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GROUP TECHNIQUES – A ROUNDTABLE APPROACH Another way to begin the process of determining the most pressing needs in your school or district is to convene a representative group of stakeholders and work together to build consensus. This offers the advantage of discussion and the sharing of insight. There are also challenges to this approach, however. Discussions can quickly spin off in various directions. They can lengthen into a period of hours without drawing close to conclusions or consensus. The most effective group discussions are moderated, or facilitated, keeping in mind the end result, which at this stage of your process is to determine the most pressing issues that demand attention from the Linking Agent, and the group. EXERCISE – The Nominal Group Technique is one group technique that can be highly effective in determining and prioritizing needs. Below you can read about how to conduct the Nominal Group Technique (Option 1) or actually work through the process (Option 2) OPTION 1 The Nominal Group Technique (NGT) is a simple yet effective method of building consensus with a group of individuals. The goal of the technique is to develop a set of priorities that all participants agree to. NGT can be used as one step in the needs assessment process. For example, after collecting needs assessment data from various stakeholders such as teachers, administrators, and parents, you determine that several needs appear to be equally important. As the facilitator of the needs assessment process, it is important that you determine a method to prioritize these equally important needs. There are many methods to accomplish this goal; NGT is one of them. The following steps provide an outline for conducting the Nominal Group Technique. 1. Convene a group of stakeholders. The process works best with 10 or more individuals. Explain the purpose of the Nominal Group Technique and the proposed goal. 2. Ask each group member, without discussion, to list as many needs as they can on a piece of paper. 3. Next, ask each group member, in round robin fashion, to share one need from his or her list. Make sure that each member has shared one idea before allowing someone to share a second idea. Continue this round robin process until all ideas have been shared. (As the facilitator, you will write down each idea on a piece(s) of flip chart paper). 4. Review each idea/need listed. Clarify those that are confusing or unclear. Together, you will group or combine ideas that are essentially the same. For example, if one person indicates that there is a need for improved classroom management and another individual suggested a need for dealing with disruptive classroom behavior, these two items would be grouped. Finally, if an idea is listed more than once, drop the redundant ones from the list. (As you edit/clarify/group, be sure that the group participates in this process and agrees with the decisions that are made). 5. Format a piece of chart paper such that it contains 6 columns and states the following: "The main needs of our school/district are." The first column will contain the condensed list of needs/ideas that you created in step five. To the right of the first column will be five additional columns. At the top of each column provide the following label: 5,4,3,2,1. As you will see in the next step, each of these columns represents a voting column. The number 5 represents top priority while the number one represents lowest priority. Thus your chart paper should look something like this:
6. Have each member vote on the needs in order of most important to least important. Thus, you might say, "Each of you please come up to the chart and vote on the need that is most important to you. Do this by placing your first sticker in the column labeled "5", next to the corresponding need." Continue this process of voting until all five votes of each member is placed on the chart. Remember: each member can place only one vote in each of the five columns. They must prioritize their votes. 7. Tally the results by adding the number of votes across a row for each need. The votes are weighted such that stickers placed in the "5" column received five points, stickers in the "4" column receive four points, etc. 8. Discuss the results. Which needs received the most points? The one with the most points is likely to be your top priority. However, if two topics tie in number, you may want to ask the group to vote for the number 1 priority. This way, everyone feels as though they have been part of the final decision. OPTION 2 You now have the opportunity to work through the Nominal Group Technique on the EMSTAC training module, so you can understand how it might work in a real-life setting. Definition: • general education teacher
Seated around this table is a group of individuals representing various elements of the school community. Each person has been asked to list what he or she perceives to be the most important needs of their students and school. Review the list of potential needs below and select those that apply to your school. It’s now time to ask each person to share the needs on its list. In a real-life setting each individual would reveal their ideas in round-robin fashion, with each member stating one need, one at a time. The member groups read their needs from the index cards and then place the index cards at the center of the table. As the facilitator, you will write down each idea on a piece(s) of flip chart paper. CLICK HERE Once all of the needs have been stated and the index cards are together, it's the responsibility of the group to combine those that are similar. For example, if one person indicates that there is a need for improved classroom management and another individual suggested a need for dealing with disruptive classroom behavior, these two items would be grouped. Finally, if an idea is listed more than once, drop the redundant ones from the list. (As you edit/clarify/group, be sure that the group participates in this process and agrees with the decisions that are made). CLICK HERE Note: you will need to have macromedia Flash installed on your comuter to run through this demo. To download a free copy of Flash, click here. CLICK HERE
Next, on a large piece of chart paper, create a chart that contains 6 columns and states the following: "The main needs of our school/district are." The first column will contain the condensed list of needs/ideas that you created in step five. To the right of the first column will be five additional columns. At the top of each column provide the following label: 5,4,3,2,1. As you will see in the next step, each of these columns represents a voting column. The number 5 represents top priority while the number one represents lowest priority. Your chart for this group would look something like this. Below, we demonstrate how to tally the stars. 
In a real-life situation, you would next give each member of the group five stick-on stars. You would then instruct each group to vote on the needs in order of most important to least important. Thus, you might say, "Each of you please come up to the chart and vote on the need that is most important to you. Do this by placing your first sticker in the column labeled "5", next to the corresponding need." Continue this process of voting until all five votes of each member is placed on the chart. Remember: each member can place only one vote in each of the five columns. They must prioritize their votes. Now, it's time to tally the results by summing the number of votes across a row for each need. The votes are weighted such that stickers placed in the "5" column received five points, stickers in the "4" column receive four points, etc. CLICK HERE Previous Page | Next Page |
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