Group items tagged

The steps of empowerment evaluation

designating a “critical friend” to communicate areas of potential improvement,

collecting evaluation data,

encouraging a cycle of reflection and action

establishing a culture of evidence

developing reflective educational practitioners.

cultivating a community of learners

yearly cycles of improvement at the Stanford University School of Medicine

That might sound like a recipe for banal lectures about study skills. But training students to monitor their learning involves much more than simple nagging, Mr. Zimmerman says. For one thing, it means providing constant feedback, so that students can see their own strengths and weaknesses.

or one thing, it means providing constant feedback, so that students can see their own strengths and weaknesses.

"The first one is, Give students fast, accurate feedback about how they're doing. And the second rule, which is less familiar to most people, is, Now make them demonstrate that they actually understand the feedback that has been given."

"I did a survey in December," he says. "Only one instructor said they were no longer using the technique. Twelve people said they were using the technique 'somewhat,' and eight said 'a lot.' So we were pleased that they didn't forget about us after the program ended."

"Only one instructor said they were no longer using the technique. Twelve people said they were using the technique 'somewhat,' and eight said 'a lot.' So we were pleased that they didn't forget about us after the program ended."

And over time, we've realized that these methods have a much greater effect if they're embedded within the course content.

"Errors are part of the process of learning, and not a sign of personal imperfection," Mr. Zimmerman says. "We're trying to help instructors and students see errors not as an endpoint, but as a beginning point for understanding what they know and what they don't know, and how they can approach problems in a more effective way."

Errors are part of the process of learning, and not a sign of personal imperfection,"

Self-efficacy" was coined by Albert Bandura in the 1970's

"Self-efficacy" was coined by Albert Bandura in the 1970's,

The 1990 paper from _Educational Psychologist_ 25 (1), pp. 3-17) which is linked above DOES include three citations to Bandura's work.

The 1990 paper from _Educational Psychologist_ 25 (1), pp. 3-17) which is linked above DOES include three citations to Bandura's work.

What I am particularly amazed by is that the idea of feedback, reflection and explicitly demonstrated understanding (essentially a Socratic approach of teaching), is considered an innovation.

The Change Process as Problem Solving and Problem Finding

What is not useful about this framework is that it does not allow for change efforts that begin with the organization in extremis

this framework is that it gives rise to thinking about a staged approach to changing things.

Change as a “How” Problem

Change as a “What” Problem

Change as a “Why” Problem

The Approach taken to Change Management Mirrors Management's Mindset

People in core units, buffered as they are from environmental turbulence and with a history of relying on adherence to standardized procedures, typically focus on “how” questions.

To summarize: Problems may be formulated in terms of “how,” “what” and “why” questions. Which formulation is used depends on where in the organization the person posing the question or formulating the problem is situated, and where the organization is situated in its own life cycle. “How” questions tend to cluster in core units. “What” questions tend to cluster in buffer units. People in perimeter units tend to ask “what” and “how” questions. “Why” questions are typically the responsibility of top management.

One More Time: How do you manage change? The honest answer is that you manage it pretty much the same way you’d manage anything else of a turbulent, messy, chaotic nature, that is, you don’t really manage it, you grapple with it. It’s more a matter of leadership ability than management skill. The first thing to do is jump in. You can’t do anything about it from the outside. A clear sense of mission or purpose is essential. The simpler the mission statement the better. “Kick ass in the marketplace” is a whole lot more meaningful than “Respond to market needs with a range of products and services that have been carefully designed and developed to compare so favorably in our customers’ eyes with the products and services offered by our competitors that the majority of buying decisions will be made in our favor.” Build a team. “Lone wolves” have their uses, but managing change isn’t one of them. On the other hand, the right kind of lone wolf makes an excellent temporary team leader. Maintain a flat organizational team structure and rely on minimal and informal reporting requirements. Pick people with relevant skills and high energy levels. You’ll need both. Toss out the rulebook. Change, by definition, calls for a configured response, not adherence to prefigured routines. Shift to an action-feedback model. Plan and act in short intervals. Do your analysis on the fly. No lengthy up-front studies, please. Remember the hare and the tortoise. Set flexible priorities. You must have the ability to drop what you’re doing and tend to something more important. Treat everything as a temporary measure. Don’t “lock in” until the last minute, and then insist on the right to change your mind. Ask for volunteers. You’ll be surprised at who shows up. You’ll be pleasantly surprised by what they can do. Find a good “straw boss” or team leader and stay out of his or her way. Give the team members whatever they ask for — except authority. They’ll generally ask only for what they really need in the way of resources. If they start asking for authority, that’s a signal they’re headed toward some kind of power-based confrontation and that spells trouble. Nip it in the bud! Concentrate dispersed knowledge. Start and maintain an issues logbook. Let anyone go anywhere and talk to anyone about anything. Keep the communications barriers low, widely spaced, and easily hurdled. Initially, if things look chaotic, relax — they are. Remember, the task of change management is to bring order to a messy situation, not pretend that it’s already well organized and disciplined.

But many speakers insisted that colleges should go ahead and take drastic steps to improve the quality of their instruction, without using rigid faculty-incentive structures or the fiscal crisis as excuses for inaction.

Handing out "teacher of the year" awards may not do much for a college

W.E. Deming argued, quality has to be designed into the entire system and supported by top management (that is, every decision made by CEOs and Presidents, and support systems as well as operations) rather than being made the responsibility solely of those delivering 'at the coal face'.

I see as a certain cluelessness among those who think one can create substantial change based on volunteerism

Current approaches to broaden the instructional repertoires of faculty members include faculty workshops, summer leave, and individual consultations, but these approaches work only for those relatively few faculty members who seek out opportunities to broaden their instructional methods.

The approach that makes sense to me is to engage faculty members at the departmental level in a discussion of the future and the implications of the future for their field, their college, their students, and themselves. You are invited to join an ongoing discussion of this issue at http://innovate-ideagora.ning.com/forum/topics/addressing-the-problem-of

Putting pressure on professors to improve teaching will not result in better education. The primary reason is that they do not know how to make real improvements. The problem is that in many fields of education there is either not enough research, or they do not have good ways of evaluationg the results of their teaching.

Then there needs to be a research based assessment that can be used by individual professors, NOT by the administration.

Humanities educatiors either have to learn enough statistics and cognitive science so they can make valid scientific comparisons of different strategies, or they have to work with cognitive scientists and statisticians

good teaching takes time

On the measurement side, about half of the assessments constructed by faculty fail to meet reasonable minimum standards for validity. (Interestingly, these failures leave the door open to a class action lawsuit. Physicians are successfully sued for failing to apply scientific findings correctly; commerce is replete with lawsuits based on measurement errors.)

The elephant in the corner of the room --still-- is that we refuse to measure learning outcomes and impact, especially proficiencies generalized to one's life outside the classroom.

until universities stop playing games to make themselves look better because they want to maintain their comfortable positions and actually look at what they can do to improve nothing is going to change.

cluster analysis,

nearly two-thirds of those surveyed were involved in the full range of scholarly activity they examined

Just over a third, however, stood out as focused almost solely on one of two types of scholarship: on teaching practices, or on using knowledge from their discipline to identify or solve societal problems.

pedagogy-focused scholars were found mainly at liberal-arts colleges and, compared with the general population surveyed, tended to be younger, heavily represented in history departments, and more likely to be female and untenured

Those focused on problem-solving were located mainly at research and doctoral institutions, and were evenly dispersed across disciplines and more likely than others surveyed to be male and tenured.

how faculty members rate those priorities are fairly consistent across academic disciplines,

The study was conducted by B. Jan Middendorf, acting director of Kansas State University's office of educational innovation and evaluation; Russell J. Webster, a doctoral student in psychology at Kansas State; and Steve Benton, a senior research officer at the IDEA Center

"The evaluation part is critical. No matter which process we used, whether it was the [team] or hybrid model, they all did significantly worse than we hoped [in the evaluation stage]," Terwiesch says. "It's no good generating a great idea if you don't recognize the idea as great. It's like me sitting here and saying I had the idea for Amazon. If I had the idea but didn't do anything about it, then it really doesn't matter that I had the idea."

He says an online system that creates a virtual "suggestion box" can accomplish the same goal as long as it is established to achieve a particular purpose.

Imposing structure doesn't replace or stifle the creativity of employees, Ulrich adds. In fact, the goal is to establish an idea generation process that helps to bring out the best in people. "We have found that, in the early phases of idea generation, providing very specific process guideposts for individuals [such as] 'Generate at least 10 ideas and submit them by Wednesday,' ensures that all members of a team contribute and that they devote sufficient creative energy to the problem."

The results of the experiment with the students showed that average quality of the ideas generated by the hybrid process were better than those that came from the team process by the equivalent of roughly 30 percentage points.

in about three times more ideas than the traditional method.

"We find huge differences in people's levels of creativity, and we just have to face it. We're not all good singers and we're not all good runners, so why should we expect that we all are good idea generators?

They found that ideas built around other ideas are not statistically better than any random suggestion.

"In innovation, variance is your friend. You want wacky stuff because you can afford to reject it if you don't like it. If you build on group norms, the group kills variance."

Nobody will ever tell you this, but your career will, in part, rest on having a well-thought-out philosophy of education

Teaching is a science. Be as methodical about developing teaching strategies and a teaching philosophy as you are in your research.

You must have enough teaching experience to handle Rules No. 5 and No. 6.

Stay focused on your research while being cognizant that you are preparing for a career as a teacher.