|
Q2:
What one or two things did you like most about areol 13, for
whatever reason?
Also the email
format worked very well for me and allowed me to work at my
own pace...important in a hectic schedule. This
learning about learning experience by using a different
format was very valuable.
Clarity of
topics/issues in a readable and accessible style
Discussion is a
good idea.
Experimenting a
new approach and using an alternative way of
working
From a content
point of view have already covered this above.
Gives a sound
basis for the theory and practice of action research which
can be readily translated into action (see my note
above).
Having the
material available to go back to
I liked the
availability over the internet and being able to do it in
your own time and I liked the assignments being so
progressive.
On-line is
great!
Presented a really
well-thought out approach and a well-structured
format for the issue;
Referred to other
useful sources for followup if desired - a really good
resource
The 'real life'
feeling about it - I find this particularly relevant as it
is a virtual course!
The conceptual
framework of AR
The fact that I
could access the sessions at any time and the reading
material and links.
The interaction
with Bob and with the other fellow students
The lessons are
very good.
The material was
so well presented that it made working through it relatively
easy. But it was still a steep learning curve for me
who knew nothing about it at first.
The materials were
well spaced even though I lagged way behind everyone else
most of the way because of my heavy work load and study
commitments.
The quality of the
material presented
The support and
ease of being able to work from anywhere and being able to
put my workload into perspective
The well
organised/systematic presentation
Your (Bob's)
sharing your experience
[ top
]
Q3:
What one or two things did you like least about areol 13,
for whatever reason?
Also 13 sessions
seems kind of short....just getting into it yet saying
goodbye already
Being in a large
learning group and feeling inundated with too much extra
E-mail chat. I did not want to or have the time to
spend reading all the responses that arrived in my in
box. I found this hard as I also realised there was
value in participating in that process and I couldn't keep
up with everything. Basically, I didn't participate at
all on-line, in the learning group. This may have
compromised my learning and it made it more
manageable.
I couldn't find
some books mentioned (I visited USA and at Berkeley, in
specialised bookshops, I couldn't find them) - could you
also give us an indication of where those kind of books can
be found?
I must move though
several steps/stages before iI reach the first
phase.
I was rather
swamped by the discussion.
It is difficullt
to manage the time necessary to do it!
Lack of time to
effectively contribute to discussions - my fault, not
yours!
Not getting the
team interactions working as well as they should have
done
Only negative is
the ongoing emails which remind me to keep on
track.
The discussions
were a bit daunting at first because I didn't think I had
anything to contribute because I felt like I was way behind
everyone else. I was very much a passive participant
and only contributed in a general sense in the very early
stages. I'd very much like to take the course again
and feel that I could keep up more with the discussion next
time.
The lack of follow
up re the discussion groups, my understanding was people
were taking on the role of coordinating the groups but this
did not appear to happen, I found this very
dissapointing.
Very difficult to
identify any negatives - probably found some of the
discussion responses least useful
We, the Thesis
Group, had a good beginning but very soon became
silent. Nobody really took the coordinator roll
(Thesis Group)... I am guilty also :-(
[ top
]
Q4:
What one or two changes or additions to areol 13 would most
have helped your learning and/or satisfaction?
A more explicit
upfront road map of how the various sessions integrate would
have helped me personally (engineer left brain
type!)
Areol 13 is not
difficult to understand or to put into practice. I
can't suggest any change
Can't think of
any
Don't know - it
seemed fine
From my
perspective, spread over a longer period to help me cope
with the additional load - but I can see this could also be
a disadvantage for many.
I agree with the
suggestion that maybe a follow up re the groups could happen
midway through - or some check to see that those who
coordinated did so?
I am really
fascinated with these issues. I belong to an
e-learning group where we try to devise the best pedagogic
approaches, etc. We have the privilege of working with
Anatol Holt, an american 70 year old guru author of the
theory of «Organised Activity» (fascinating stuff,
and fascinating person). My PhD, that is barely
starting, is on Organizational Learning. All this to
tell you that i am really keen on discussing these issues -
and sorry for getting carried away (you already have too
much to read!).
Maybe an extra
lecture on the basics of it compared to other methods of
research.
Maybe you could
openly offer the possibility to re-check and to create new
groups in the middle of run.
My suggestion is
that you propose two types of courses: one for free, where
there is a general introduction to the concepts/ ideas and
one payed where the involvement and interaction would be
more important. For the payed course, whoever had
difficulties with the payment could have the money back or
part of it at the end of the course in exchange for a piece
of research material, like an article or a case study.
I have done the Communities of Practice Workshop, whish is
payed, and I also did not invest in it as much time and
effort as I should; though for the aerol it was even worse,
I could hardly follow it. Though I must recognise that
I am in a particularly busy time of my work life (most
people wouldn't even dream of doing it if they had my time
schedule - but I can't resist it and I find that it always
pays of, even if our involvement is almost marginal - it is
like a subconscious link that keeps working for us!).
The reason for having a free and a payed course would be
that the first would serve the purpose of opening up the
issue, it would raise expectations. The second one
would mean that people would have to be really commited to
do it and to work hard. I am an economist and I like
the incentives issues. Though I am a relatively
un-ortodox thinker in economics terms, I do believe that we
need some kind of framework in order to be at our best, to
give our best effort. Payment may lead us to such
involvement - or it is rather an exterior sighn of our
commitement and compromise to follow the course. I
understand that this raises all sorts of issues. I
live with a very low salary, working as an assistent at a
Polithecnic Institute, so i do value my money but I really
believe that there should be some effort asked from the
participant - money is one way of putting it but I think
that doing some research or joining a research group could
be a good a alternative. Research shouldn't be
considered alternative to payment (in practical terms yes,
not in conceptual terms). Research, good research is
what we are all looking for, so I think that it would be
interesting to link the conditions for application to a
course to the expected results from the course!
Perhaps I should
have become more involved and sought out people taking the
course from my locality so that we could share more and
offer support (so I might have felt like there were others
like me who were not keeping up). Perhaps a list of
who is in the same locality to foster support groups might
be helpful, although I vaguely remember something like this
being discussed at some time.
Would be useful to
have even more referral source links
[ top
]
Q5:
What advice at the beginning of areol 13 would have helped
you to gain more learning and enjoyment from the
program.
Be prepared to
receive a large amount of extra E-mail
I put myself
forward as a facilitator for the sessions, as did most
others on the list...it would probably have helped if it had
been made clear who would actually facilitate the list...I
guess I expected someone else would step in..hence stood
back. Will be interesting to see what others
think
I think that it is
important to stress that time is critical and that to do it
in a moderate rate we should need...some time to dedicate to
the course. Nevertheless, people with almost no free
time (like myself) should do it too - so that they can
experience it and take the necessary efforts to join again
later with a better time-context.
Identify issues
first like the larger group was off putting getting lots of
mail raised confusion.
It could be good
to advice participants that when they promise to provide
more info later to the rest of the participants or to one
particular participant it is better to do it and...
that anyone can remember that we are waiting for an offered
info.
Keep up! If you
lag behind as I did it is almost impossible to contribute to
the discussions.
Make sure you're
in the right learning set for you
More idea about
what an on-line course is like and how it works. I had
no idea and was not sure whether there would be assignments
at the end of each session to send in to Bob or what, apart
from reading and thinking about the material, was
expected. I was very green in this process and am a
little wiser now.
Reviewing the
previous models including the snyder process and then
introducing the soft information systems model
There's a fair bit
of reading.
[
top
]
Q6:
What else would you like to say?
And my most
grateful feelings for your superb work! Well done.
Keep doing it. And I really hope that one day I can be
of any help for future aerol courses
I am now
reflecting on 'what went wrong' - most of my time was spend
in talking to the practictioners attempting to get them
started - the majority of the workers were just burnt out
working with the target group, and while the employers
agreed to give support it was not forthcoming.. and
action research is a time consuming, slow process and I
thing the participants (workers) ran out of energy...but I
am still reflecting..I thing I will be revisiting your
motivation paper and I seem to recall something about
contractual agreements....at the beginning
I am sure I was
one of the less active members of the group but even at my
level of participation I got a lot out of the course and,
with the course material all safely stored, I am sure I will
be referrinfg to it over the next year or so. Many
thanks again.
I am working/
thinking about my PhD research proposal and I am thinking of
using a multicase method where AR is not used as a
methodology but rather as a conceptual approach - I have
read some fabulous material on AR applied to management and
that is what i would like to propose as an effective way to
promote org. learning. Does this make sense? To
me it does a lot - I may need some extra effort in
explaining it...
I could recommend
this process to others it has put learning back on to me in
applying action research to all the things I do in my work
situations.
I found it a
really interesting subject. It altered some of the
ways I looked at things and opened a new area for me to
address. I found the setout was great and felt that I
really learned something.
I found the course
a really excellent and useful resource to understand more
about action research and really appreciated the different
levels of involvement that people could take (ie active
discussion participant versus read&self-inform
process). The content was well presented and easy to
read even when you only had time to skim through.
Obviously, a lot of effort made to make the course useful to
users. Your efforts much appreciated Bob - thank
you
I think the whole
idea is just great, being able to access such material, at
no cost, is a very rare and wonderful opportunity for people
to gain some understanding to action research, regardless of
the discussion groups dropping off. My experience with
students doing unstructured flexi learning is unless there
is follow up and some motivation from a tutor then people
drop off at a rapidrate, however having said that I am paid
to follow up so unless the course was fee paying (which I
hope it does not) then expecting follow up is
unreasonable.
Its been an
interesting experience - and I am appreciative your course
was there for information and knowledge.
Said it in my
personal note, but thanks again has been very
useful
Thank you Bob for
a fantastic course. It has helped me to understand
Action Research and will be very useful in my future
studies. I would like to take the course again so that
I can contribute more to the discussion next time. If
there is space in any future course I would love to
participate.
Thanks
Bob!
Thanks.
Thankyou
Bob. I would do this again and hopefully feel more
able to participate.
This on-line
course has been very enriching. I enjoyed reading all
the sessions including the additional support
materials. Unfortunately I joined the course very
late. I kept a copy of all the reading materials and
in future I intend to put into practice what I have
learnt
Well, have I been
too long allready? I could go on and on as I am really
passionetely devoted to this. As I have such severe
financial restrictions and I really want to do my PhD -
working as I have been doing this year will get me nowhere -
I must really consider other external sources of revenue and
the e-learning world may offer me such opportunity.
Then, I could work and use my work experience to do research
and vice versa (aerol is all about this!). Also, my
findings from my research on Organ. learning could
fuel and feed the courses that I could offer... I have
been contacting some organizations and institutions for my
research and this idea becomes stronger and stronger (most
org. are in stone age in relation to these
issues). Communities of Practice also are very much
linked with all this. Actually, it was from the CofP
workshop that I found out about aerol and about Bob Dick's
work!
With the action
research project I was coordinating the most difficult thing
was to motivate the researcher/practictioners. The
project was researching workers who work with young people
who use illicit drugs, 4-6 workers were to conduct their own
action research with the young people who were their
clients, with time and resources supplied by there
employers. While the workers were very keen (self
selecting - they wanted to be involved in the project) the
project has folded due to the majority of the participants
dropping out - this was extreemley dissappointing - the
project folded and monies sent back to the
funder.
|