Chronological Journal

Chronological journal is written based on events in the order of their occurrence.  This post on chronological journal is published for the Leadership People Management - Support Team Achievements module.  There are 6 sessions for this module altogether.

Lesson 1 - 9th December 2013
In preparing for the first lesson, I began reviewing the contents for the module to determine if I could incorporate any learner-centred activities into the lesson. Before long I discovered that certain parts of Chapter 1 had been taught in the earlier modules.  In fact, topics on negotiation had been covered in the Employability Skills Workforce Skills Qualification (ES WSQ) at both Operations and Supervisory Level.

Therefore, I decided to use the Expert Jigsaw learning strategy to cover Chapter 1 as a way of revising those topics.  The class is divided into 4 groups which correspond to the 4 learning activities in Chapter 1.

The experts preparing their teaching materials based on the learning activity assigned to the group.

The experts searching for information from the internet when the required contents are not available from the Learner Guide.

 

From the above activities I could see that learners take ownership of their own learning.  Many felt responsible over their peers learning making sure that the information on the flip chart is accurate and complete. (And for those who did not, I took it off-line highlighting the responsibility of each experts in preparing their teaching materials and delivering them).

Lesson 2 - 10th December 2013

To reinforce what had been learnt in lesson 1, I decided to conduct lesson 2 using the straw sculpture activity.  The class is divided into 4 groups and each member was assigned with an alphabet. I then selected the leader by calling up alphabet D. This is to ensure that everyone will have a chance to play the role of a leader.

The leaders were guided to another room and briefed on the vision, mission and goal.  They were also informed of the resources provided for the activity.  The team leaders were then shown the straw sculpture.  Each team was required to produce the Team Plan and the straw sculpture, as deliverables for this activity. A team member was selected by the team leader to observe the entire activity and to present their findings at the end.

Team leader taking pictures of the straw sculpture.  They were reminded to take from a few angles as the 2-D pictures might turn out different from the 3-D sculpture.

A team leader briefing the rest of the team members of the tasks to be completed.

While 2 members try to complete the sculpture based on pictures taken by the team leader earlier, one of the members is seen busy doing up the team plan while another observes and taking down notes.

One of the team members presenst her findings based on her observation.

Some of the observations made during the activity:

Good points

• team leaders rose to the occasion and took ownership of the role assigned to them - there was no violent objection from any one of them :-)
• learners demonstrated strong teamwork - generally all teams were able to produce the deliverables within the stipulated time
•  except for ONE, team members who were to observe the activity was able to present the findings at the end of the activity (KUDOS to Kala for being able to present despite the fact that the instructions provided by her team leader was inaccurate; she was simply asked to observe the activity and )

 Areas for Improvement

• team leaders were found struggling with the R-A-S-C-I table - to begin with, they had forgotten the whole concept of R-A-S-C-I which was covered in one of the earlier modules

They also realised that it was tough to delegate the tasks for the three activities which were to be carried out concurrently.  They were often asked if the member assigned for each activity had what it took to perform the task independently.  This was a good exercise as none of the assessment activity requires them to do a R-A-S-C-I table.

• team leaders were engrossed completing their own task they were oblivious to the progress of the team performance as a result some of the work produced was not up to standard for e.g. inaccurate information written on the team plan, the straw sculpture was not erected correctly.

Leaders may want to include milestone in the gantt chart produced in the Team Plan.

•  team members overtaking the responsibility of other team member - in her defense, she exclaimed "it's part of the teamwork" 

Well Alisa. we hear you. :-) However, your presentation on your observation which was very much dictated by your team leader was not accurate.  Team leader may want to give precise instructions and reinforce the responsibilities of each team member.

•  team leaders disseminated inaccurate information, as a result team members were frustrated

 To this one of the leaders was quick to quip that team members had the responsibility of clarifying what was required of them. I could not have agreed with you more Lydianna. In fact, I added that members may want to consider using Kipling's 5W1H technique.

 Overall, the activity had sparked a friendly discussion in the class.

Lesson 3 - 16th December 2013
To recap the topic on Negotiation, I decided to organise an activity called 'The Gobal Marketplace". In this activity the class was divided into 3 teams of 5 members.  Each team was given a red and blue card.  They were to play on 10 rounds and the objective of this activity was to maximise their scores.  The scores were calculated as follows:

• All the 3 teams played blue: they all scored  +5 points each.
• All the 3 teams played red: they all scored  -10 points each.
• Any other combination:  team(s) that played  red scored +10 points while team(s) that played blue scord -10 points

A team leader was appointed for each group to disseminate information regarding the purpose of this activity as well as the scoring system.  Leaders were allowed to discuss after the 5th round.  To tempt defection, the scores were doubled on the 4th and 9th round.

Simple arithmetic will tells us that a group will score the most points by playing the red card from the first round to the last round, provided the other groups kept playing the blue card and defeated for every round.  This will result in a win-lose situation.

However, if all the groups were to think the same and played the red cards for all the ten rounds, then all of them will end up with -5 points for 8 rounds, and -10 for 2 rounds, a total of -180 points at the end of the game.  This will result in a 'lose-lose' situation.

Therefore, the best way for the groups to maximise their scores would be for them to cooperate and play the blue card for all the rounds. This way, the total score will be 180 points by the end of the game and they would have achieved a 'win-win' situation.

Observation from this activity, reveals the following:

• In the first round, 2 groups played the red while 1 played blue giving a total score of +10.  While I can understand that groups played red in this round in the hope to score +10 point, I failed to fathom why 1 group played blue.

I should have asked the group that played blue to justify their decision during the debrief but I had overlooked this matter. One possible reason I could think of is a signal to their desire to co-operate during this activity.

• In the second round, all 3 groups played red giving a total score of -30 points.  At this, I highlighted the importance of focusing on the total score.

The groups that played red earlier decided to stick to their decisions because they had enjoyed a score of +10, and the group that played blue in the first round decided to play red hoping that they will enjoy a similar victory.  They were surprised to see a score of -10 points for each group.  At this, I reminded them to refer to the scoring system and to focus on the total score.

• In the third round, all groups played blue giving a maximum total score for one round of +15 points.

At this point, I thought all the groups had understood the objective of this game of achieving a 'win-win' situation in negotiation.  I made a decision to wrap up the activity if the pattern continues for the next 2 rounds but I was left baffled by the decisions made by each individual group.  Refer to the image reproduced below:

I asked the leaders to adjourn to the next room to deliberate on a strategy to maximise the total score.  In their absence, team members provided me with the following feedback: 

• Team leader did not explain the objective of the activity clearly 

• Team leader made decision without consulting the team members

•  In the sixth round, there was more discussion among leaders and team members. It was an interesting discovery about mentality of some negotiator when one of the leaders explained to the members that each team will take turn to sacrifice (i.e. play the blue card to score -10 points) while the others enjoyed a victory of +10 each.  They had a mindset that one team has to lose for the others to win.  When asked why were the teams not discussing to decide on which card to play at different rounds, one of the team members explained that the team leaders had already decided which card to play for different rounds.  She showed a piece of paper indicating the decisions made by the team leaders.   Referring to the image below, we can tell that at each round, one team has to lose in order for the other teams to win. 

 I decided to leave the team leaders with  their decision and moved on with the activity.  The final score is shown in the image below.

 Thinking about it, I could have showed the class the papers depicting the leaders decisions and asked if this was an indication of a win-win situation.

 At the end of the activity, I asked the leaders what were they focusing on during the activity.  The silence indicated that they were not certain.  At this juncture, some team members blurted that they could have achieved a 'win-win' situation if all the groups had played the blue cards for the remaining 5 rounds.

In retrospective, I could have displayed the previous score and asked the team leaders which round gave the highest score and then asked them how was this achieved.  This would get thinking on how to achieve the 'win-win' situation.

Lesson 4 - 17th December 2013
In this session, I made attempt to complete the entire Competency Unit 2 - Manage and reward team performance.  I thought this was possible as the first two following performance statements had been covered during the Employability Skills (ES) Workplace Skills Qualifications (WSQ) at either the Operations or Supervisory level:

2.1  Identify learning and development programmes that may support performance

2.2  Provide regular feedback to team members to maintain awareness of expected and actual performance

Got the class to work in groups to do Activity 5.  Highlight to the class the importance of the annual performance appraisal as a platform to develop performance expectations.  We recap the Hamburger technique of providing feedback. We reviewed the topics on Communication Process and Barriers to Communication.

When learners could not remember, I highlighted the importance of adding value to their personal development by putting into practice whatever they had learnt.

It was interesting to note when one of the learners approached me and asked "how to write my journal? There's no activity tonight."  This tells me that learners find it easier to reflect on an activity that involved them than a lecture.

Lesson 5 - 23rd December 2013
For this session, I decided to incorporate Keller ARCS Model of Motivational Design. Please refer to the posting on Putting Theory into Practice.

Lesson 6 - 27th December 2013
To kick-start the lesson, I conducted a gallery walk to introduce the topics on Monitor Implementation of Team Plans.  Prior to the lesson, learners are distributed a set of questions and they are to find the answers from the content printed on A3-size papers pasted outside the class earlier.

Learners gathering information on the topics based on a set of prescribed questions

Learners then share their findings with the rest of the team members.

Learners are then required to do an online quiz to gauge their understanding of the topic.

Based on my experience with the lesson, here are some areas of improvements:

• make the lesson content more interesting by using poster-like design and include images, clip art etc.
• pre-empt the class to complete the questions that they are assigned to prior to the gallery walk - this is to prevent any of  the learners completing all the questions on their own as the purpose is to promote sharing of information among the learners
• make it explicitly clear that the secondary purpose of this activity is also to teach the class in summarising the content

Journaling.... for personal growth

In teaching Leadership and People Management course, the most common questions asked by the participants are:

• "What is journal?"
• "If not graded why bother doing?" 
• "How should we go about doing it?"

In this post, I make an attempt at addressing those questions.


What is journal?

"Journal is a record of occurrences, experiences, or observations."

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/journal?s=t)

Why keep a journal?
There are myriad of benefits in keeping a journal.

Writing journal can bring us to our senses.  Journal can aid us when we struggle in making choices. We can weigh the pros and cons before making a decision.  As time goes by and we begin to doubt our decision, we can look back and remind ourselves why we make those decisions in the first place, and feel reassured of pressing on.

Writing journal helps us to focus.  By writing about our feelings and frustrations help us focus on what goes on in our lives, so that we can come up with a solution to our problems.

Journal tracks your overall development.  Many of us are often caught up with our daily routines, we fail to see the progress we make in our lives.  Therefore, writing journals help us see how we've changed over time.  We can see what we did right, and also the wrong choices that we have made as such we can prevent making the same mistake.  Journal also serves as a tool for self-evaluation.

Writing journal holds us accountable.  Seeing in black and white how we have progressed helps us to go on when our motivation hit rock-bottom. 


How to start writing journal?
There are many formats and platform for writing journals.

Blog
 We can use a blog like the one I used here.

Besides the blogger, we can publish our journals online using any one of the following services to name a few.

• wordpress
• blogetery
• tumblr

The advantage of using an online blogging platforms is that were may include videos other than images.  We can allow others to comment our posts if we so wish.

Poster
We can  also present our journal in a poster like the image shown below.

The above poster is a journal of the learner-centred approaches I used in my classes namely think-pair share, speed dating and expert jigsaw.

When look closely, those cards pegged to the green line are feedback provided by the learners.  An enlarge version of the cards will look like the image below.
 

When pull one of the cards inside the socket, we will be able to see the explanation of the activity as shown in the image below.

Keep your creative juice flowing and start experimenting with the different formats.

Sources:

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/how-writing-things-down-can-change-your-life.html
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/10-ways-journaling-can-improve-your-life.html

Putting Theory into PRACTICE...

"Theory is splendid but until put into practice, it is valueless." - James Cash Penney

Gagne 9 Events of Instructions

1.   Gain attention of learners - as a stimulus to gain learners' attention, the following slide was projected on the screen and the learners were asked to observe what went wrong in the picture which caused the wrong product to be designed, manufactured and delivered to the customer.

Learners observing an image projected on the screen.

2.   Inform students of the objectives - informed learners that they were required to produce a cause-and-effect diagram after this session.

3.   Stimulate recall of prior learning - asked learners if they were familiar with the cause-and-effect diagram. which most of the learners recognised as the fish-bone diagram.

4.  Present the content - showed the class on how to construct a cause-and-effect diagram.

The cause-and-effect diagram drawn on the white board as a learning guidance.

5.   Provide learning guidance - to aid them in the learning content,  QR Code that leads them to the website that offers tutorial in constructing cause-and-effect diagram was provided on the screen for those who possessed smart phones otherwise the website address will be given.

Learners scanning the QR Code that led them to website where more details of the cause-and-effect diagram is provided.

6.   Elicit performance (practice) - each group was then assigned a problem statement from which they are to construct a cause-and-effect diagram.

Learners working in groups to produce a cause-and-effect diagram based on a problem statement of their choice.

7.  Provide feedback - to assess and facilitate learning, feedback was provided after each group presented their cause-and-effect diagram.  The most common mistake is placing the cause under the wrong category.

One of the team members presenting the cause-and-effect diagram.

 8.  Assess performance - each learner was provided with a cause-and-effect diagram template to be completed based on a problem related to their workplace.

9.   Enhance retention and transfer to a job - asked the class to create a cause-and-effect diagram on a cue-card as a job-aid for reference at the workplace.



KOLB Experiential Learning

"For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them." Aristotle

In the teaching the 4 stages of team development, I decided to attempt KOLB Experiential Learning. There are 4 stages in the KOLB Experiential Learning namely:

Concrete Experience
At this stage, the learners are involved in an activity called the Warp Speed.  Watch the video clip below. 

Who says adult learners do not appreciate the use of games in their learning? So long, it is related to the learning outcome they will be more than happy to play. This is very much align with my maxim which is Learning MUST be Fun!!! 

Reflective Observation
This is the crucial part of experiential learning process which can be facilitated or done by learners independently.  Facilitating a reflection is challenging, and the challenge is to draw from the learners what they have observed from the activity conducted in the concrete experience.  Due to shortage of time, what I did was to introduce the concept of the 4 stages of team formation and then getting the learners to reflect and identify the parts of the activity where the 4 stages of team formation occur.  Learners are able to identify the 4 stages as such:

 Abstract Conceptualisation

For this session, the abstract conceptualisation had occurred in the Reflective Observation stage. In hindsight, I could have posed to the class the following questions related to the Warp Speed activity:

• Do you observe the different stages in the activity?
• How many are there?
• What are some of the characteristics of these stages?

In the Abstract Conceptualisation, I will show on the screen, not in sequence, the 4 stages of team development and ask the class to match the stages in the Warp Speed activity to that of the team development.

Active Experimentation
Learners are encouraged to observe at their workplace whenever a new team (such as Committee to organise the company's event such as Dinner and Dance, Family Day etc.) is formed, how this team undergo the 4 stages of the team development. 

Keller ARCS Model of Motivational Design
According to John Keller ARCS Model of Motivational Design, there are four steps for promoting and sustaining motivation in the learning process namely Attention, Relevance, Confidence and Satisfaction.

Attention
To grab learners' attention, I had used a visual stimuli i.e. a video as a lead-in activity to the lesson.  Learners were given the web address where the video resides.  They were required to observe how a counter staff of a fast-food restaurant provides service to the customers.

Learners watching video either from their tablet or mobile phone.

I had introduced another attention grabber by posing questions on how the performance of the counter staff could be improved.   They were to answer this question at group level to be done during a brainstorming session.

Learners discussing on how the performance of the counter staff could be improved.

A representative of each group was required to present their answers.

A team member presenting the group's answer.

The following are the points highlighted by the groups for the counter staff to consider in order to improve her performance.

• Grooming - at this I told the class to be more specific for example for hygiene reason she is to wear a hair net and remove her nail paintings
• Greet more professionally - to be more specific I told the class to highlight the specific greeting standard of the restaurant
• Be impartial (to treat all customers fairly) - when prompted how was she unfair to the customers the class was quick to respond that she favours the black guy which some claimed to be her boyfriend (and I commented that this was just an assumption as it was not indicated anywhere in the video that this was the case)
• Provide the customers with the product they need - when asked for examples the class quoted that she changed the customer's order from cookies and cream, to coke
• Manage customers according to company's SOP and not to call the security whenever she failed to resolve issues with the customers. 

Relevance
From the above activity, I highlighted to the class the importance of being specific when providing constructive feedback to the team members performance to ensure performance standards are met.  I informed them that the skills acquired will be useful at their workplace feedback are provided to the staff during the annual performance appraisal.

Confidence
To assure learners that they will be able to carry out the required task of providing constructive feedback to their own team members at the workplace, each group was required to perform a role-play based on different scenarios provided to them. Once again, I stressed the need to be specific when doing this. Watch the snippets of the role-play in the video clip below.

After the role-play I provide the following feedback:

• Ensure that all the issues in the scenarios were addressed.  For example, in one scenario a leader addressed a suggestion by the team member which was opposed by the staff, however she did not address the part that the said team member was 'demoralised' due to this same matter.
• Clarify any assumptions.  In the scenario where a staff made mistakes in her monthly report, it was assumed that she had slackened because she would retire in a couple of months time.  Team leader should probe and asked if she had any issues with her retirement or any other personal issues that caused the mistakes.

 Satisfaction
 The above activities were done as a learning aid for the learners to answer the assessment questions and one of which is to provide constructive feedback to three team members with different issues.

Manifestation of Innovation in the Classroom

Having taught Cultivate Service Innovation Mindset (CSIM) and Participate in Service Innovation Processes (PSIP)  get me thinking about innovating my own practices as an Adult Educator.  I would like to thank Leonard Lim from CBLD for sharing QR Code and Google Docs (now known as Drive) from which I can immediately see the application in my classroom and beyond.


Quick Response Code (QR Code)
QR Code allows me to easily share learning resources with my learners and fellow colleagues.  For example scanning the QR Code using your smartphone will lead you this blog of mine.  Go ahead and try!!!

Besides that, I have also created a QR Code for a quiz which will be shown on the projector screen from which the learners can scan and attempt the questions.  For details of how this quiz works, scroll down to the part on Google Docs - a possibility of replacing the clickers?

The use of the QR Code was received well by the learners.  One of them comment that "this is better than providing us with the web address".  Many felt that while the feature is available in the smartphone, they hardly knew the purpose and how it is used.

Google Drive - an alternative to the clicker
It never occur to me that the resources required to create my own online quiz is just a click away.  It's easy to use, it does it own marking and its FREE!!! What a deal?

Google drive provides a feature that allows the creation of online quiz like the one I created below.

The trainer can then track the learners performance from another document which somewhat looks like Microsoft Excel and yes, it does work like Excel.  Refer to the diagram below.

Recapitulation - the many teaching methods of doing it....

Trainers and teachers alike, are often searching for ways to recap learning which are fun, creative and effective.  After reading from several sites, I begin my experimenting with a few. Here's my findings.

Gallery Walk
In gallery walk, I posted a topic on flip-charts at different place on the walls in the classroom. (In this case, Examples of Verbal and Non-verbal Communication). Learners formed into 3 groups of 5, and each group moved from one flip-chart to the next (hence the term walk).  After writing the group's response on the first flip-chart, the group rotated to the next position adding to what is already written by the previous group.  This rotation continued until all groups returned to their original position.  At this point, groups were to review the responses written by the other groups on their respective flip-charts.  At this point, they were allowed to clarify any responses contributed by any of the other teams.

Some of the questions posed by the learners are:

• Why chit-chat under verbal? 

At this point, I explained that communication can be categorised under formal and informal communication and that chit-chat should be listed under the  informal communication.  However, in retrospective I should have provided more examples or elicit from the learners other examples of formal and informal communication.

• Why e-mail, sms, facebook and twitter under non-verbal?

To this, I explained that non-verbal does not mean written and what they have listed under non-verbal are examples of communication channels.

Related topics:

• Speed dating

Learner-Centred Approach for a Better Learners' Engagement

The main concerns of many practitioners in training is how to engage learners to sustain their interest.  The challenge is more pressing especially for training sessions conducted after lunch. In some instances, conducting energizers are not possible especially if time is an issue. I have experimented with the following learner-centered approaches in order to engage learners during lesson.

Speed Dating

This is a very useful activity which enables learners to have brief contact with each other. The uses include sharing views and ideas, swapping and comparing data, getting to know new members quickly etc.

To perform this activity,

1.  Explain the question or topic to be discussed for e.g. What are the characteristics of a good leader?

2.  Arrange the learners in two rows facing each other.

3.  At the signal provided by the trainer, each pair is to share their views.

4.  When the time is up, each learner is to move one position to the right to face a new partner.  The two learners on the extreme right of the row is to move to the opposite row.

5.  The process is repeated until the trainer feels that sufficient points have been gathered by each learner during the activity.

 

Learning Centers

This approach is conducted based on the notion that learners are engaged when they are actively involved in their learning. Learners are empowered to teach their peers and take responsibility over their own learning.

In the module Apply Emotional Competence to Manage Self at the Workplace at Operations Level, the class was divided into four groups called learning centers based on Daniel Goleman's four domains of Emotional Intelligence namely:
1.  Knowing your emotions
2.  Managing your emotions
3.  Knowing other people's emotions
4.  Managing relationship

Each group was assigned one of the domains and to prepare the materials on the flip chart.

A member was tasked to present the topic to their own respective group.

Once done, another member was to take over the presentation while the other team members checked into the other learning centers either in a clockwise or anti-clockwise direction.

 
After the presentation, another member who had not done a presentation during this activity is required to take over in presenting the content to the newly-checked-in members.  This will continue until all the team members had gone through all the four learning centers.

 

Expert Jigsaw

Generally, there are 2 stages to the Expert Jigsaw Technique namely Expert and Jigsaw.  Before the start of the activity the class is divided into number of groups equivalent to the number of topics.  For this activity the class is divided into 4 groups which correspond to the following topics:

• Sources of Conflicts
• Facilitation methods in conflict resolution
• Methods for resolving conflicts
• Negotiation Strategies

Expert Stage - At this stage, each group will be assigned of the above topics.  They are to read, discuss and understand (hence, the term Expert) the topic.  They may clarify with the trainer when in doubts.

Jigsaw Stage - at this stage, each member in the 4 groups is assigned a number 1 to 4.  Members of each expert group with similar number are to be seated together at an assigned seating cluster. Each member will play the role of an expert and present his/her topic to the other experts.

Gallery Walk

During Gallery Walk, learners explore multiple text or images that are placed around the room.  This strategy is often used to provide opportunity for learners to share their work with peers, examine multiple documents or respond to a collection of text.  As this strategy requires learners to move around the room, it is especially engaging to the kinesthetic learners.

Click here to see how gallery walk strategy is incorporated in training.

ES WSQ Work in Team - Constructive Feedback

While teaching the topic on Feedback in the Work in Team module I took note of how a person's performance has improved when feedback is supported with evidential proof.  For this observation, I decided to record the learners performance during an activity to be shown at a later time during the training session before feedback was provided on their performance.

The participants were asked to work in pairs and one participant in each pair was to be blindfolded.  The non-blindfolded partners were required to give instructions to their blindfolded partners to walk around the classroom according to a prescribed direction.  After the activity ended, the participants were presented with the following video clip to observe and reflect on their performance during the activity.

They were then required to provide feedback to their respective partners.  In doing so, they were reminded of the following:

1.  Be mindful of their verbal and non-verbal communication.
2.  Be specific in their feedback.
3.  Provide suggestions for improvements.

Watch the following video clip on how the feedback session was conducted.

Some of the feedback provided include:

1.  Specific instructions.
     For example:
          "Move two steps ahead" instead of "walk, walk, walk"
          "Take one step to the right" instead of "turn right"
          "There is a chair about 4 steps ahead" instead of "there is a barrier in front"

2.  The non-blinded partners were to familiarize themselves with the exact directions.

3.  To have a gap of about 30 seconds between one pair and the next before starting the activity to prevent traffic jam during the activity.

After the feedback, they were required to swap role.  Now, let's observe their performance from the following video clip.

Based on this activity, we can see that one's performance can improve if constructive feedback is provided supported by evidence from which the performer can reflect on.