Intro to My PME Portfolio
Welcome to my digital portfolio. This Blog will track my learning experiences as I pursue my Professional Master of Education. Collaborative Inquiry is my third course in the program and I am very excited to learn from my colleagues as we journey through this course and our programs.
As a new administrator in higher education, I find engaging in reflective practice helps me to evaluate my development especially with respect to my leadership skills. I believe critical reflection is the key to improvement on so many levels. Reflective practice helps me to recognize gaps and challenges my assumptions.
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Jumping back into PME after a bit of break feels pretty good. I have been on vacation this week so..... we'll see what's it like when I return to work next week. Our first task this week was to submit a digital artifact depicting how we perceive ourselves as collaborators. I used Popplet to capture my thoughts.
July 13, 2016 Concept Second Edition
Second Edition of my Concept Map - July 31, 2016
Technology Montage- Technology used to support Collaborative Inquiry- July 24, 2016
https://www.powtoon.com/online-presentation/ckfECbhQEuF/collaborative-inquiry/
August 2, 2016- Connection with a Professional Community
Merlot is a community of members that includes staff, volunteers and members who provide educators and students with free access to Open Educational Resources. Merlot is a repository of learning materials developed and distributed by its members.. Merlot (Multimedia Educational Resources for Learning and Teaching Online) began in 1997, when the California State University Center for Distributed Learning developed and provided free access to MERLOT. Merlot is an online repository of teaching and learning materials in 25 different academic disciplines for use in higher education. MERLOT serves an international community of educators. MERLOT includes over 40,000 open resources and allows members to contribute materials to the collection of resources. MERLOT provides spaces for members to collaborate and exchange ideas. MERLOT allows for easy searching, building and sharing of technology based teaching.
Leadership in Collaboration - Aug 14th
Our group looked at the role of leadership within a collaborative group; how it affects a group's members and what makes an effective leader. We referred to past, present and additional readings and resources for information and ideas on past solutions or recommendations. We used both Facebook and Google Docs to complete the project and found the use of both really worked for us. We hope you take something away from our work :
Project Name: Design Brief - Module 4
Group participants: Melissa Bergamin, Kristy Brooks, Sarah El Manawhly, Eva Lemak & Corinne Muir
Date: 08/14/2016
Overview:
Critically review and discuss issues of concern in the participant’s identified Professional Communities or a problem/solution that comes from the knowledge building work in Module 2.
Develop a Design/Problem Brief about the selected problem/issue including the contextual concerns, past solution concepts and related literature that supports an understanding of the problem and the proposed solution.
Schedule:
Due: August 14, 2016
First meeting: Saturday August 6, 2016. Group work online through messenger, Facebook and Google Docs.
Second meeting: Thursday August 11, 2016. Bring together past solutions and work on our solution.
Closing comments: Saturday August 13, 2016. Final editing and review.
Dilemma/Problem:
What is the role of leadership in a collaborative group?
Key issues:
- Lack of leadership: enables power struggles and conflict. Less chance for the building and development of a common vision and/or goal. Overlooks the opportunity to transform tension into opportunity for creativity. Encourages and supports “groupthink.” Does not challenge assumptions. Does not recognize or support the strengths of each team member
- Weak facilitation skills
- Interference of organizational hierarchy: looming bias over collaborative efforts based on participating individuals and the roles they have outside of the collaborative group.
Target Audiences:
Audience types:
- Business
- Education
- Health
- Government
- Inter-professional teams
Key motivations:
- Improvement of practices, policies and procedures
- Improvement of culture, environment and relationships within the workplace
- Professional development
Key Concepts
Past Solutions & Questions
- In the article Teacher Teams and Distributed Leadership: A Study of Group Discourse and Collaboration, a key idea is “socially distributed leadership.” Leadership is then determined through social interactions, passive and active discourse, and the “[engagement] in mutually dependent activities.” The downfall indicated in the article was “the cultivation of groupthink” with certain collaborative structures like teacher teams. Since teacher teams would not have a hierarchical structure, there would not necessarily be an obvious leader(s), however, multiple leaders could emerge or “shared team leadership evolves.” If leadership emerges from social interactions, what happens to the introverts?
Proposed Solutions
- Educators, employers, and organizations need to recognize the difference in the way extroverts and introverts respond to stimulation and how this response affects productivity, learning, and creativity. Introverts teach and speak publicly, even though it is out of their usual comfort zone yet if they feel passionately about something or someone, then they are compelled to do so. Group leaders need to be conscientious dangers of group work to ensure that extroverts do not stifle opportunities for introverts to shine.
Susan Cain, author of the book, “Quiet, The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking,” uses examples that speak to the importance of listening and gathering facts. Introverts spend time learning about people and what motivates them. Introverts are natural listeners who are receptive to other’s perspectives and take the time to consider other’s ideas. Introverts are also more sensitive compared to extroverts, and therefore, more empathetic towards others (Cain, 2013). Cain writes that according to a study completed about university students, empathy has decreased by 40% in the last thirty years. The element of self-awareness is critical in a collaborative setting. Introverts are in tune to what is going around them and how they impact others. Susan Cain believes that self-awareness is at the heart of communication.
SOLUTION: Group projects should include individual tasks , advance notice of the topic/problem/question giving introverts time to prepare, have small groups meet to discuss the idea then sharing in a larger group, give everyone the chance to share their ideas via email, rather than in group meetings giving participants a better chance to express themselves in a comfortable environment, demonstrate a high level of emotional intelligence, recognize the characteristics of introverts and use facilitation skills to maintain a balance between extrovert and introvert participation, ensures everyone’s ideas are heard and considered.
- A group leader plays a significant role leading a collaborative inquiry extending beyond facilitation. The collaborative process occurs between members of a team and the team leader must foster a positive environment for inquiry. The leader must be able to motivate the team to work through each phase of the process and contribute to a meaningful learning opportunity.
The leader draws from the knowledge and experience of each team member by listening to the their stories and coaching the them through the process. Individuals involved in inquiry are close to the reality of the problem contextualized within their own career (Deketelaere & Kelchtermans, 1996). The leader has the opportunity to raise questions and stimulate dialogue while challenging the possibility of groupthink. Individual team members may have difficulty moving their thinking to more abstract level (Deketelaere & Kelchtermans, 1996). Group leaders should be able to view the problem and data through an alternate lens that is grounded in theoretical framework.
The group leader must also have a good understanding of the dynamics of the group. The leader must be able to identify the strengths and weaknesses for group members and recognize that individual shortcomings can be used in complementary fashion (Deketelaere & Kelchtermans, 1996). Having a good working knowledge of group dynamics greatly affects the success of the team. Leaders should be receptive to various communication styles and personality traits in order to facilitate team and individual professional growth. It has been shown through research that when a team has a positive dynamic, fostered by a positive leader, its members are nearly twice as creative as an average group.
SOLUTION: A group leader should be observing and frequently interacting with the group to see the engagement/enthusiasm, and be able to respond quickly to any issues that may arise. A group leader should be reflecting on past meetings and interactions in order to build on current positive dynamics and relationships within the group. A group leader should encourage feedback to ensure that the needs of the group are being met. A group leader can facilitate team building activities frequently, in order to keep group members motivated, inspired and engaged.
- One skill a leader should have is the ability to find or search for solutions to the problem(s) beyond typical or already known areas. One way to accomplish this is to use Analogical Thinking. The article Opening of the Solution Space: The Role of Analogical Thinking for Breakthrough Product Innovation explores this concept in application of product development but the concept can work for any problem solving situation. Sometimes it is “a solution searching for a problem” (Gassmann & Zeschky, 2008) and other times more like “when a familiar problem is used to solve a novel problem of the same type” (Gassmann & Zeschky, 2008). In either instance the problem has propelled the search for a solution and looking into other industries (areas) can provide an insight that might otherwise be missed. This is a clear definition of innovation, taking an idea and applying it in a novel way. Using this approach requires looking at more than just the surface side of the problem and trying to find out how similar problems were solved. A leader should guide the group toward a clear focus in finding the root of the problem and then use creative thinking to find an analogous solution in an unrelated field. A leader should also be able to identify the potential weakness in the group and instead of letting it hold the team back, use different methods to get the group finding creative solutions.
SOLUTION: To encourage participants in finding the root of the problem, have individuals research solutions from a perspective in their own expertise where evidence based research can be applied and discussed. A leader can also facilitate in the narrowing of a problem space by identifying short term and long term needs/goals which would provide a group consensus by discovering overlap in research findings and engaging discourse analysis. Subsequently, the group weaknesses can also be identified and a proposed course of action can also be outlined by both the group leader and its participants.
Resources
Barron, B. (2000). Achieving coordination in collaborative problem-solving groups. Journal of the learning sciences. 9(4). 403-436.
Cain, S. (2013). Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking. Broadway Books. Cain, S. (2013). Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking. Broadway Books.
Deketelaere, A., & Kelchtermans, G. (1996). Collaborative curriculum development: An encounter of different professional knowledge systems. Teachers and Teaching, 2(1), 71-85.
Dorst, K., (2011). The core of ‘design thinking’ and its application. Design studies 32(6), 521-532.
Dorst, K., & Cross, N. (2001). Creativity in the design process: co-evolution of problem-solution. Design studies, 22(5), 425-437.
Gassmann, O., & Zeschky, M. (2008). Opening up the solution space: The Role of analogical thinking for breakthrough product innovation. Creativity and innovation management. 17(2), 97-106.
Goel, V., & Pirolli, P. (1992). The Structure of design problem spaces. Cognitive science, 16(3), 395-429.
Svihla, V. (2010). Collaboration as a dimension of design innovation. CoDesign, 6(4), 245-262.
Aug 19, 2016- Connecting with a Professional Community Digital Foothold
Once I began to investigate further, I found that content contributed by members linked to Facebook, email or Twitter. Although I am an avid Twitter follower, I haven’t really used it as a collaborative tool. It dawned on me that Twitter is the best way to gather information posted by Merlot II. I really enjoy Twitter because I am able to filter through the Tweets super quickly and decide what I want to investigate further. I also find it very useful to re-tweet the information. Some of my colleagues follow me on Twitter and find it very useful as well. I had a couple of educators tell me that they had no idea that Merlot II had so many useful Open Educational Resources (OER) I think Twitter is a very useful way to send out tidbits of information that sparks interest and initiates a ripple effect of valuable info.
Once I started following Merlot II on Twitter I could quickly an easily evaluate the information that is of interest to me and follow the Tweet to an educational website. Through my investigation into professional communities, I have discovered that blogs and discussion posts do not provide the same level of immediate engagement, or as broad an audience. Where else can one educator engage 19,000 followers?
