ETUG Fall 2010
Educational Technology User Group, FALL 2010 Workshop: Stop Tugging Start Bridging; We are Stronger when we Collaborate
The fall 2010 workshop was held on November 4th at the Inn At the Quay in New Westminster by the Sea. The workshop was attended by instructional support and internet technology staff from across British Columbia. For the one day sessions there were presentations based around the theme of collaboration. The sessions included a discussion by the Justice Institute describing their experience developing Open Educational Resources for Emergency Response Training; two PHD students from Camosun College presented on their studies of student social interactions using the ELGG platform. Particularly relevant to the professional development team at the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology were the two sessions describing strategies to improve collaboration in the context of higher education instructional support staff.
Practice What You Preach: Collaborating Towards Solutions in Online Course Development
Presenters: Martin Voelkening and Gail Morong - Thompson Rivers University, Open Learning
Although collaboration is an important learning objective for students, we as course developers seem to neglect its power in our own daily work. The presenters will share a few short case studies of real-life examples of challenges encountered during the incorporation of technology into online courses, and show how collaboration among the various people involved in a project, such as instructional designers, editors, media, intellectual property officers, librarians and course production has led to solutions.
Job Shadowing
- Attempted to enhance collaboration between a large staff separated on two floors
- Developed a structured job shadowing
- Each job sharing session was 45 minutes, A learns about B and then reverse
- Participants are encouraged to prepare a short, hands-on, and practical demonstation of their job
- Participants responded positively to the experience. One participant noted that “the volume of learning was equal to weeks on the job"
Stop Assuming and Start Collaborating! (Thinking Session)
Presenter: Mary Burgess, Royal Roads University
Why is that instructor such a technophobe! How come those technical people are always trying to force the latest tools on me? Sound familiar? Join Mary Burgess in a session in which the Ladder of Inference will be used as a way of improving relationships and collaboration between faculty and instructional design and technology staff. Have fun brainstorming your assumptions and then breaking them down using role play exercises. Learn how to take a step back and think about new approaches to collaboration based on true understanding of the challenges your colleagues face.
The Ladder of Inference
In this presentation Mary Burgess described how by using the ladder of inference framework they were able to adress barriers to collaboration between instructional designers and faculty. The ladder is a framework that break down the communication process as a means to identify how we create assumptions and how they impact the communication process.
- Stages in communication process described by the ladder of inference framework are the following: Select, describe, interpret, evaluate, theorise, and conclude
- Select the message from the available pool of information
- Describe what is happening
- Interpret the message (this is informed by context and assumptions embedded in the communication)
- Evaluate the message (this is informed by context and assumptions embedded in the communication)
- Theorize: "People seek consistency between individual interpretations and experiences by weaving them together into a coherent theory of action"
- Conclusions are drawn based on theories
Link to 'Mind Tools' article describing the application of the ladder of inference in the workplace Mind Tools, Ladder of Inference