formal structure, 5LD02 addresses designing programmes, and 5LD03 addresses delivering them to groups.
Table of Contents
What you will learn
Preparing to facilitate. You will examine what genuinely effective preparation involves, which extends well beyond having the slides ready. This covers preparing learners themselves through pre-learning materials and better joining instructions, preparing the physical environment and equipment, and preparing yourself, including your own subject knowledge, familiarity with the material and management of your own state on the day.
You will also explore the principles behind selecting learning resources: how to choose media and materials that are accessible, how to differentiate resources for individual needs within a group, and how to recognise bias in materials. The unit is direct on one point in particular, which is that psychology-based tests and personality or learner assessments should only be used where their validity has been established and can be openly explained to learners.
Facilitating the session. You will explore facilitation as a spectrum running from instructing at one end to fully learner-led enquiry at the other, and consider where on that spectrum a given group and topic sits. This includes a range of facilitation methods: opening and engagement activities, sharing content, running discussions, developing skills through demonstration and supported practice, managing feedback, and closing well.
The unit gives particular attention to the ethics of facilitation, an area often skimmed elsewhere. This covers the power dynamic between facilitator and learners, the facilitator’s ability to influence through language and behaviour, and how unconscious and cultural bias, on the part of the facilitator and of group members, affects what happens in the room.
You will also develop the skill of reading a group while you are working with it. This means noticing during a session that something is not landing and adjusting activities, resources or roles in real time, while balancing the needs of individuals against those of the group.
Supporting transfer of learning. The final part of the unit addresses what happens after the session. You will explore the concept of transfer of learning, why learning that is never applied represents a poor return for both learner and organisation, and the strategies that make application more likely. These include action planning, work-based projects, action learning sets, spaced follow-up activity and structured line manager involvement.
Line managers receive specific attention. The unit asks not only what managers can do to support their teams in applying learning, but what L&D can do to equip managers to play that role effectively.
Unit objectives
The unit is designed to:
- Develop the skills needed to prepare thoroughly for group-based learning activities, including learner preparation, resource selection and the facilitator’s own readiness
- Establish a clear understanding of facilitation as a discipline distinct from instruction, together with the ethical responsibilities it carries
- Build practical capability in facilitating inclusive group sessions and adapting them as they unfold
- Develop understanding of how learning is transferred into workplace practice and what supports or obstructs that transfer
Who this unit is for
5LD03 sits within the Organisational Learning and Development pathway, so it suits people who:
- Are moving into, or already working in, a learning and development role
- Deliver training, workshops or briefings to groups as part of their job, formally or informally
- Work in a wider people practice role and want to develop the capability to design and deliver group learning
- Are responsible for the impact of learning activity as well as its delivery
Some experience of working with groups is helpful, though not required. What matters more is access to a genuine group setting during the unit, for reasons set out below.
Learning outcomes and assessment criteria
LO1: Be able to prepare for facilitation of learning and development activities for groups
- AC 1.1 Explore factors to consider in preparation for group-based learning and development activities
- AC 1.2 Explain principles underpinning the selection of learning resources and materials to support learning activities
LO2: Be able to facilitate inclusive group-based learning and development activities
- AC 2.1 Discuss the concept of facilitation and ethical factors involved in the facilitation of group-based learning
- AC 2.2 Explain a range of learning facilitation methods and techniques and how they can be applied to support learning
- AC 2.3 Discuss techniques for monitoring the effectiveness of learning activities during facilitation and making real-time adjustments to meet the needs of individual learners within a group context
- AC 2.4 Facilitate face-to-face, group-based learning and development activity that is inclusive and meets objectives
LO3: Understand strategies which support the transfer of learning to the workplace
- AC 3.1 Explain the concept of transfer of learning and its significance in workplace learning
- AC 3.2 Evaluate strategies for supporting the transfer of learning from learning and development activities to the workplace
- AC 3.3 Evaluate the role of line managers in supporting transfer of learning for their team members, and how learning and development can support them in this
How the unit is assessed
Two features of the assessment are worth knowing before you begin.
AC 2.4 is a practical criterion. It requires you to deliver a face-to-face group learning session that is inclusive and achieves its objectives, assessed by your centre through observation and supporting evidence such as a session plan and your learning resources. This is not a written criterion, and because the qualification is ungraded and all criteria must be met, it cannot be offset by strong written work elsewhere. Access to a suitable group is therefore worth arranging early.
The assessment brief is written by your centre. The CIPD sets assignments for the three core units of the diploma. For pathway and optional units, including this one, centres write their own briefs against CIPD guidance, mark them and moderate internally, with CIPD sampling before results are issued. The learning outcomes and assessment criteria above are fixed nationally; the tasks and word count are not.
Theory covered
The unit draws on established models in two areas in particular.
On evaluation and transfer, it references Kirkpatrick’s four-level model alongside Katzell, Brinkerhoff’s Success Case Method, the Learning-Transfer Evaluation Model, and the transfer effectiveness work of Weinbauer-Heidel and Ibeschitz-Manderbach.
On facilitation, it works from the idea of a facilitation spectrum and the progressive shift of responsibility for learning from facilitator to learner, supported by literature including Schwarz on skilled facilitation, Neelen and Kirschner on evidence-informed design, and Shackleton-Jones on how people learn.
Progression
5LD03 contributes 6 of the 42 credits required for the CIPD Level 5 Associate Diploma in Organisational Learning and Development, which requires seven units in total: three core, three pathway and one optional. Completion of the diploma allows progression to the CIPD Level 7 Diploma in Strategic Learning and Development or the Level 7 Advanced Diploma in Strategic People Management.
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