Category Archives: Research

Feb 04

Stories: How They Limit Us. How They Help Us Learn (Discussion)

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About 6 years ago I started work on a book manuscript about the power of the stories we tell, both in terms of how they limit us, and how they can be used to help us learn. My interest at that time had to do with PERSONAL stories and how they embody our beliefs about the world and ourselves, our capabilities and other people. The stories we tell ourselves (often in the form of self-talk) help us or hinder us, and I wonder if, in fact, for any of us to grow significantly, we need to modify our internal stories.

It seems like stories is a nifty way of operationalizing our beliefs about self and others. Of course that’s not particularly new in Psychology. Is the Rorscach test (inkblots) anything different than providing an ambiguous shape so a person can describe what he sees in the form of a story? Likewise with the Thematic Apperception Test(TAT).

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Feb 01

Employee Engagement – The Mad Fad of the 2000′s – A Poor Construct

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A colleague asked me where one could find criticisms of Employee Engagement, the buzzterm championed by marketplace monster, Gallup. There’s tons of stuff about it pushing it and making it appear to be as vital and important as…well, let’s see, Total Quality Management, Quality Circles, Employee Empowerment, and on and on.

There is very little PUBLICLY available on the Internet that asks the critical questions one should ask of any “movement” in the workplace. Continue reading →

Aug 25

Knowledge Management in Instructional Design. ERIC Digest.

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Knowledge Management in Instructional Design. ERIC Digest.

Instructional designers engage in activities related to the planning and implementation of instructional and performance support solutions. Available tools and technologies influence the way in which instructional designers accomplish their tasks. Knowledge management represents a technology that is changing how instructional design professionals work. This article will review what instructional designers do, describe knowledge management, and indicate how knowledge management is influencing instructional design.

INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN

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Aug 25

Distance Education and Accreditation – How It Works

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Distance Education and Accreditation. ERIC Digest.

In 1997-1998, there were more than 1.3 million enrollments in college-level, credit-granting distance education courses – approximately double the almost 754,000 formal enrollments in 1994-1995 (Lewis, Snow, Farris, and Levin, 1999, p. 50). The number of courses offered also almost doubled, with the nearly 26,000 distance education courses offered by 2- and 4-year higher education institutions in 1994-1995 growing to more than 47,500 different college-level courses in 1997-1998 (Lewis, Snow, Farris, and Levin, 1999, p. 49).

This rapid growth in distance education has created the potential for fraud and abuse. With so many courses and programs offered by so many providers, how can students determine which courses and programs are worthwhile – and which ones are shams? This digest will, after reviewing some information on distance education, discuss accreditation, the traditional method of determining the quality of higher education offerings in the United States, and its application to distance education.

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Aug 24

Organizational Culture and Institutional Transformation (Research)

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During the past two decades higher education in America has attempted a number of reforms. Reform efforts are predicated on the assumption that proactive, intentional change efforts in colleges and universities can succeed despite the predilection for tradition and maintaining the existing culture. Culture proves to be a critical component in understanding the process of planned change and transformation in colleges and universities today. The significance of organizational culture becomes particularly clear as we operationalize institutional transformation. The concept of transformation described borrows from the work of Eckel, Hill & Green (1998), who make reference to organizational culture as one of four primary elements of planned change. They state that institutional transformation: “1) alters the culture of the institution by changing select underlying assumptions and institutional behaviors, processes, and products; 2) is deep and pervasive, affecting the whole institution; 3) is intentional; and 4) occurs over time” (p. 3, underline added).

The purpose of this digest is to review the research on institutional transformation as it is relates to organizational culture. The discussion of organizational culture’s importance in institutional transformation will be organized around three primary aspects of the change process: 1) readiness for, and responsiveness to, institutional transformation, 2) resistance to planned change, and 3) the results of the transformation process.

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Aug 18

Narrative and Stories in Adult Teaching and Learning

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Narrative and Stories in Adult Teaching and Learning

ERIC Digest, by Rossiter, Marsha

Narrative and stories in education have been the focus of increasing attention in recent years. The idea of narrative is fertile ground for adult educators who know intuitively the value of stories in teaching and learning. Narrative is deeply appealing and richly satisfying to the human soul, with an allure that transcends cultures, centuries, ideologies, and academic disciplines. In connection with adult education, narrative can be understood as an orientation that carries with it implications for both method and content. This Digest presents a brief overview of a narrative orientation to teaching and learning and then explores how stories and autobiographical writing promote learning. Continue reading →

Aug 18

Trauma and Adult Learning

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Trauma and Adult Learning. ERIC Digest.

by Kerka, Sandra

Adult learning can often be challenging, and traumatic events add extreme challenges to the learning process. The catalog of sources of trauma is sadly long: psychological or physical abuse, rape, war, forced relocation, diagnosis of a terminal illness, job loss, death or suicide of a loved one, divorce, robbery, natural disasters, and terrorism. Some view poverty, homelessness, and hate crimes as forms of systemic violence that cause trauma (Pearce 1999; Rosenwasser 2000). Much adult education literature focuses on the traumas of women who experience domestic violence or of refugees who come to literacy classes, yet adult learners in all settings and at all levels may have experienced traumatic events that have an impact on learning. Horsman (2000b) notes that trauma and violence are not equivalent, and the use of the terms implies a particular focus: with violence, the focus is on the individual and social agents of trauma and with trauma, on the response of the person experiencing it. This Digest focuses on the individual response to trauma, its effects on learning, and ways in which adult educators can respond.

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Aug 17

The Learning Organization – In Depth Myths and Realities Series

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Myths and Realities by Sandra Kerka, 1995

The Learning Organization

At least since the 1990 publication of Senge’s The Fifth Discipline, the concept of the learning organization (LO) has been promoted as a way to restructure organizations to meet the challenges of the coming century. What are learning organizations-in theory and in practice? Are they a real solution or the latest in a series of reform fads? The myths and realities are explored in this publication. Continue reading →

Aug 07

Meharabian, verbal, non-verbal communication and some lovely irony

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I’ve pointed out that the numbers oft quoted with reference to the percentages of meaning that come from verbal, and non-verbal cues, and attributed to Meharabian, were never actually said by him, at least in the way that is commonly understood.

So I was looking forward to seeing a video entitled “Busting the Meharabian Myth” which explains why Meharabian was wrong. Of course he never said what people think he said, so there some strange irony here, in that the video which is quite charming, continues to propagate the incorrect idea that Meharabian said what they think he said.

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Jul 28

Teaching Critical Reflection, Myths and Realities 7

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Teaching Critical Reflection, Myths and Realities 7. by David Stein. 2000 PDF Available

The ability to reflect critically on one’s experience, integrate knowledge gained from experience with knowledge possessed, and take action on insights is considered by some adult educators to be a distinguishing feature of the adult learner (Brookfield 1998; Ecclestone 1996; Mezirow 1991). Critical reflection is the process by which adults identify the assumptions governing their actions, locate the historical and cultural origins of the assumptions, question the meaning of the assumptions, and develop alternative ways of acting (Cranton 1996). Brookfield (1995) adds that part of the critical reflective process is to challenge the prevailing social, political, cultural, or professional ways of acting. Through the process of critical reflection, adults come to interpret and create new knowledge and actions from their ordinary and sometimes extraordinary experiences. Critical reflection blends learning through experience with theoretical and technical learning to form new knowledge constructions and new behaviors or insights.

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