"Learning is more effective when it is an active rather than a passive process." Kurt Lewin (1890-1947)

I am fascinated by Kurt Lewin's work. I have been feeling when the subject of dissertation topic is discussed and need some help focusing. I am inspired by Lewin's concept of social psychology, as he is known to be the father of the field, and may want to use his concepts to help shape whatever it is I select to hone in on for my topic. "To understand and explain how the thoughts, feelings, and behavior of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of other human beings," Gordan Allport. 

I am interested in how first year students feel, interact with, and deal with students different from themselves, especially heterosexual White students with students of color and students who identify as part of the LGBT community as they begin their higher education career at UCSB.  It seems to me that social psychology is a perfect fit to use to study these first year students as it focuses on situations and employs scientific methods and empirical study of social phenomena. This discipline looks at the impact that social the social environment and interaction has on attitudes and behaviors. 

In addition to the potential of Lewin helping me shape the study of my dissertation, I believe he provides excellent insight on how to approach our class project of observing an organization. First, the observance of the type of leadership that plays out in the organization is important - is it authoritative, democratic, or Laissez-Faire? Is it different amongst departments supervisors, teams?

Lewin makes the case to look at the whole by investigating the conditions and forces which bring about change or resist changing groups. His field theory that the "proposition that human behavior is the function of both the person and the environment." This can be expressed in symbolistic terms: B = f (P,E). This means that one's behavior relates to both one's personal characteristics and to the social situation in which one finds one self. So, when we are looking at an organization, we need to be thinking  about why a person believes and acts the way he or she does - what are the influences and how does this person fit into the whole picture and how do we figure that out?

Edgar Schein writes that he believes Lewin correct in how to approach consulting work from a clinical perspective. It starts with the assumption that everything done with a client system is an intervention, and, unless one intervenes, there is no learning of some of the essential dynamics of the systems really are. One needs to be cognizant that the interview itself can change the system and the nature of that change will provide some important data about how the system works, as stated by Schein.

Schein's concept of process consultation is a mode of inquiry to help learn enough about the system to understand where it needs help. It is a philosophy that acknowledges that the consultant is not an expert on anything - operating from a place of ignorance. This helps the interviewer pave the way to ask enough questions to genuinely understand what is going on (or the problem) to make recommendations, which is beyond the scope of our assignment.

Lewin states that "One cannot understand an organization without trying to change it." I think our role as observers will be to push at change by asking questions and seeing how the interviewees react. We are not looking to interfere with operations, but now I understand how we can intervene by simply being there.

Forming/Storming/Norming/Performing & The Culture of Admissions compared to Office of Student Life

I teach a leadership course in the Education with two colleagues titled Introduction to Leadership (ED 173). We incorporate theory with experiential activity. The students participate in a group project and are required to write a final paper reflecting on the theory they are introduced to in relation to their experiences with their group. One lecture I present is on group development and I focus on Tuckman's theory of Group Development. I think because of the simplicity of the theory and the ease of applying the components this theory tends to be one of the more popular students refer to in their papers. I plan to replace one of the readings for ED 173 with the one we were required to read. In addition to that reading, the article about managing groups is meaningful to the work we do in ED 173 and although I think we already do a good job with setting up the groups for class and incorporate many of the concepts the article suggests, there are some additional things I read about that I plan to use as well - specifically the What to Do Before Putting Groups Together.

Edward H. Schein introduces culture as customs, rights, values, norms, behaviors, patterns, rituals, and traditions of an organization. The fully understand the idea of the culture of organizations I thought about the differences of the culture in the works places I am most familiar with - Office of Admissions where I spent 17 years and the Office of Student Life where I am in the middle of my third year.

I have thought about the differences between the two office  an interesting exercise to practice the idea of organizational culture. This is what I discovered:

Admissions - larger staff, several levels of authority, communication top down, 8 - 5 norm, more isolated from campus as a whole, focus on perspective students, and more resistance to change

Office of Student Life - suite of offices with different focuses, not always knowing what office neighbor working on, more integrated into campus, work closely with enrolled students, deals with change regularly, and work schedules vary.

Future of Education website

It was difficult for me to focus on reading and writing during the last couple of days due to me catching an annoying head cold. I was, however, able to play around with a free web hosting/making site to create our "one pager" for our multimedia project. After some loosing of my stuff a few times, some swearing, and lots of nose blowing, I managed to create a product that all though not perfect, I am please with. I learned to copy and paste photos, which wasn't as easy as I hoped, to drop in text, and to move images around to make a visually pleasing layout. Although it was not working on the IMovie, I still felt like I was learning some new technology!

check it out:
http://futureofeducation.webstarts.com/index.html

The Future of the Internet

Umm, so what will the internet look like in 2020? I did a bit of googling and reading myself and this is what I found:

Google won’t make us stupid

Reading, writing, and the rendering of knowledge will be improved

Innovation will continue to catch us by surprise

information will flow relatively freely online, though there will be 

flashpoints over control of the internet

Anonymous online activity will be challenged

This is based on an online survey of 895 technology stakeholders’ and critics’ expectations of social, political  

and economic change by 2020, fielded by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life  

Project and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center.

http://www.pewinternet.org/Presentations/2010/Feb/~/media/Files/Reports/2010/Future%20of%20internet%202010%20-%20AAAS%20paper.pdf

Another youtube about the future
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q41HJTsCoI4

On the “next” Google

Susan Crawford, former member of President Obama’s National Economic Council, now on the law faculty at the University of Michigan is “optimistic that Google will get smarter by 2020 or will be replaced by a utility that is far better than Google.” Others surveyed described new ways of searching (perhaps without realizing that’s what they were doing). Rich Osborne, Web Innovation Officer, University of Exeter, for instance, predicted that “it will become commonplace to be able to overlay reviews of a product simply by pointing a screen at it, or check the weather forecast by pointing your phone at the sky.” (And you can do some of that now with products like Google Goggles and Shaazam.)

http://searchengineland.com/the-future-of-the-internet-search-looks-bright-36585

December 22nd, 2009 by Arley McBlain

OK Internet, let’s call a truce for a minute or two.

As anyone who has spent time on a site’s comment section knows, the Internet can be a cruel place. Articles with the word "Prediction" in the title can invite some pretty terrible and/or amusing flame wars, but I want this article to be just friendly enough that you, the reader, are feeling comfortable enough to jump in with some predictions of your own! There are no wrong answers in a brainstorm. 

1. Audio web surfing

2. We surf on any device

3. Input revisited

4. Mobile networking

5. The end of .com domination

6. IE6 stops being used

http://sixrevisions.com/web-technology/6-predictions-for-the-future-of-the-internet/

EDUCAUSE: Reflections on Play, Pedagogy, and World of Warcraft

I just ran across an article that talks about Warcraft - which is interesting to me as I speak about how my children played Warcraft in my previous post.

Link to the article: http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Quarterly/EDUCAUSEQuarterlyMagazineVolum/ReflectionsonPlayPedagogyandWo/213663

Warcraft and Toontown taught my kids a heck of a lot

Okay, so I was one of those moms, and still am I suppose, that doesn't particularly monitor my kids with time watching TV or while on the computer. I found that just when I would be at the point where I'd start to worry about how much time they spend in front of a screen, they then mellowed out all by themselves - or got bored or moved on - without me fighting with them about it. Well, I guess video games and the X-box have been the big influences of their time over the years. Warcraft was first, then Toontown, on to World of Warcraft (WOW) and then Halo - with a short stint of rock band (my favorite). I have to say that my kids learned a ton from playing (obsessing about) these games.

Strategy, collaboration, and accuracy was learned and practiced as they built armies and spoke online with their teams. And, they learned to type might fast as they learned their way around a keyboard at a young age.

Tootown is where they learned about meeting strangers online and begun social networking - years before Facebook took over that function. They created their toon (profile) and while mastering different tricks they met up with people in different rooms.

My youngest graduated to World of Warcraft and continued to build armies and meeting online friends and about this time my oldest became a member of the YMCA and focused on soccer - leaving the gaming world behind with only a few stints of FIFA Soccer when a friend came over. Not to worry though, he is now in-tune with his Facebook account.

And then came Halo (which I admit was a bit too violent for me) and Guitar Hero - my youngest got so good at Guitar Hero that he started taking drum lessons. He was already playing the violin so he knew how to read music, but his drum teacher was impressed on how quick he learned the drumming techniques (Guitar Hero isn't suppose to be anything like actually playing the drums, but I do believe it at least helped create the passion to learn how to play correctly). He has now found his bike and at 13 is extremely social as he runs around with this pack of friends - with only occasional X-box challenges as part of their activities.

So, I believe that video gaming provides valuable opportunities for learning. Kids love to play video games (as do many big kids, aka adults) and if playing a game online or with a console motivates a person to learn math, strategy, team building skills, and or a new language, then let the games begin! My kids are comfortable with the computer, new software, and use it as a tool for school daily. And so, I may have not been such a bad mom for letting my kids have unlimited amount of time on the computer after all - well, maybe I don't have to feel quite so guilty anyways!

What about the co-curricular activities?

Maybe because I view students participating in co-curricular activities as a valuable component of university life, or perhaps because co-curricular activities is my profession, I wonder how students will still be able participate in all the things that happen on a campus outside of the classroom once colleges go predominately online. As I have come to grips of the fact that online education will no longer be a choice, but a reality, and as I read the literature that describes the future of higher education, I have been thinking about how students can still be exposed to some of the same learning and social opportunities that they are today. I am referring to living in a dorm, joining a Greek organization or club, running for student government, sitting on committees with faculty, and participating in intramural sports or even NCAA sports. And so, even when I get excited about learning and thinking about the possibilities of distance learning, I find myself stuck on the co-curricular and extra-curricular aspects of campus life. Ernest L.Boyer in his book Campus Life: In Search of Community (1990) lists 6 Principles of Community that include Purposeful, Open, Just, Disciplined, Caring, and Celebrative. How can distance learning support community?

Okay, so I need to think creatively. Perhaps instead of being on a school athletic team, cities or communities have club teams, maybe Greek communities are locally based along with other clubs. Maybe there are learning bases or communities where students meet to study or have discussions no matter what online college from which they are taking classes. Mark Baulein, in his article Literary Learning in the Hyperdigital Age in the World Futurist Society Magazine, articulates that nondigital space will still be needed to learn classic writing – a balance will need to be made between digital and nondigital outlooks that create a productive tension between technology and the conventional approach to writing. Perhaps online colleges and universities will contract with such centers that offer particular courses like writing and then enable community to be created around opportunities that were once available on the traditional campus. In the name of student development theory and my profession as a dean of students I need to be thinking outside of the box and dreaming of the possibilities to engage students where they are challenged with social, civic,  athletic, and pre-professional opportunities to facilitate the growth for students to become productive and global citizens.