Today, I will be recording a podcast of my digital storytelling workshop experience and what I learned from it with colleagues Jeff Nugent and Bud Deihl in the Center for Teaching Excellence at VCU. My story, A Teacher’s Journey, was created during a five-week workshop with eight other faculty members. Sometime during those five Fridays in September, I remember thinking about a concept that I was first exposed to in Dee Fink’s book on creating significant learning experiences–the concept of “flow.”

Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi (prounounced “cheek-sent-me-high-ee”, according to Wikipedia), describes a flow as

a state of concentration or complete absorption with the activity at hand and the situation…the flow state is an optimal state of intrinsic motivation, where the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing. This is a feeling everyone has at times, characterized by a feeling of great absorption, engagement, fulfillment, and skill—and during which temporal concerns (time, food, ego-self, etc.) are typically ignored.

I can think of no better description to describe the joy that I experienced when I immersed myself in the world of Flickr photos, freely available, open source music and the experience of condensing 27 years of working with adult learners into a 300-word story produced with a simple editor such as PhotoStory.

For hours at a time, I was lost in my own world, remembering the faces of years past, re-experiencing the places and people of my personal history with a vividness that I haven’t felt in years. Hours melted away at my fingertips, and only the call of pressing University responsibilities and the students of TODAY brought me back to reality. The time I spent evaporated into pleasurable recollections and the joy of new insights. It felt as if I was learning anew all the lessons of my past within the wisdom of the present.

Csíkszentmihályi, a Hungarian psychologist who immigrated to the U.S. in the 1950s, studied at the University of Chicago and later became head of the Department of Psychology there. His concept of flow is related to his research on the various states of mind we humans experience. The flow state is considered an optimally motivating, engaging situation, which all of us have experienced at times — one that most of us wish happened more often.

Csíkszentmihályi described flow as “being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.”

To achieve this extraordinary state, which can happen for all of us, a balance must occur between the challenge of the task and the skill of the performer. When the task is either too easy or too difficult, flow does not occur. Flow occurs only when there is a match between skill level and the task requirements.

Isn’t this the very challenge a teacher faces with each and every assignment or activity? How to create learning experiences that engage us fully, challenging us to ever higher levels of performance? I know that this experience of digital storytelling is what I will have in mind when I think of engaging our learners to push the boundaries of their skills to their maximum potential as they challenge themselves in aquiring new knowledge and skill. Thank you, Bud Deihl, for the opportunity to learn how creative an activity this can be. I hope I can re-create the same for my learners!

Credits:
A Teacher’s Journey - Terry Carter
Wikipedia, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and the photo describing “flow”

Since beginning my blog in Summer 08 in preparation for introducing blogging in the Adult Learning program, I’ve written twelve posts and engaged in written dialogue with others in 26 comments posted to my blog.  If I’ve counted correctly, I’ve also written more than 100 posts on students’ blogs over the semester. That’s a lot of writing, theirs and mine.

I suspect our students in Adult Learning have written even more, and, in the Org Learning class in particular, have a good many more comments since they have participated in the Reflector-Mirror exercise each week in which triads responded to each other’s posts. There are 30 students in my classes. That’s a fair amount of reflection going on. Keeping up with their posts on a weekly basis has been a challenge for me, some weeks more than others. I’ve found it immensely rewarding, however, and hope they have, too.

Fall 2008 Semester Highlights

In Program Planning, Management and Evaluation (ADLT 602), nine students developed plans for implementing a program, workshop, or course for learners that are as diverse as they are. From Sarah’s program for teaching seniors to use the computer to Ed’s on teaching Spanish to law enforcement and  Laura’s on a workshop for new School of Pharmacy professors, their plans were innovative, well thought-out, and well designed. Rosemary Caffarella,  who authored our text, would be proud. As the culminating assignment, these students created an academic-style conference poster session to provide an overview of their work. Take a look! 

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Learners in this class found the process worthwhile. Here are a few of their comments and reflections at semester’s end: 

I am coming away from this semester with a newfound appreciation for program planning and evaluation. I honestly came into this course with few expectations. All I knew about program planning was that my own experience had been frantic, disjointed and generally without structure. In contrast, the time that we spent reading about and working with the model presented by Caffarella was akin to the heavens opening up.

I’ve been lucky enough to have had work experiences, internships and involvement in school activities that have helped me with my own learning this semester. I mentioned in class last week how I want to try to take what I’ve learned and what I’m learning about adults and bring it into my workplace now. It’s my own personal goal to find little ways to do this.

I also learned over this semester what makes an effective program and what doesn’t. Over the years I’ve been a part of programs within work and school that really impacted me and others that I could have done without. I think having these experiences helped me plan my HRD internship program, because I tried to imagine if I were a student involved in it.

We spent the semester in ADLT 610, Consulting Skills for Adult Learning Environments, reflecting on the meaning of what it means to be in a helping relationship. Peter Block and Edgar Schein offer wise commentary on the nature of consultation, which is a far cry from what most people assume the consulting process involves.

Here are a few of their comments on what they learned about process consultation:

So, where am I now compared with the beginning of the semester?  I think my final thought is that I realize how much I learn from my colleagues and classmates.  As my blogs show, I am constantly relating new learning experiences with prior experiences.  These prior experiences include the stories and comments I have heard from other people.  This class is a perfect example of how well I learn from other people because some of the most important lessons learned came from challenges encountered by other groups.  Through classroom discussions and following their progress on the wiki, I was able to learn from the challenges faced by other groups and by their reactions to those challenges.  I have learned a great deal about the difficulty of entry, the importance of contracting, and the critical need for excellent communication.  I think everyone should always remember how much we learn from one another every day. 

As I read through my blog, it was made apparent to me that my thinking has developed over the semester.  At the beginning of this course, I felt a bit overwhelmed with the idea of “flawless consulting”.  I thought to myself, “Who is flawless?”  Well, I came to discover that Block provided the clear cut steps to encourage consulting that is nearly flawless. 

Although at the beginning of this course, I was a bit unsure of the new skills I was learning in the context of the classroom, I was even more unsure of how I would implement them outside of the classroom.  As we practiced inside the classroom walls, I felt a bit more secure in my new found skills.  I learned very quickly that there is no way to be prepared for every reaction that the client may throw at you and that I needed to take things in stride. 

Through our class discussions, I have learned through my peers experiences.  As a class when we provided advice, I felt that it was a valuable lesson.  Not only were we given the opportunity to assist our peers we were given the opportunity to learn from their frustration.  In addition to learning consulting skills, the class discussions have allowed me to learn new ways to use technology. 

 In this Consulting Skills class, we experimented with VoiceThreads as a form of digital conversation and learned what to do (and not do!) next time around. The scenario around which our enactment of a consulting assignment occurred was a merger of two securities firms. With the recent financial industry meltdown, the reality of such mergers and the challenges for organizations in successfully navigating them is all too real.  There will be a big demand for effective process consultants in the months ahead.

Our semester in Organizational Learning (ADLT 623) involved creating a concept map as a group. We created two maps: one on the nature of organizational learning, and the other on organizational culture. 
All the interactivity of CMap is somewhat lost in depicting them as a slideshow in this post, but we are keenly aware of copyright issues for articles that were attached to concepts. The maps are best viewed by clicking on the slideshow “full view” indicator.

The richness of concept map media for linking ideas, relationships, and resources is incredibly powerful, but most powerful of all is collective learning that happens as we struggle to depict the connections between our ideas through group dialogue. The cultural analyses that our students produced as their final assignment were rich with insights and learning, some of which are captured in these comments:  

Schein’s book on organizational culture and leadership will continue to be an important resource for me in my career. Understanding (or at least trying to understand) what makes up the culture at my organization will help me as I do my part to move the company towards becoming a learning organization.  I have much to learn and experience, but I am very grateful for what I have learned in this class because it has beeb a great springboard from which to jump into “the pool” of organizational culture and leadership.

Nancy Dixon’s book on organizational learning was mind-expanding. Building organizational learning into an enterprise is daunting, since it substantially goes against the grain of “normal” organizational life. Instead of withholding information to maintain power or avoid offense, organizational learning demonstrates the value of everyone at every level acquiring and spreading knowledge. Instead of withdrawing into specialized departments, organizational learning invites borders to be permeable and disparate people to mix substantively and frequently. And instead of depending on a command-and-control style of leadership, organizational learning opens up for all the opportunity to interpret information and assist in taking responsible action. Now that’s a challenge!

I never imagined that I would learn as much as I have over the last few months. Many of us have had ups and downs throughout the course of the semester, and we were all able to learn from those experiences. I have recently been told of my promotion that I have been after for quite some time, and I can’t wait to incorporate the strategies I have gathered throughout this program. The new year will indeed bring many new challenges for me and my department…and I welcome them all with open arms. Chatting with you all throughout the semester has given more confidence in my own abilities. The blogging over the last few months has been a wonderful experience, and I hope to continue the process. It really helps me put things in perspective. Furthermore, the Cmap exercise was extremely helpful and I have actually referenced it many times. It is amazing how much we incorporated into the map…and how BIG that thing got!

What I’ve Learned about Working with Web 2.0 Tools.  So, what have I learned about using Web 2.0 tools, such as blogs, wikis, Voice Threads, and more as part of the graduate classroom experience? Here are a few of my thoughts.

Blogging is a Unique Writing Genre
The blogs of my learners were as individual as they each are, from the designs they chose to display their work to each one’s mode of expression and type of reflection. The blog appears to be a more natural venue for expressing voice in a way that I seldom see in traditional academic papers. For some reason, writing papers in APA style has a tendency to mask much of the uniqueness of individual expression, or perhaps it simply takes more skill to have voice emerge from the pages of an academic document. The weblog seems to me to be a free-flowing medium, less constrained by convention. It may be that the author simply feels freer to say what she thinks, and in so going, gives voice to ideas that might not have emerged otherwise. I’m still pondering on this and why it is so. Your comments are welcome!

Learners (Students in the Adult Learning Program) Have Much to Say!

This exercise of voice was quite liberating for most, intimidating for some, and, eventually, embraced [I think!] by all this semeser, even though learners admitted that writing to the blog “added” more work to the assignments. Micro-publishing is an exciting endeavor, and seeing their own words in print seemed to bring pleasure and a sense of accomplishment to assignments that I’ve not seen in work submitted for “my eyes” only. This online journaliing was healing to some who had workplace trauma in the form of lost jobs, and enlightening to those of us who could give added meaning to our readings by incorporating the experiences of others. Most expressed their ideas boldly when they were clear in their convictions, cautiously when they considered the public nature of their comments and potentially adverse consequences, and reflectively when new ideas bumped up against old thinking. This online conversations were better than any we’ve ever had in class dialogues: troubling, but true!

Working with Wikis and Blogs Demands (and Creates) New Assignment Formats

Okay, I admit it. The first time I saw the blog posts on interviewing a program planner from a non-traditional background in working with adult learners (those with disabilities, the elderly, non-native English speakers, etc.), I was stunned.  This was an assignment I’d used before in the ADLT 602, Program Planning class.  The results of this assignment didn’t look anything at all like the papers submitted by last years’ class: they were shorter (some of them MUCH shorter), more succinct, and, well, DIFFERENT!  It was then that it hit me: this is a very different genre, and the work that appears in it is going to have a distinctively different feel and flavor. 

These interivew assignments were actually very well done; however, I was surprised by qualitites that were different from what I had expected based on previous years’ experiences.  Since that day, I’ve noticed differences in other assignments posted to the blog, as well.  After much reflection, It finally dawned on me that (1) this was okay; (2) I should have expected it, since a blog is a different form of expression than a paper written in APA style; and (3) I need to be selective in what gets posted as an assignment to a blog, and what remains a traditional, research-based, APA-cited paper. Our learners need to become adept at both. 

This also means that I need to re-think my assignments and the goals that I have for learners in accomplishing them, and find the right medium that best accomplishes these goals — whether it be a blog assignment, a wiki posting, or a traditional APA paper.  I’ve learned that as an instructor, you simply can’t “move” a course from a paper-based format to blogs and wikis without adjustments. Big learning.

 It Takes Time, but It’s Worth It

There is no doubt that writing in a publically viewable format, using technology that can go “blip” in a moment and lose your work, and adding rich media in the form of audio, video, and photo content, takes more time … much more.  I think it’s been worth that investment (mine and theirs) in the quality of learning that our Adult Learning students have acquired … deep learning, in which they have actively, and socially, acquired new meaning and constructed more complex understandings of their worlds in relation to Adult Learning.

We’ll Continue in the Semester Ahead

Next semester, I’m abandoning Blackboard for everything except the gradebook. It’s a duplication to post on Blackboard and also to a wiki.  We will use Wetpaint wikis for each of my three classes instead, and learners will have an opportunity to continue their online reflective journaling with the blogs. The experiment continues.  More to come!

In this post, I want to capture some of what’s going on in our three classes this semester, your reaction to them, and the sensemaking that you are engaging in as you connect your learning to your work world and personal experiences.

Then, I’d like to reflect on what you are teaching me through this reflective blogging in action … or, in the term coined by Paul Lowe, director of the MA in Photo Journalism and Documentary Photography program at The University of the Arts, London, e-flective practice. I really like that term since it captures the reflection-on-action and reflection-in-action written about by Donald Schon, and adds to it the reflection before action that Lowe writes about, as well. For more on this, read about the webinar I recently attended on learning and e-flective practice, led by Lowe.

In the Consulting Skills class, You’ve Experimented with Digital Storytelling Using VoiceThreads

While you all did well in this re-enacted consulting skills assignment, I’m not sure that you found it that helpful in clarifying your thinking about consulting roles and how the consultant can lead the process, even when the client is  difficult.  Your insights on how we might make this experience better next time around …. comments such as less role structure, more exchange of roles (i.e. three different teams who could each plan how to conduct the re-contracting assignment from our Harvard Business Review article) were all worthwhile and heard!   

Your Thoughts on Process Consulting (a la Peter Block)

You’ve had some interesting thoughts and revelations on the process of process consulting, which we are just now beginning to dig our teeth into as you launch your own consulting projects:

As I continue to read about the business of consulting another of my previous notions of consultants bites the dust. I have always through of the consultants (since we were assuming the role of expert) to be someone from outside the organization. How many times have I heard/told the old joke, A consultant is an ordinary person a long way from home. Then there is the other old adage (with biblical roots), It’s hard to be a prophet in your own home town. How true. And yet, here we are, learning about the concept of internal consultants.

So these internal consultants come to the contracting table with an inherent disadvantage. Not only to they have to follow all of the rules of flawless consulting but they are automatically considered inferior in their abilities by the client.  The client doesn’t really expect anything from the internal consultant because they’re local but they often work without a written contract because they trust them (or perhaps because there is no money involved). They client expects the external consultant to be an expert but wants a written contract because they are not to be trusted, especially when the time clock is ticking. …

I’m liking this internal consultant role more and more. Low expectations – high trust factor. Maybe. More to ponder.

On Culture, Organizational Learning, Artifacts, Espoused Values and Beliefs, and Underlying Assumptions — the “STUFF” of ADLT 623

I am enjoying our org learning class this semester. If I had to pick a single favorite topic within the whole range of possibilities in the field of HRD, it would be organizational culture. To me, culture is one of the most fascinating, pervasive, under-utlilized concepts in management and organizational studies.  In our day-to-day work lives, we can feel it, touch it, and certainly experience it in myriad ways, yet it is awfully hard to identify those underlying assumptions even as we bump our heads up against them in the workplace. You’ve been thinking deeply about this concept, too. Here are some of your thoughts that are on target!

In reading Schein this week, I felt really connected to the text because it triggered so many examples in my mind. The first two chapters about culture and leadership really made me think about my own workplace. I can describe the culture there on so many levels. Schein posed the question of whether there is a culture within occupations, and I believe there is. People have told me many times that I am “such a teacher,” so there must be some broad culture of teachers in general. Then of course every school has its own culture, and within that there are many sub-cultures. I found myself thinking about the different grade levels in my school, and how each grade level team really has its own culture. There is a certain dynamic within each team, and an understanding among team members. One could even say that each team has its own “personality.”

As I read Schein’s ideas on culture and its development I can see why it is so difficult to change. I am sure that changing culture is even more difficult when those who are attempting to do this do not understand how cultures develop and of what they are comprised. As I watch the leadership in my workplace attempt to bring about ‘transformation’ in our culture it all seems so forced. It is as if they believe that if they talk about the changing culture enough it will just happen.

Making my way through the chapters in the Schein book this week, I find my mind repeatedly drawn back to a paragraph in the introduction to Part 1.  It seems like such a “Duh!” kind of thing, but I never really thought about how culture comes about in an organization and what impact leaders have on culture vs. the impact culture has on leaders …

What I realized for the first time in reading Schein is that leaders can change culture; it just usually doesn’t happen until it gets to a point where it’s unbearable.  It was interesting though to think about the impact leaders can have on the organization’s culture when necessary.  In thinking about my own organization, I have only known a positive culture since I’ve been there.  But I’ve heard stories of the way it was shortly before I came, what long-time employees call The Dark Years.  I’ve often wondered how it could have been so bad, considering the agency I know now is nothing like that, but I think that likely the leaders of the organization made a conscious change based on the fact that the culture was so bad.  I hope other organizations are able to realize that change as well. 

You’ve also been thinking a lot about what happened at Enron since we watched movie, The Smartest Guys in the Room during our last two class sessions as an example of cultural artifacts, espoused values, and underlying assumptions that created a very destructive organizational culture.  Given the current global financial crisis, this story of greed and deception for stockholders and employees alike hits home in ways that it did not for me when we viewed it this same time in the semester last year.  

Enron.  Wow.  What a nightmare.  If one questioned whether or not there are really bad people in the world, one could look at the attitude and arrogance of Jeff Skilling sitting at the table in front of the Enron hearing, and see that indeed, there are people who lack a conscience …The fallout from the Enron scandal impacts us all, every day.  FASB 157 of 2007 (Financial Accounting Standards Board) and the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002 have created a nightmare of accounting red tape so that we can help to ensure that shady accounting tactics are stopped, and effective controls and accountability are implemented. 

 Many of these new laws make sense.  It is important that a CEO and CFO or a publicly traded company be held fully accountable for the reporting of the financial state of the organization.  They must sign off each year that they personally have reviewed the controls in place and are satisfied that they are appropriate in accordance with the Sarbanes Oxley Act.  The FASB rule provides the ability to suspend mark-to-market accounting procedures.  There is more scrutiny of the work that a corporation’s accounting firm may do for the corporation – recognizing that an accounting firm cannot be unbiased when they are raking in consulting dollars for other work on the side.  Consultants who advise publicly traded companies on executive compensation are now subjected to scrutiny regarding other work they may do for the organization.

 

So all of this happened as a result of Enron, Worldcom and other scandals at the turn of this century.  Here we are, only a few years later and we do not seem to have learned a lesson. 

 

The Enron movie is quite captivating.  It graphically illustrates how a culture can grow and then take on a life of its own.  This is essentially the same process that in an individual starts with a tendency, becomes a habit, and then progresses to become a deep character trait.

 

Enron seems to have started at some point to be a place for bold action, certainly a commendable value.  But this snowballed over the years into a testosterone-laden proving ground, for traders and corporate visionaries, and then extended to risky business moves and even to dangerous dirt-biking expeditions.  When the competition to be bolder and more risky starts, then is no backing down from the escalation.  No one wants to be a wimp.

 

This is just one example of a host of characteristics of the Enron culture that got out of control.  Any one characteristic starts (hopefully) as a positive trait expected by the leader.  But if the culture is not managed well it can overwhelm the leader (part of Schein’s point) and even pull the whole organization down the tubes.  Obviously.

Our Program Planning, Management, and Evaluation course is taking shape as you build a program by examining each of the many elements that Rosemary Caffarella describes in her book.

I recently contacted Dr. Caffarella, and she has agreed to an interview with me that we’ll share as a podcast when I return from the AAACE conference in Denver next month, where she is one of the keynote speakers. What sort of questions would you like for me to ask her?  

The descriptions of your field interviews with program planners who work with a variety of non-traditional adult populations led to a great discussion in class last week. Many of you had insights about the nature of program planning, and the program planning process as a result of this assignment and your readings:

One of the most important things I learned in this interview was to remember what your learner’s bring to the table. Retta stressed over and over how important and how powerful the information is that her participants bring to the classroom. As seniors, many of these folks have seen and done things many of us will never see or do. From the depression to slavery to women’s rights, the experiences of seniors should be respected, celebrated and related to others…“things we should never forget”, and these students are also truly teachers in the classroom.

 I would first and foremost like to say that I was truly excited about the assignment to interview a professional in the training and development field. Immediately I knew that I wanted to interview my mentor and reasons that I became interested in this field. For her confidentiality I have chosen to call her Ms. Smith…. Fortunately for me I was able to interview an individual who has worked with multiple non-traditional adults in a corporate field. Overall I have gleaned significant insight from this experience. Number one, the importance to always remain flexible, secondly the value in planning with your audience in mind, thirdly to learn from your previous programs, and finally to cater to your adult learners’ needs as much as possible. I would like to quote Ms. Smith with something that I feel sums up what I have learned from the interview, “I have never delivered two identical programs, and am proud of that because if I did it would mean that I was planning for myself and not my audience.”

I’m finding the readings and discussions on program evaluation to be more worthwhile than I expected. I have never done any sort of formal evaluation…not so much because I saw no worth in evaluation, but rather because I was ignorant. Informally, I have gone over in my head what has worked and what hasn’t – both during and after a program - and we have also had a couple of ESL program meetings where the discussion turned to successes and failures. But that has been the extent of it. I’m interested to spend some more time – precious time! – determining how our programs can benefit from enhanced evaluation procedures.   As a side note, while a large portion of the readings have come from an HR standpoint, I am not finding it difficult to transfer the information to the nonprofit world.

I’m realizing that my years working in a University have limited my vision. Whether reading course texts or listening to information in class, I find myself tuning out certain information that I’m thinking does not pertain to what I do. This is quite a shortsighted approach to learning. I need and want to be very careful to keep my eyes and ears open to all information. In fact, I should probably be focusing more on the info that I seemed to be dismissing as irrelevant, if not only to make myself more knowledgeable and thus more marketable, but also because my narrow view may overlook opportunities for new approaches to my own work – opportunities to think outside of my box. The many types of evaluative methodologies is a perfect example.

 The most important thing I learned during this interview is how different program planning can be for literacy programs, as oppose to programs relating to human resources development. The programs that we have studied thus far appear to be more structured and time consuming than this program…. In an effort to assist the many adult learners that are challenged with learning disabilities, literacy needs, English language speakers and the like; we have got to create and generate more funding, resources and programs to assist these individuals. They are all apart of this world, and if they are to be productive, law abiding, successful citizen, then we must provide the resources necessary to assist them.

What I’m Learning From You

I’ve found “seeing” what you’re learning to be interesting, and helpful, on many levels. I’ve had a chance to see what stands out for you from a particular class session, which may have gone unnoticed by me, but was meaningful in ways unique from your frame of reference.  I’ve seen how you take what we talk about and filter it through the lens of your experience to make meaning of your workplace and the dynamics within it.  As a result, I know you a little bit better … your needs, interests, and goals. That’s helpful, even in a small program like ours when I thought I knew you already!

Sometimes I am stunned by revelations, such as the one that occurred in ADLT 610 last week (Consulting Skills) when we did the “group” level Johari window exercise … an anonymous list of those things that you knew to be true about yourself, but which you do not disclose to others (your hidden side), and those things that you observe in others but which you are pretty sure they are not aware of (their blind sides). Several of you commented on the lack of confidence you had in your own abilities, part of your hidden selves. What do we need to do to change that self-image? In my mind, you are extraordinarily capable … it is my hope that the skills and knowledge you gain through this program enables you to revise that internalized view to one that is more confident, capable, and empowered! Let’s blog on…. and see what happens.

     This leads me to wonder why occasions such as these are such rare and special experiences?  What was it about the darkened room that promoted open and honest dialogue? Was it the tool–the wiki? –that webspace where people were willing to put themselves out there without hesitation by expressing their ideas, beliefs and thoughts, and thus open them up for public (class) scrutiny?  Is this where socially constructed knowledge happens?  Is it in these public spaces where we allow the innermost recesses of our minds to be made visible for others to see and hear, reflect upon, challenge, and applaud in the quiet of dusk?  I wonder. Was the level of intimacy fostered by lack of glaring fluorescence—the harsh light of which seems to leave us starkly exposed and vulnerable to criticism?  If so, then put me (and my learners) in the dark and bring on the conversation.

     This fall, alas, I have no windows or natural light in my rooms, so we are grappling with how to use the wiki in what can be only described as the total absence of light.  In my Organizational Learning class, we have dealt with the total dark by burning the lamplight of no-longer-used overhead projectors in the corners of the room, casting bright spots on the back walls that must make this seem like the most bizarre of classrooms to anyone passing by.  Two things I know: First, we must all make eye contact by moving our desk-chairs into a semi-circle so that we can see each other’s faces in the dim light.  Whoever invented “classroom style seating” in which rows of students all look at the backs of each others’ heads knew nothing about learning, that’s for sure.  Second, we must feel safe in order to risk putting ourselves out there.  Psychologically safe. The safety of dimly lit spaces. And, to think, all this brought about by experimenting with a wiki!

     So the challenge becomes, for me, at least, how to create this atmosphere in each and every class, and not just the rare few, so that the safety, closeness, empathy, and genuine “realness” of which Roger’s writes so eloquently in Freedom to Learn  becomes the norm and not the exception.

     Rogers, who died almost twenty years ago, is one of my favorite learning theorists, although his image of himself was that of the humanistic therapist, not learning theorist. It was he who coined the term “client-centered therapy” that led to our conceptions of learner-centered teaching. His non-directive form of helping relationship is the source of inspiration for my espoused goals in teaching, although I doubt that my actual practice comes anywhere close to that ideal.

Creating Psychological Safety in the Classroom

     From the chapter of Freedom to Learn entitled “Creating a Climate of Freedom,” Rogers’ writes,

[I]f there is one truth about modern man, it is that he lives in an environment which is continually changing….We are faced with an entirely new situation in education where the goal of education, if we are to survive, is the facilitation of change and learning. The only man who is educated is the man who has learned how to learn; the man who has learned how to adapt and change; the man who has realized that no knowledge is secure, that only the process of seeking knowledge gives a basis for security.

So now with some relief I turn to an activity, a purpose, which really warms me –the facilitation of learning. When I have been able to transform a group—and here I mean all the members of a group, myself included—into a community of learners, then the excitement has been almost beyond belief. To free curiosity; to permit individuals to go charging off in new directions dictated by their own interests; to unleash the sense of inquiry; to open everything to questioning and exploration; to recognize that everything is in process of change—here is an experience I can never forget. I cannot always achieve it in groups in which I am associated but when it is partially or largely achieved then it becomes a never-to-be-forgotten group experience…

     Rogers goes on to describe the attitudinal qualities that facilitate learning: realness, prizing, acceptance, trust, empathic understanding, and the creation of a psychologically safe space where learners are willing to risk. To me, this is the potential of the wiki-facilitated dialogue. David Bohm, who has written so eloquently about dialogue, calls it “a flow of meaning going through,” and contrasts it with discussion, whose root is the same as the word “percussion”—to break apart. If the wiki can enable a flow of meaning to be co-created amid relationships of acceptance and trust, then the power of 21^st century technology may unleash more learning for all of us. I hope so.

     So for now, at least, I will continue to sit in the semi-dark in a circle of learners as we focus on what each is experiencing, experimenting with, and learning. I’m finding that wikis and blogs do a good job of making this psychologically safe environment possible.  I wonder how Carl Rogers might have used a wiki?

“It is the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind that determines which way we will go.” J. Rohn

HELLO WORLD!

Welcome to my blog, Coming About: Reflections on Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century.  “Coming about” is a sailing term for taking a new tack by adjusting the sails to catch the wind and travel in the intended direction. In my blog, it’s the metaphor I’m using for adopting new technologies to explore the possibilities for enhancing the learning experience in a Web 2.0 world.

Recently, I had the privilege of participating in the Teaching with Technology Insitute offered by the Center for Teaching Excellence at Virginia Commonwealth University where I teach masters and doctoral students in Adult Learning. In subsequent posts, I’ll be describing the trials and tribulations of putting these freshly acquired Web 2.0 skills in practice, but I also intend this space to be a reflective place for journaling about my experiences in teaching, the sense I’m making of the teaching and learning interaction, and what I am learning from my students along the way. You can read more about my background, experiences in teaching, and teaching philosophy in the About Me page of this site.