Folks,
You should have an e-mail from my instance of Moodle inviting you to view the course.
http://www.rdheath.com/moodle/
Please login and have a look around. One lesson learned from teaching my last unit is to have only the welcome and the first lesson visible to students and to reveal the course as we work through it. I’m not doing that for you all simply to keep this straightforward. I look forward to your feedback.
Project 4 – Web-based Tools
Use web-based tools to design a learning activity. Review your strategy map to locate an appropriate activity. Remember that students benefit more from active learning experiences (something they do or create) than from passive activities (something they view or listen to). Be creative in designing your learning activity! Write clear instructions to support students in completing the activity. Will the activity be graded? If so, include grading criteria.
I started by brainstorming with Wordle to create a word cloud focused on transactional leadership.
Word cloud based on text from:
http://changingminds.org/disciplines/leadership/styles/transactional_leadership.htm
Word cloud based on text from:
http://changingminds.org/disciplines/leadership/styles/transformational_leadership.htm
I copied and pasted the text from the website into a Word document. I then used the “replace all” and exact word function to strip out articles, prepositions, and passive verbs. I did this to focus on active verbs, and subjects and objects. I think based on both of the word clouds I could do some additional editing of text to further focus and refine the impact on key concepts in a final version.
This led me to start defining an assignment around leadership styles. Depending on one’s approach, the number of styles defined can range from three to a dozen. However, the work of definition is done (at least, at the lower division undergraduate level) a few keyword searches and the literature on the topic unfolds. Therefore, the more interesting work is making the connections between the styles and exercising a personal interpretation of appropriate use of the styles – tools in a toolbox – as it were.
Write a short forum post that lists the styles you think are most distinctive and important (some styles might be subcomponents of others, for one example) and define the styles in your own words additionally comment on two posts by co-workers.
Mind map example:
http://www.biggerplate.com/mindmaps/GUpm8RXX/lewin-39-s-leadership-styles
You may use one of these tools to help you construct your mind map:
Alternatively, you may use an old school approach graphing paper, colored pens, cut out construction paper. Then scan or take a picture of the map and share it to the forums. Those of you using one of the online mappers should download an image or share a link on the forums. Describe your process and summarize your thinking about the connections between the styles you defined.
Pick one of the cases and think about the lifetime of the scenario, express your perspectives, relate to, and reflect on leadership styles switching appropriately between them across the lifetime of the scenario. Create a Prezi to tell the story of your switching between the styles as you navigate the leadership scenario. Again, participants may use the forums as resource to storyboard and develop their Prezi.
These “assignments” reflect the “what” and “why” of our assignment but we need to explore the “how,” now. All of this work is situated in our LMS presentation. It also represents a departure from the work I have already done. In what I have worked up so far, I have been very pragmatic and not overly theoretical. I need to think through where this work might fit in the sequence of the training. I also want this theory-based knowledge to be actively engaged with. While this three step assignment has the potential to be worked into something interesting I think it might be too much for my on the job, LMS training. Rather something like it might have value in a traditional class.
While the work in my training will not be graded in a traditional classroom sense, none-the-less it seemed fruitful to search a bit for rubrics related to student leader training. Texas A&M, Harvard, and Florida A&M linked below offer some very interesting rubrics for assessing both leadership and learning about leadership. The Texas A&M site is a real treasure trove. Again, because I am uncertain that I will actually incorporate this series of assignments into my training, yet because it does seem like a fruitful set of ideas, I want to chase this matter a bit further.
One insight that is… dawning on me as I continue to do the work in this online instruction venue is working its way into my thinking about coaching supervisors. I have observed for a long time that we often engage in the faulty analysis, poor performance needs retraining. Accordingly, we put huge energy into training, imagining that by doing so we will not have to spend time on retraining. The insight comes from shifting our attention exclusively to performance, to perfect performance, to excellence in customer experience, rather than training. Alternatively, in the language of instructional design, we are looking for measurable outcomes, clear rubrics, and performance evaluation. This forces us to get training into perspective, training gives knowledge but that is only a third of the work of the supervisor, skills require practice, and perfection requires feedback and coaching. Excellent supervision also has to recognize when we are rewarding poor or mediocre performance or equally detrimental, punishing excellence and then reconfigure the workplace to correct these dysfunctions. These elements taken together along with a healthy dose of self-reflection and supervisors are more likely to get his/her direct reports to achieve excellence.
So, rather than continue to play the “ungraded” card, and because my last attempt at a rubric was limited. I, for the exercise, made an attempt to rough out a rubric for this assignment. Feedback is welcomed.
| RUBRIC | Excellent | Satisfactory | Incomplete |
| Definition | Forum posting shows extensive and thorough familiarity with leadership styles. Learners’ cite linked resources and may cite sourced beyond those linked. | Forum posting shows understanding of most styles. Learner’s uses several of the linked sources in their explanation. | Forum posting is incomplete or shows errors in understanding. Learners’ do not refer to linked sources. |
| Interpretation | Mind maps are rich, thoughtful and well laid out. Inclusion of concepts and connections are clear and well demonstrated. Reference to source material is included. | Mind maps are complete and connections are clear. Linked sources obviously inform the work. | Mind maps are incomplete and connections are poorly chosen or illustrated. Reference to source material is lacking. |
| Application | Prezi presentation flows well; shifting between leadership theories is fluid and logical. Details both in theories and in use of scenarios are present. Switching between styles is present and facile. | Prezi is complete both in terms of content and slide show effectiveness. The learner shifts between theory and application in the scenario. Also, shifts between several styles. Linked sources are evident in the work. | Prezi slide show is used poorly (inadequate number of slides, or poor transitions, for example) or not at all. Errors in understanding or misapplication of styles to the scenario are present. Source material is not used or cited. |
H-5-MS-Word-Document-with-graphics-and-accessibility-Bob-Heath
Ok, so in the end, it is a pdf, rather than an MS Word document, but I think that might even accomplish more in terms of accessibility. I took my product review paper and based on chapter 3 of:
I added a bunch of formatting and images per Owen’s request.
This was a good practice for me since so much of what we do in the workplace is quick and dirty Google docs. The downside is that a 5-page paper is now nearly double that. An interesting practice in both Word and Adobe was to use the “read out loud” feature of the respective programs to review my work.
This was an interesting process for me. I did a first draft with Jing and it was horrible — though it did give me practice. I talked with one of our Academic ITS people and he turned me onto Chrome Screencastify. This version is my second go with that product. To my thinking this is adequate, but, I think better is possible, though perhaps not with free products. Oddly enough publishing it was interestingly challenging. Ostensibly you can simply upload to YouTube, alas, that didn’t work for me. In the end WordPress came through and even though this installation isn’t “live” (soon it will be my e-portfolio, but for now it is in development) you should be able to view the screen cast. I think I can get away with my use of the segment under Fair Use, alas, while Pharrell probably wouldn’t be a chump about it, NBC might. So I am casting about for other examples for avoiding weaknesses and focusing on strengths.
Hi Bob,
I’m glad you did this. I wouldn’t have ever thought of doing a web tour, but it was a great idea. There were no distractions and it was very natural sounding like you were just sitting next to another person and walking around the gallup site. My favorite part was at the very end when you said, ‘you know your strengths are, we are doing this so we can discover them’. I think that was a really powerful concept to bring out and a great note to end on. I would love to side chat some time about how much time you are able to spend on strengths training for your team and find out what activities are working for you. How much individual work do you get in before you jump into the team stuff? Stuff like that:)
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Kim, I’m certainly willing to talk about this further. I will say that our program to create a library wide student employee career path was interrupted and broken. I have a project for this Spring and Summer to redo that work. While I am optimistic about this new opportunity I am also frustrated that we are doing this work anew again, rather than being further along. So, I am just now introducing the emphasis on strengths to our entire staff, not just, student employees. I think an important value it introduces is looking at the good in our co-workers rather then their weaknesses. It is a timely roll-out as it fits well with our new President’s values.
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Hi Bob, I found the content of your screencast very interesting. We do not always think about our strengths (and if you are like me you think more of weaknesses because they are more noticeable, I think). What I also liked about your screencast is that you have shared found resources simultaneously with delivering course content and sharing your own experience like with taking StrengthTests. It really put things in perspective for me and eased a fear that I might potentially fail these tests (if that makes sense).
The background noise was distracting though ? If you are looking for a good screencasting free piece of software I highly recommend http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/. There is a web-based version and an app you can download to your computer. It gives you some editing capabilities (even with free account) connects directly to your YouTube account, allows you to download your video on your computer in mp4 format, which you can also bring into video-editing software where you can clean up extraneous noise a little. I swear by it.
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Tatiana, thanks for the recommendation. I was annoyed with both Jing and Screencastify because they produce files that are not editable. I’ll look at Screencast-o-matic.
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When we first started strengths our department of 3 staff and 2 student employees all did it. I think it helped the student employees to have all of using the same language. I know it helped me as a supervisor get to know what motivates each member of my time. I was not able to edit using keynote and quicktime. I was glad it was a short assignment because I just had to keep starting over.
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Lots of good stuff here, Bob. Nice job on the web tour and I agree with Kim and Tatiana’s comments about the presentation and the content.
I thought your screen cast was great and I liked how you led us through your thinking and some of the results. You had a reflective quality, which is often hard to project. As soon as we turn on the record button, it often becomes hard to continue to think…we tend to switch over into narration mode.
Too bad the audio on the clip was a bit weak. I’m wearing headphones and I struggled to hear the first portion until you turned it up. (But I’m sure you’re aware of that)…
How long does it take to assess one’s strengths? Is it an arduous survey that then reveals some sort of strength scores based on how you respond to various questions? Or is it more self-assessment based? Curious.
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On the subject of various screencasting solutions… I’d throw out another vote for Quicktime. I know the updated mac client allows for easy screen video capture, and I believe the PC one does as well. And it is free. I’ve had some luck with screen-cast-o-matic as well… but it can be a bit twitchy with java requirements and so on. Lastly, my new favorite is ScreenFlow. If you do much video editing, the screen capture tool within screen flow is a wonderful professional level tool also.
On the windows side of the room, there’s http://www.screenpresso.com also… seems like they’re putting some effort into this as well.
-owen
Final Project, Third Draft Strategy
Learning Management Systems Comparisons from the Business Point of View
Hey Bob,
I like your UBD Tree “deconstructed.” Did you find the little fillable boxes annoying? Are you more comfortable with this more linear format?
I too think more quickly and more clearly within the confines of a word or google document.
I’d be curious as to your thoughts on this exercise as a process tool? What do you think about “charting” as a design process?
I know your thinking on your own subject is quite evolved, and this is reflected in the flow of your Leadership and Management design – from Essential Questions through Learning Logs (forums) as assessments, and into traditional content areas such as training videos, research, and mentor feedback.
-Owen
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Yup, the little boxes pinched and chaffed a bit. That admitted I am suspicious of my response to the text. I am holding open the possibility that in a different circumstance that chart might be the right tool. Right here and now the linear path got it done. I wonder if in a collaborative setting that chart might be a way for content expert and instructional designer to work together? I wonder as well if particular disciplines might call for that approach, say, poetry, for example. I recall last semester we were wrangling over the laboratory component of science instruction. I wonder as well about the studio component of arts courses in the online venue. Perhaps the chart has a place in helping me connect with those teachers?
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…and on your paper…
Interesting point about the LMS in the workplace. I completely agree that most companies aren’t going to encourage “open learning” – so much effort is bent and focussed on combing and preening the corporate image, tolerance for behind the scenes exposure will be extremely low, I would think.
Wow. In addition to a simple tool evaluation, your paper addresses such a complex and very interesting topic. … I hardly know where to begin.
Sort of stream of consciousness – I think it interesting that Oxford Online uses Moodle. I’ve also been intrigued by edX and Canvas. The advantage that Blackboard offers is institutional security – that is, large departments can feel secure in knowing that they’re purchasing the Chevy Caprice of LMS Learning Taxis. The one thing about Blackboard (Bb) is that their pricing is also institutionally variable. There is entry level pricing to entice the institution and once your institution is invested, prices and service contracts may increase.
Years ago I was involved with a Major LMS/Campus Software system upgrade. The small college I was working for had a terrible system that was horrendously expensive through Campus America. It operated on an antiquated VAX computer… and was incredibly unapproachable. I was head of IT at the time and after a year of deliberations, we purchased a new product based on WindowsNT servers, super user friendly, much easier to maintain, etc… Product was called TEAMS. We got through a year of installation and data conversion and finally decommissioned the old VAX server… two months later the company was purchased by Campus America… It was a good system while it lasted, but I fear the future was not bright at that point.
There are so many factors. Faculty, Students, IT, costs. Even maintenance philosophies and capacities within IT departments can be highly variable and extremely important. UAA and UAF both have Blackboard, but UAF’s installation is several versions ahead, and UAA’s support staff is a small fraction of UAF’s.
I’m intrigued that Google has backed edX’s open platform efforts. I like the platform and am hopeful for a bright future funded by our click-generated dollars. Check out Mooc.org…
Thanks for the reviews and for opening the can of worms that is the LMS debate.
-owen
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I am surprised that you did not go deeper in evaluating Moodle (the open source version). I find there are two main features that IT departments are looking for: scaleability, cost, and security. Incidentally, free Moodle offers all three. Additionally as far as features go, I actually find Moodle more powerful than Blackboard. There are a lot of additional features available that are built-in. One that I think any professional trainer will appreciate is called Workshop and allows you to build branching scenarios (which are at the core of instructional design for training purposes, I think). The interface for building is a bit complicated at first, but you can create SCORM-comparable training modules without purchasing SCORM building software like Articulate.
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While Owen assigned us a paper on “product comparison” in the end my paper was about decision models and organizational change management. There are literally hundreds of LMS products. That and the realization that in a business case an HR department will be running the training program. This means that other factors need to be included in the review of LMS products, like the suite of HR tools the LMS is embedded in or at least integrated with matters too. For example, an employees personal file is accurately and immediately and hopefully automatically updated based on LMS results. So my examples were more foils for the other discussion, however, they were selected based on being full featured, then on being very different from each other.
Hi Bob, good content. I liked hearing you are incorporating strengths language. Just out of curiosity…Do you have them do a strengths inventory? Do they do any further exploration with that? I am trying to get the time with my student government but find that we have to spend so much time on management training, we don’t get to spend enough in leadership training. I liked the way you made that distinction by the way. The only thing I would really change would be the music over voice in the very beginning. That was a bit distracting.
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Hey Bob,
I can imagine you recording a whole series of audio podcasts with similar background music. You could set the tone of the whole course on a very mellow track if you so chose. I’m coming at this at the end of a very busy stressful day and just the opening few bars made me want to grab a beer and chill out – listen to what you had to say. There’s something to be said for that. Maybe, however, all you need is a few bars, then fade the music a bit more as you speak. You could bring it back, with a swell…then chime in again… sort of like a “this American Life” effect. There is so much to do with sound… An enjoyable first pass.
-Owen
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Hi Bob,
I agree with Kim that music over voice was distracting. I also agree with Owen about beer and chill ?
If you limit the music to few bars in the beginning there is nothing that says you cannot have a longer segment at the end of the podcast (in fact, I think it would be nice, especially with your choice of music).
Good job!
I am completely aware that what I am doing for assessment in this training module is situation specific. In another workplace, tests and quizzes, might be appropriate. Likewise, a rubric similar to the example from Arizona, or even one more traditionally classroom shaped might be appropriate. The hard question is do I have the skills and the language to do that work too?
In response to Owen’s comment about the value of rubrics particularly for those performing at the lower end of the skill set, motivation and self-discipline. I understand in both the classroom and the workplace, since I have awarded failing grades and terminated employees. Additionally, I will be challenging my staff to do more with rubrics in relation to workplace performance. The obvious benefit is greater consistency in evaluation. However, an important and often understated benefit is getting unspoken expectations articulated. In a multi-generational, multi-cultural, and variable skill/experience workplace unspoken expectations are unfair and the cause of stress.
This segues into why I am emphasizing “learning logs” in this module. I am concurrently teaching the module on professional demeanor that I designed last semester. Using the forums as a “learning log” is working well in this situation. “Working well” means, employees are engaging with me and with each other and most of the feedback is gentle and cheerful. Admittedly some of the topical posting is answers that “I want to hear.” However, we have created a venue where we can have a conversation about the kind of workplace we want to create and inhabit and the student employees are part of that. Accordingly, their membership in the team is greater and their accountability is higher too. We evaluate their performance in the workplace. Sometimes that results in progressive discipline and ends in termination. Most frequently, it involves coaching for improvement and recognition of solid performances. Sometimes it results in encouragement to apply for supervisory openings.
We had some confusion and some resistance to participation in this training module from a handful of employees at the outset. I choose to handle it in the workplace and through the chain-of-command. I spoke with my library coordinators (the direct supervisors of the student staff). I asked about how they presented the training to these new hires? It was here that we encountered an ambiguity two had made very clear explanations of expectations; one had been vague and open-ended. That supervisor met in person with each employee and re-explained the expectations. She also encouraged them to talk with me directly. I have had three conversations. Time management has been a recurrent concern. One person expressed concern about discomfort with one of the assignments. I have learned several lessons: one is about cognitive load, second is about framing some flexibility into the assignments, third is about the students’ unfamiliarity with online learning environments. Two of my library coordinators were uncommitted, at the outset, to this form of training. This showed in their direct reports initial participation. However, as my staff has joined the conversation their misgivings have been allayed.
In this context approaching the conversation as “learning logs” is working. As I mentioned, I liked looking at the postings in terms of clarity, analysis, relevance, and self-reflection. However, I do not see the value of adding the matrix of low, medium and high quality at least in terms of individual postings in the online venue. I think each library coordinator is following along and is getting a sense of that for themselves and their direct reports. Training is one column in our employee evaluation and this adds information to that column, however, non-participation speaks more loudly, and will ultimately influence our decision to not rehire an employee.
Hi Bob,
this is a very nice attempt at creating a graphic. I like your use of colors. They work well for bringing attention to important elements of the content.
I do have couple of suggestions… Because your graphic is really hard to read and follow as you have too many font sizes and text going different directions I would maybe situate the text one direction and use a very light background of different colors to help differentiate between it. Another solution would be to make all text the same size, but use bold style to emphasize between important and not so important elements. Using numbers might help to bring a little bit of order as well.
Here are some examples of different infographics that might help:
https://www.google.com/search?q=best+infographics&espv=2&biw=1300&bih=705&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=kifuVPTcBoryoASo64HYAg&sqi=2&ved=0CEIQ7Ak#tbm=isch&q=best+simple+infographics&revid=986477565
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Hi Bob,
I’m with Tatiana on her suggestions. This is a bit visually daunting. The design elements create a bit of a barrier to my perception of your intended meaning rather than easing my approach. Specifically, I like the four tiles with the arrows and associated text. The red circle with a slash, however, is jarring. I’m not sure about an intended order or pathway through these ideas? I like each point, however. Each has meaning or significance, but some sort of organization or pathway leading us or helping us find an “entrance” would be of assistance, and/or helping us prioritize your points.
Visual design isn’t my strongest suit, so I understand where you’re coming from.
I’d suggest maybe freeing yourself from the software. Print each piece of text, or write them down, cut separately, and see if you can’t arrange in some sort of flow, even if there are multiple points of entry/egress… Play around with the images and ideas and see if a pattern emerges.
-Owen
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Thanks to both of you for suggestions. Thanks Owen for letting me leave the digital space, that actually is a very useful suggestion. Tatiana, I actually think this version sucks. It is too heavily dependent on text. However, the bind I’m struggling with is something I touched in thinking about Kim’s image. The switching between images and text creates a self-conscious switching and then interrogation. I rarely get through any examples of infographics because of the extensive work to make any sense out of them. I was trying unsuccessfully to limit that through staying with the text.
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Hi Bob,
Your content is fantastic. Not only good training content, but also a lot of good reminders! I thought a bit about how I would simplify the organization, but, design is a really personal process and its hard to make suggestions when there are thousands of directions you could go. Here’s just one idea… create four pull out boxes with corresponding colors from the four boxes in the central graphic. Then group the text into the box that it most exemplifies. Like with like and color coded to the main idea. Have fun!
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I second Kim’s comment that this is some great content. Very substantive.
March 2, 2015
Hi Bob,
The source you sited, Susan Cain and The Power of Introverts caught my eye (because the redesign allowed for things to catch you eye!) so I went and looked her up. I listened to her TED talk…and LOVED it. Introvert as opposed to extrovert is a fundamental core difference in how people approach the world, and so often causes hard feelings and misunderstandings. She is beautifully eloquent on the topic and I just added her book to my summer reading list. Truth be told, I might not be able to wait:) Thanks!
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PS love the redoux.
I would suggest you skip the top section. Your actual topic starts with the headline Develop Your EQ Today and the cute lead in adds cuteness but draws attention away from the power of the meat of your graphic.
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Much better! I really like this, Bob.
I like the content at the top, the horrible bosses and beatings will continue (I’ve always liked that meme? Is that what one calls it?). I like what you’re going for – contrast. Maybe your design concept would be best served by a contrasting infographic? A whole piece centered around poor EQ practices, and poor management? That might be really fun to make, and read, and would open wide the door for your (now) strong piece on EQ. …
Good work!
-Owen
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You guys…. This is, for me, a complete joke. I have situated online gaming memes next to each other, the PvP pirate, and the rainbows and ponies of Carebears. I’m making light of the medium and of the topic (PvP pirates drink the tears of their Carebear victims — hardly in touch with their EQ).
Owen’s suggestion to break the two into contrasting info-graphics is a good one. Creating the “horrible boss” one would be fun and probably such an exercise would force me to take the topic more seriously. Or, more probably I would be bad and find ways to burlesque the medium and topic even more with all the additional room.
I have a new co-worker, she is a young librarian, and this is her first job with her new credentials. She is working on becoming our Social Science and Data expert. I stopped by her office the other day and she gave me a tour. One stop was her bulletin board decorated with info-graphics about data. I mentioned my struggle with image/text congruence how easily I get distracted by in-congruence. She just laughed at me. She pointed to one of the images which had a row of icons across the bottom, purely decorative.
I think for me to make a good info-graphic is going to require a lot of work. First, is content. Second, is summarizing. Third, is making associations between images and ideas. Images that do real work. And I do think source citation has a place in a legit info-graphic. I don’t know… the irony is that to get good at it I would have to practice.
The performance I really need to assess occurs in the workplace, at the service desk, in employees various interactions. Wiggins and McTighe define “authentic performances” in six ways:
My quick and dirty assessment is that I have addressed the first four elements. My first draft falls down in two places concerning the last two elements. Both my learning outcomes and my journal assignments need revision with these elements in mind. A profound difference in this context is that my instruction is blended/flipped into the workplace. I am assessing their performance for continued employment and possible promotion. Turning to the work I need them to do because of this training, I identified these five performances:
I chose to emphasize learning journals for two reasons, one selfish and one pragmatic. The selfish reason first, a graduate school mentor, before the advent of online instruction used learning journals, alas; his life was cut short by cancer. I want to experiment with journals, in part, in his remembrance. But, some of the best demonstration of learning comes out of the tradition of journals, the Lewis and Clark expedition, Darwin’s, Voyage of the Beagle, and a personal favorite, The Log from the Sea of Cortez. My pragmatic reason is that I do not want the work in the online environment to over shadow the work at the service desk rather I want it to support it. If I get into required essays, or quizzes, I have slipped back into schooling for the sake of schooling. In fact, something I need to help these young people to keep at a distance. They are excellent at schooling. They are not so good at real life. So, returning to my assignment:
Let us think of the forums as our journals. Journal entries do three kinds of work: first they record what we have seen and heard in the training videos, (slides, bullet points, interesting turns of phrase, ideas we encounter for the first time), then, second we turn to reflecting, we record our reactions, feelings, judgments, and learning, third we engage in analyses:
- What was really going on?
- What sense can you make of the training video?
- Can you integrate theory into the workplace experience/online training?
- Can you demonstrate an improved awareness and self-development because of the training and our work in the forums?
Unlike our private journals, this is a shared journal. As such, we have responsibility and accountability to each other. We need to be both courteous and hardheaded. If we simply pitch each other softballs, our learning will be limited. If we are rude to each other, no one will participate.
A quick and dirty literature review shows that a lot of the scholarship around learning logs was done in the mid-1980s through the early 1990s. A lull occurs until the early 2000s (Babcock, 2007; Hurst, 2005). The most recent articles however are not exploring the use of this tool in the online context, forums and blogs. I think these mediums are ready-made sites for these teacher-student/student-teacher, and peer-to-peer interactions. Returning to Wiggins and McTighe I am reminded to ask about the evidence I need to confirm learning.
Because this journal is shared in real time, it is possible to engage in formative assessment rather than depend on summative assessment for proof of learning. At any time, we can step out of the conversation to ask about the conversation hence one important aspect of assessment. I can look for key words, or synonyms, “explain, interpret, apply, express perspectives, empathize, and self-knowledge” in their journaling and commenting.
As I have said elsewhere, I really care most about what employees do at the service desk. Accordingly, the rubric I want to work on is focused on the workplace not the journal. We have created documents, over the years to help us do our work, training checklists, and performance evaluation forms. Like many workplace documents, they are organic and local. The notion of workplace rubrics inspired me to do a little Googling – see what other people are doing. I stumbled on the Arizona Workplace Employability Skills Project (Arizona Department of Education in partnership with the University of Arizona and Corporate Education Consulting, 2012) which is simply a great resource for the task. This is their rubric in an outline.
However, Owen’s point is that we practice writing rubrics. Right now, I am content with the two elements of core communication so provisionally I will let them stand. “Sensitive to diversity” is a serious hot button in both the workplace and in higher education. We have not really grappled with serious and focused training — we give protected classes and harassment a salute. We have not treated it as a core skill (mental note we have work to do here). The technology piece is in many ways assumed (mental note we have work to do here). We do talk about privacy laws. We talk around the matter of brand integrity. Therefore, I have a lot of work to do both in terms of refining training but in defining this rubric. Alas, the actual evidence for relative competence offered in the Arizona report is of limited use hence why I leave it out of my summary. So yes, this is feeling overwhelming. Our authors say, “If the thought of using so many rubric traits seems overwhelming, start small. Go back to the two basic criteria – quality of the understandings and the quality of the performance. Add a third for process when appropriate, and other rubric traits as time and interest permit”(Wiggins, 2006).
I need to refine the technology criteria of this core skill set. We use a telephones (voice and text), email, and Google calendar, one of my Library Coordinators uses Facebook as well, in our communication strategy. Therefore, I will rephrase the criteria being specific “Exercises competence in using telephone, email, Google calendar, or Facebook for work place communication.” I will rephrase the brand integrity criteria to say, “Represents the library in a positive manner.” Regarding laws, I offer this formulation “Abides by privacy laws and library policy protecting customer information.” The criteria “Matches technology to content” reminds me of matching affect appropriately to the situation (laughing when someone is crying as a negative example). Perhaps, I can do a parallel formation one in the core workplace skills and one in the technology section. These are heavy on performance and light on evidence of understanding. Through posing “why” questions I may better formulate both my learning outcomes and facilitate the employee’s attempts to offer evidence of understanding along with practical performances.
Full stop, I am worried about using rubrics in the workplace because of misplaced concreteness and misplaced emphasis. I do not want student employees chasing points on assignments I want them chasing excellence in a real world performance in all of its ambiguity. The right answer in service situation does not exist once and for all. Rather it is negotiated repeatedly instance by instance. Yet I sense the value and merit of rubrics for supervisors in having a touchstone, a standard for evaluation even as we negotiate this best possible version of Colby College libraries.
I think that I like the Arizona rubric in the context of a student employee’s workplace performance. I like the 4 stages of progression, novice to leader. However, in the context of blended/flipped online instruction supporting workplace performance, and my emphasis on learning logs, I prefer the rubric that Tatiana offers: clarity, analysis, relevance, and self-reflection. I mentioned in an earlier post that I am teaching the precursor material at the same time I am developing this unit. What I am seeing in that is almost a hunger among the student employees for this kind of interaction. One where I and my library coordinators’ engage with them on the topics and coach them on these necessary life skills. The engagement and self-reflection is extraordinary and I am right to be cautious about developing a rubric for grading in this instance. I get that I need to learn more about writing rubrics, but, that is a different situation.
Arizona Department of Education in partnership with the University of Arizona and Corporate Education Consulting, I. C. (2012). Arizona Workplace Employability Skills Project: Rubric Development Workplace Employability Skills Project Phase II. Arizona.
Babcock, M. J. (2007). Learning Logs in Introductory Literature Courses. Teaching in Higher Education, 12(4), 10. doi: 10.1080/13562510701415615
Hurst, B. (2005). My Journy with Learning Logs. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 49(1), 4. doi: 10.1598
Wiggins, G., and McTighe, J. (2006) Understanding by Design (2nd ed.). New Jersey: Pearson: Merrill Prentice Hall.
Original Post
Right now, I am imagining a section that precedes this that focuses on “Taking the Step up….” I expect this communication section to take about a month. I am still toying with what to follow this section with – right now, I am thinking of shifting to very pragmatic elements of supervision, delegation, for one example.
Third enduring understanding: Communication, communication, communication getting it all done depends upon excellence in communication in all forms.
Communication (core)
Learning Outcomes
Learning Resources (Attn: ED 635 students I have written this for my target audience. However, if you access Lynda.com through the UAF Library your student login will give you access to these trainings, assuming they spark your interest. I really recommend the Leading with Applied Improv.)
Go to this url http://web.colby.edu/acits/lyndacampus/, and follow the instructions on logging in. Once you have access view the video training listed below. It is fine to do this during your regular but quiet shift (please just remember to leave one earbud out so that you can still hear the phone, or face-to-face customer questions).
Listening is a critical competency, whether you are interviewing for your first job or leading a Fortune 500 company. Surprisingly, relatively few of us have ever had any formal training in how to listen effectively. In this course, communications experts Tatiana Kolovou and Brenda Bailey-Hughes show how to assess your current listening skills, understand the challenges to effective listening (such as distractions!), and develop behaviors that will allow you to become a better listener—and a better colleague, mentor, and friend.
Leading with Emotional Intelligence
Emotions are all around us in the office, and it is important for leaders to understand how to harness them to cultivate productivity and positive relationships. In this course, lynda.com director of learning and development Britt Andreatta shows how to develop emotional intelligence to better lead teams, work with peers, and manage up. Learn what emotional intelligence is and how it factors in at work and discover concrete techniques for raising your own emotional quotient (EQ). This includes perceiving yourself accurately, exercising emotional self-control, practicing resilience, and developing empathy. Then turn those lessons around to build your awareness of others and learn to inspire helpful communication and manage conflict.
We will be viewing these two instructional sessions together. This is to create a foundation of thought and skills on the topic of communication. They allow us to compare and contrast the instruction by the various presenters as well – that is we interpret between the two and make our own sense of the topic.
Let us think of the forums as our journals. Journal entries do three kinds of work: first they record what we have seen and heard in the training videos, (slides, bullet points, interesting turns of phrase, ideas we encounter for the first time), then we turn to reflecting we record our reactions, feelings, judgments, and learning, third we analyses:
Unlike our private journals, this is a shared journal. As such, we have responsibility and accountability to each other. We need to be both courteous and hardheaded. If we simply pitch each other softballs, our learning will be limited. If we are rude to each other, no one will participate.
I want you to practice the skills your are learning about with customers as you help them transact business. I also want you to use them with co-workers and direct reports. Keep notes on these interactions and report in the forums on your experiences. Finally, as you interact with outside businesses (grocery store, clothing, liquor, and restaurants for examples) apply the communications skills again keep notes on these interactions and report to the forums on your observations.
Assignment three takes us in a slightly different direction. Accordingly, we will adjust the work a little to match the different content. This section is about attuning ourselves to others. Seeing how they struggle to communicate and seeing their emotional stumbles or equally possible we can observe their excellence and intelligence with communication. So, again list and record what you learn from the training, but now shift your attention to observing co-workers as they interact with customers and each other and reflect on how skillful or inept their communication is. The point here is not to judge but to observe and to begin to plan for helping them improve. This is the rudiments of job assessment and an important aspect of a supervisor’s role. Record both good and weak performance (out of courtesy do not report the person’s name) and report to the forums on performance and suggestions for improvement. Together we will analyze these examples you provide.
Learning Resources (Attn: ED 635 I am considering pairing the Emotional Intelligence and the Leading with Applied Improve and leaving the Effective Listening, first and Having Difficult Conversations, last as stand-alone bookends on the unit. Any thoughts on that alternate structure?)
We will be viewing these two instructional sessions together. Their content is less directly related to each other though there are points of overlap. However, both connect well to the previous two trainings we watched and so watch for that.
Having Difficult Conversations
Leadership coach and lynda.com director of learning and development Britt Andreatta shares her tips and strategies for having difficult conversations. In her four-phase model, you will discover the situations that lead up to difficult conversations, decide when the conversation is warranted, prepare for the interaction, and monitor outcomes to ensure success. Along the way, learn the secrets of turning difficult conversations into successful interactions that enhance communication and rapport. Improve both your professional and personal relationships, finding your way back from conflict through mutually successful outcomes.
Improv theater was designed to help actors solve problems on stage. In this course, facilitator, coach, and former stand-up comedian Izzy Gesell demonstrates how to use the skills, practices, and mindset of improv to develop critical leadership qualities of presence, acceptance, and trust. Izzy shares some games you can play with your team members or coworkers to “practice spontaneity” and incorporate the improv mindset into your everyday life.
Learning Outcomes
Assignments
As in the previous set of assignments, some of the work here is to learn new material. Accordingly, we are looking for recording, a list, a set of bullet points, which identifies skills, tips, and techniques that you learned from the training videos. We are looking for you to explain insights and to ask questions as well. However, beyond that we are looking for you to make associations with the first two videos and to select, interpret and apply among the tools these four training videos offer. Thirdly, we are asking you to interrupt you existing patterns of communication, or to venture beyond what your existing comfort zone is and to do that you will have to practice these skills regularly. So, first try these skills out in your interactions with customers, dorm mates, professors in the classroom, parents. Obviously celebrate your successes, more difficult consider sharing your failures. Through peer review and coaching on these forums and our face-to-face sessions, you have amazing resources available to improve your communication skills please take advantage of this opportunity.
Hey Bob,
I thought your opening paragraph setting expectations very interesting. I like how you say, basically, that learning how to do your job may require time out of work. I thought about this in light of student expectations regarding learning content. We are so used to negotiated effort agreements, I found your approach refreshing. “This is going to involved work on your part. This is life.”
Under Communications– Section 1, there’s a heading titled, “Assignments” I think these points might benefit from some type of organizational device other than what you have. Here’s your first item:
1: View Leading with Emotional Intelligence, Introduction, and section one and two, Understanding Emotional Intelligence, Developing Self-Awareness, and View Effective Listening, welcome and section one, Assessing your Listening Skills
This is workable but might reorganize somehow? Here’s a thought. (my formatting options are somewhat limited in this post).
View:
1. Leading with Emotional Intelligence:
Introduction, Understanding Emotional Intelligence, Developing Self-Awareness
2. Effective Listening:
Welcome and Assessing your Listening Skills
I really like your thoughtful inclusion of the Lynda.com videos. They’re great and should lead to some valuable conversations in your discussion forums. Running through the unit, I wished I’d had such a learning experience when I was younger – would have saved me a lot of wandering in the darkness.
Bob, overall, a great unit. There’s a few bits waiting to be completed, but your effort is hugely ambitious – which I give you credit for.
What are your thoughts? What are you most satisfied with? What are you least satisfied with? What next?
I appreciate also the Moodle hosting decision. Moodle can be a bit text-heavy and visually non-remarkable. That being said, there is a lot of content here and the visual simplicity helps keep the focus on just that.
-owen
Moodle-shmoodle can put you through scrolling hell! I have a love/hate (bordering on hate/hate) relationship with it. But I don’t hate it anymore than Blackboard (or any other LMS system). I actually found that you can design more visually stimulating and better organized course with Moodle than BB (which for me was a huge surprise), but it takes a lot of exploring and figuring out of tools in order to do it (learning curve is huge as Moodle is largely counter-intuitive and overwhelming — too many un-needed tools and options and too many gems buried underneath all these options). However, it is FREE ?
Bob, I did not receive the email ? Could you try and email it to tapi_______.edu? Thanks!
Owen,
Thanks as always for your generous comments.
I was struck profoundly by the differences between classroom teaching/teachers and the workplace and supervisor roles throughout this course. I mentioned this last class too, I miss my team. For example, I have an employee who is a genius with proofreading, grammar, and copy editing. It is my strategy to get her involved and invested in these kinds of projects by relying on her strengths. The young people who do the training will at the end of it tell me how to make it better, as another example. I wonder if I have a freedom to take risks with training/learning that others in this class cannot?
I have to admit that Kim blew me away with the video content that she created for her website. I worried about over relying on Lynda.com in this context. In my own context it is the obvious answer. Moreover, this summer I will pay a couple student employees to make training videos that will be used in these training’s. But, where does that get me in developing my skills, in learning something new? In my context these answers are appropriate. However, I do think there is an important insight about personal development that I wasn’t anticipating — so I will be spending more time with video and podcast creation this summer.
I think you are right Owen some of the assignments are still roughly phrased. I think some of my intentions with certain resources are underdeveloped (The Step up to Supervision book, for example) and so I can do some more work on integrating that resource to subsequent sections. I was surprised and satisfied with how the final project for this class turned into a section that I had no intention of developing. I wasn’t going to spend time on theory only on practice. I’m glad to stumble into a way to do better than that.
One of the most satisfying bits of feedback we hear from former employees is, “I learned to work in the libraries, thank you.” I guess I am trying to do this better with both the Professional Demeanor unit and this Step up to Supervision unit.
Tatiana, I sent you another invite on this new e-mail. And, I agree that Moodle can be an exercise in scrolling. My strategy for this course is progressive revealing and hiding of sections. So that the learner only sees the introduction and the current section, less scrolling. We will see what the feedback is from the young people on that. Obviously my employer owns this training and accordingly it will be behind user id/password, and firewalls, so creating it in Moodle here makes sense in my context. “Open learning” just isn’t a good fit for this purpose.
Hey Bob,
Sorry I’m a bit late chiming in. I really liked what you did here and appreciated what you are trying to do. I once ended a conversation with an employee “the problem isn’t that you were late, the problem is that I wasn’t’ surprised that you were late.” He got that, and the problem was solved. It takes enough of my time trying to teach new employees a position each semester that I don’t have much left to also teach them how to be good employees. And yet, I think that is what student employment is about in many ways. So, bravo! Taking on this aspect of employee training is huge and a place not many go.
Also, I kind of liked the ‘rough edges’. I felt like it wasn’t canned or rehearsed and edited to exclusion of all personality. As a matter of fact, I feel like your voice was very authentic throughout. Then you through in the Lynda stuff, which is super polished and edited, and it creates a kind of balance.
Hey Bob,
I hear you on the Lynda.com resources. I think you bring so much to the process via the frame of inquiry (essential questions) and the learning activities, (learning logs, discussions, etc…) that the course doesn’t have the feeling of simply a Lynda.com playlist. … And it does seem appropriate that there area few holes you find and fill in (the personal development piece) as you go.
Kudos to you and your team on the positive feedback from your former employees. As I said above, I wish I’d had some training like this early in life. It would have placed and contextualized much of my working experience… Even still, I find some of the content extremely valuable.
-owen
How do you log into?
http://www.rdheath.com/moodle/