the four-leaf clover

I needed a change again. I’ve realized more and more that I’m in a place where I constantly need change to keep me upbeat about work/school/Richmond in general. It’s obvious, I’m very ready for the next phase in my life… wherever that may take me. Therefore, another theme and layout for my blog. I plan on changing the header tonight to make it more personal and exciting.

It’s hard to believe that this is our last week of class! I’m sure we all can relate when I say, “Where did the semester go?” This week we have three more teaching demonstrations, I think the crepes are this week!!, and I’m very excited to see what else I can take away from my classmates. What I believe is so profound about this assignment was it forced us all to do something out of our comfort zones. Even if what we did was a teaching demo we do on a regular basis, it’s different sharing our own personal teaching styles with others, and knowing we’re getting critiqued. For example, if some of my classmates didn’t like some aspect of my teaching, but it’s something I’ve been doing for years, what to do next? Try to change and see how the students respond? It’s beneficial to see it through someone else’s eyes.

I think from coming practically straight out of college and working in the university, it’s easy to see and think one particular style of teaching is the norm. However, I’ve learned through this class that there are many ways to teach and these strategies can really enhance the experience for the students as well as the facilitator. Watching my classmates and the different ways they approach teaching has been wonderful and I’ll definitely take I’ve learned from them and apply it in the future.  

So, I’ve procrastinated in finishing my individual project for Instructional Strategies. I had no intention of waiting this long to turn it in (you’ll get it Thursday Wendy!) but the weeks have gone by so quickly and, well, here I am with only about 2 weeks left. I’ve been working on it periodically over the semester, and think what’s taking me longer is figuring out the right way to write up the day so it’s easy to follow/facilitate. My 8-hr. workshop is actually a re-design of the School of Dentistry’s Staff Development Day. It’s something that will only be used once, because each Staff Development Day has a new agenda, therefore it’s different than someone writing a seminar or training session that may happen numerous times.

I know I’ve said it before, but the one aspect of working in a school with so many departments, on top of a clinical side and administrative side, is the lack of unity among staff. For many people, it’s hard to break out of a comfort zone and meet new people, so I’ve planned this day to help bring the staff together and hopefully form new friendships. I hope that in developing this Staff Development Day, it will bring a better attitude and more enthusiasm within the staff. It’s difficult putting 100 people in a room together twice a year that may never have seen each other before, and expecting them to jump right into discussions and activities. Ultimately, I hope the learning tasks I’m developing will help mend this divide, and when I pass it along to our HR Assistant, she’ll use some of the strategies during our next Staff Development Day.

This week the Open Space facilitators finished up their 2 weeks of presenting, and I must say that it’s quite a change strategy! After watching the video on Harrison Owen during the debrief, it became clear how Open Space came to be and why it’s such a different approach to organizational change. Quite plainly, Open Space is about people communicating in an inviting atmosphere where ideas and opinions are exchanged. Throw in some food and drink, butterflies and bumblebees and we have it. Wow.

What I enjoyed about being apart of the Open Space experience was the option to make choices. If I wanted, I could have started one session and then moved to another. I also could have taken a break to eat some food or just take a few minutes to discuss with another participant or think alone. Open Space provides a comfortable atmosphere which really allows the participants to ponder and discuss the topic at hand. Our discussions revolved around “Outrageous Leadership” and with this came many threads. I took part in “Loss of Leadership” and “Leadership to Legacy.”

What was so profound about this intervention was how effective a conversation could be with any number of people. Our first discussion group consisted of about 6 of us and we shared experiences, opinions and thoughts on leaders who don’t lead, or who don’t do it in an effective way. Then, my next group included me, Pam and Ali. Even though we were much smaller, the discussion was rich and informational. We all had experiences to share about leadership to legacy and it was easy to bounce ideas off each other. This is what I took away and found so uplifting about Open Space. When it’s over, it’s over… and where it leads you is the right way… these concepts can lead 5 people to 2000 people to changing an aspect of an organization.

Hopefully if more organizations take a chance with the Open Space they will realize how effective it can be. I can understand that for upper-management it may be hard to get over the hurdle of the relaxed atmosphere that comes with Open Space, but this really allows for a breakdown of hierarchical rank for a couple days. Forcing this equality among employees will create great discussion.

Thank you to the Open Space facilitators for making this experience so worthwhile and eye-opening. I hope one day I will be able to participate in the organizational change intervention again!

I’ve noticed that most of us fall back on using PowerPoint’s to facilitate and teach. Why is this? What a question… I don’t think I would have taken the time to ask or ponder this before taking Instructional Strategies. It really hit me today when I walked by our conference room at work. It’s used mostly by faculty and students for classes, and after walking by the door a few times, I noticed one of the faculty members using a couple PowerPoint’s to teach his lesson. This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed this, and I started thinking about other instructional strategies they could use to make things a bit more interesting and interractive. I also thought about why they choose this method of teaching 95% of the time… the typical dark classroom and reading off the slides verbatim. Well that sounds boring.

I can see, especially teaching in the medical field, why this method of relaying information is beneficial. Initially, these students are learning about numbers, theories, formulas and diagrams that have to do with the basics of dentistry. Not until they master these things do they start practicing on molds and then patients. So, what other types of instructional strategies could work in these initial classes? Depending on the topic, brainstorming could take place, video/film, role-play, small group work, case studies, debates… the list could go on and on. It may just be an outside perspective, but I don’t see a lot of these taking place within some of the smaller classes that meet in my office area.

So why PowerPoint? Ultimately, it’s easy and provides a guide during a lecture. I also think facilitators and teachers forget how many memorable tools they can use to get ideas across. It’s easy to say that we remember more of a concept if it’s taught “out of the box,” but until you have that one professor who does it, I don’t think you fully understand how profound it can be. I had a teacher in undergrad here at VCU, Dr. Rankin, who taught a Sociology class called ”Human Sexuality.” The reason her class is so popular is because she uses so many different instructional strategies to talk about and describe all the aspects of human sexuality. Yes, she would use PowerPoint presentations, but those aren’t what I took away from the class. I remember the videos we watched about different cultures and how they view sexuality, the class discussions, movement, and definitely ice breakers.

So, using different strategies can have a huge impact on how we learn. PowerPoint’s are effective and help relay information, but hopefully through practice and knowledge of different types of these instructional strategies we can add some more excitement and variety to the classroom. It may take a little more thought and time, but the student could remember it forever.  

It’s quite interesting and exciting to see the differences in how we’re all facilitating our teaching demonstrations. I presented last night, and even though I was nervous, I’m glad I got the opportunity to teach individually. This assignment pushes me out of my comfort zone. I’m not shy and like to engage in conversation, but when I’m the only person standing in front of the room it can be a bit intimidating. After watching many demonstrations over the past few weeks, I’m seeing how different our styles can be. I appreciate how unique each person is because I can learn so much for them. I really liked Ali’s and Adam’s teaching demonstrations because they focused on one thing. Even by just doing this they were engaging, and the class really responded well. If I could put every one of my classmates who have facilitated thus far into a classroom, I wonder if they would continually teach the same.

I felt like my facilitation went well, but of course there is always room for improvement. I want to take this assignment and give it to all the professors I’ve had over the past 20+ years of school and ask them to re-think the way they facilitate. I would imagine it would be challenging for some who have been teaching for years and years to switch up their own instructional strategies. I think it’s hard to break out of comfort zones and try something new, and this happens regardless of how long you’ve been teaching.  What I will take away from this assignment and this class is appreciating how different we all are as adult learners and facilitators.