Posts Tagged ‘ safri ’

Thoughts on social networking with 3rd year physio students

Earlier this week I ran a workshop with our 3rd year physio students, as part of my SAFRI project where I’m looking at how participation in a social network can impact reflective learning practices in a community. Unlike the other workshops I’ve run, I’m going to be running this assignment, which will see the students posting 2 reflective pieces based on ethical dilemmas they’ve experienced while on their clinical placements. I was struck by a few thoughts as I was going over some of the activity I observed both during and after the workshop.

This group is by far the most technologically sophisticated group I’ve run the workshop to date. As we were setting up their profile pages, some of the students were logging into their Facebook accounts to pull in those photos to add to our social network. Most of what I was explaining wasn’t new, and even for those who have no experience with any other social networks, they caught on pretty quickly.

I learned that at least one of them enjoys photography, and not only enjoys it but shares his fantastic pictures on Tumblr. I would probably never have learned that about him if it wasn’t for this little experiment of mine. I think that that’s one of the enormous benefits of social networks…that we might actually engage with students in ways that would never come up in class. I mean, how many times do we ask students what their hobbies are? And even if we do, and they choose to mention it, will it ever match up to being able to see it? After exploring some of the photos from this student, I came across one of his short posts, which is one of the most inspiring things I’ve read in a while.

It was quite exciting for me not to have to listen to any moaning when I introduced this assignment. I also haven’t read anything negative about either the assignment or the network, which is refreshing. I did have one student report that the “workshop sucked”, although he hasn’t yet responded to my request for any suggestions for improvement. We still have issues with some of them not having computer or internet access at home, but I think that being on campus for at least a short while during the week is enough time to participate.

I have one more workshop to do with the first year students, which I’m hoping to finish sometime next week. Then it’s just a case of waiting for the assignments to finish running, survey the students to determine their experiences using the network, and finally to analyse their activity to see if there was any reflection / community building going on. I’m going to actively facilitate this group, as opposed to the relatively passive stance that other lecturers took when their assignments were running. I’m interested in seeing if this group has a better experience with active facilitation, as opposed to just being left to their own devices.

2010
07/30
POSTED BY
Michael Rowe
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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-07-26

2010
07/26
POSTED BY
Michael Rowe
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SAAHE conference, 2010

I’m leaving on Wednesday to attend the 3rd SAAHE conference at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg (link to programme). I’ll be presenting the results of a pilot study within our department to try and establish students’ access to computers and the internet, their experience with online tools and services, the learning strategies they employ as part of their studies, and their feelings about the teaching practices within the department.

I’ll post the presentation when it’s done.

2010
07/19
POSTED BY
Michael Rowe
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Summary of PhD progress

I’m writing this after having read Christina’s post on her thoughts on the PhD process, and following a few of her links to other PhD students who are blogging their own progress. As I’m going through a little slump at the moment, I thought it might be useful to write a short post on where I’m at right now, to review what I’ve done so far.

A few weeks ago I spent 3 days on a writing workshop with colleagues in my department who are also registered for their PhD’s (there are 4 of us), where I worked on my systematic review (see the proposal). I managed to trim the original 103 articles that I gathered during my first, second and third search rounds, to about 60. Then I went through those 60 with a more critical eye, removing what wasn’t appropriate. Finally I narrowed the list down to 20 articles that we eventually conducted independent critical reviews on, and came to consensus with my supervisor, where we finally agreed on 7 articles that matched my inclusion criteria. The article is now ready to be written up, although I’m uncertain of the format. The outcome of the systematic review will be a peer-reviewed publication that identifies some of the ways in which blended learning has been applied in clinical education, and which will inform the development of my own module (one of the later objectives).

My fourth year research group has just finished capturing the data they gathered from a survey we drew up together, where they looked at the role of social networks to facilitate reflective learning. This survey forms part of my first objective, as well as the first component of my SAFRI project (which will later include focus group interviews with staff members, and an additional survey of the students). Immediately after conducting the survey, I have also held workshops with 2 classes so far, to facilitate the process of working within the network, and will be completing workshops with the last 2 classes in the next few weeks. Tomorrow the group will submit an outline of the first few sections of a draft article, and I’ll be presenting some tentative results at the SAAHE conference next week (see the abstract).

I’ve also recently finished a first draft of an article based on a small, wiki-based project I ran in our department last year (you can still comment on it). Strictly speaking it’s unrelated to my PhD as it doesn’t fit into the proposal, but is still work in a related field. Finally, I gave a presentation on PLE’s to the Centre for Teaching and Learning at Stellenbosch University. Again, PLE’s are not explicitly addressed in my PhD proposal, but as I’m leaning more and more towards that concept as having great potential in reflective learning, I think it might ultimately end up playing an important part in the project.

Now that I look back at my progress over the past 6 months, maybe a short break is in order…?

2010
07/15
POSTED BY
Michael Rowe
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Personal attachment to research

Yesterday I had a meeting with my supervisor to discuss the assignments I’m going to run as part of the first objective of my PhD. Together with a systematic review and a survey, I was interested in using student and staff participation in a social network to derive additional data that would help me form a baseline understanding of their attitudes and skills around teaching and learning practice, as well as establish the level of digital and information literacy within the department.

After joining the SAFRI programme, I incorporated the social network idea into my SAFRI project, but unconsciously ended up with a different agenda. Instead of using the network to highlight potential problem areas and the challenges of teaching with technology, it morphed into me trying to demonstrate the effectiveness of using a social network to facilitate reflective practice. In hindsight, it’s clear that the 2 projects were at odds with one another, and the objectives were definitely not aligned.

When my supervisor pointed out that there was inconsistency in the 2 projects I really struggled to accept it. I was adamant that my methods were fine and She suggested that I hand over facilitation of the assignments within the network to other staff who didn’t have such a high personal stake in the success of the project, and I strongly disagreed. I found several reasons to explain why I had to be the person to run it, the strongest of which was that "…no-one else will try as hard as I will to make sure it works". Which kind of made her point.

When I went away and thought about our conversation I reviewed my objectives for the 2 projects, and then it was clear that they really were 2 different projects. One was suggesting that this would be a useful tool to describe the current state of affairs, which I know will be less than ideal. The other was intent on proving that the network would be a positive tool, rather than describing what would happen if we just incorporated one into the department.

After the painful realisation that I’d let my personal desire for this project to succeed override my objectivity as a researcher, I agreed to let others lead the social network assignments, with guidance from me. This will greatly reduce the impact of researcher bias, as well as synchronise the objectives of the 2 projects. As it stands now, it will more accurately describe the state of the department in terms of attitudes and skills around teaching and learning, and the levels of digital and information literacy, which will give me valuable data that will inform the next objectives of my study.

This was a great learning experience for me, and a warning of the dangers of getting too close to one’s project. There are some situations where the researcher can be an integral part of the project, but this experience has shown me when it would be detrimental to the process.

2010
03/11
POSTED BY
Michael Rowe
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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-08

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2010
03/08
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Michael Rowe
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SAFRI: conflict resolution

Someone told me that the SAFRI programme had changed their life, and I remember thinking that that might be taking it a bit far. But today brought me closer to thinking that it might not be that far from the truth. It wasn’t so much the content of the session, but the reflection and discussion that happened as a result of an exercise on conflict management. During the session, I was able to confront a part of me that isn’t the rational, logical person I usually think I am, and gave me a greater appreciation for the poor souls who have to try and understand why I think and do things so differently to them.

We spent a lot of time talking about the different approaches to managing conflict, with people who share similar psychological attributes identifying with certain approaches. I realised that I have ways of dealing with difficult situations that aren’t shared by most other people (I was the only person in my group, besides the facilitator, as opposed to 3 other groups of almost 10 in each group). My MBTI type is:

  • Introvert – draw energy by looking internally, prefer reflection over action, prefer written communication
  • iNtuitive – prefer theory and abstraction, imaginative, desire change
  • Thinker – use logic and objectivity to make decisions, remain detached, truthful rather than tactful
  • Perceiver – remain open and adapt to new information, be flexible, enjoy surprises, routines are limiting

The exercise I got the most out of today was to analyse a conflict and reflect on my own responses, as well as how I respond to the responses of others. Here’s the short reflection I put together after a few minutes of discussion with the facilitator:

I approach conflict logically, which is good for mediating the conflict of 3rd parties, but not so good when I’m personally involved. While other personality types might avoid conflict, I will sometimes create it by playing devil’s advocate. I’ll probe and push buttons to get a reaction and will sometimes take an opposing viewpoint just to have an interesting discussion (I’ll also not understand when the other party doesn’t appreciate this attempt to engage with them).

When I am involved in a conflict, I experience a rapid escalation of my own emotional response if I feel that those emotions aren’t being acknowledged, yet I have no natural tendency to acknowledge the emotions of other’s (“I’m right, so you must be wrong”). If my emotions are not acknowledged, I tend to withdraw and switch off emotionally. In those cases I find it difficult to let go and will definitely refuse to acknowledge the other person’s emotion…as a form of retribution (when I write it down like this, it seems insane, but in the moment, it’ perfectly clear to me).

On the other hand, if my emotions are acknowledged, there is a complete collapse of my resistance and I’m able to move towards resolution. However, I struggle to close the issue and will often find myself prolonging an argument to make the point that “I’m right”. When I do manage to avoid that and the conflict is resolved, I forget about it in minutes.

This experience,  and the wonderful conversations it generated afterwards, really gave me a greater insight into who I am, as well as how I relate to others. For the rest of the day I was acutely aware that almost everyone else in the room sees, and responds to the world differently to me, which I found both sobering (“I’m alone”) and inspiring (“I’m special”).

2010
03/06
POSTED BY
Michael Rowe
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SAFRI: managing change and research methods

The third day of SAFRI 2010 has come and gone and I’m exhausted. The sessions are intense and for the first time in years, I found myself counting the minute ’til the coffee break. But even that doesn’t offer any respite because it’s regarded as an opportunity for informal discussion about your project.

We switched back to a presentation / workgroup format today, with the focus being on managing change in the morning, and on research methods in the afternoon. I found the session on change management really interesting. The presentation was interesting but didn’t have much that you couldn’t find easily online. The really interesting bit were the activities we had to work through:

  • Stakeholder analysis – identify the stakeholders in your project, taking into account their level of enthusiasm and influence. Plot the stakeholders on a matrix, creating links between them to highlight how you could create opportunities to have influential and enthusiastic stakeholders encourage those who are resistant to your project
  • “Elevator speech” – prepare a 2 minute speech that you will give to a stakeholder in your project, highlighting key objectives, significance of the project and requirements. Make sure to get their attention and on your side
  • Force analysis – identify forces (factors) that will work for and against the change you propose. And although we didn’t address it today, there’s space for the action one plans to take to either address the forces against, or to take advantage of the forces for your project
  • SOCKS analysis – Strengths, Opportunities, Challenges, Knowledge, Stakeholders. Identify different components within each of these factors, as they relate to your project

What I liked about this session was that we were guided through the various components by using our own projects as the framework. This not only allowed us to make progress on our respective projects, but made the content much clearer than if it had only been presented to us.

As far as this afternoon’s research methods session went, we covered focus groups and survey questionnaires, but in a slightly different format. Eight volunteer, participated in a “real” focus group where the discussion was recorded and documented, then transcribed and printed out. Each group was then guided through an analysis of the transcript to identify key themes. Those themes then formed the basis of the questionnaire. This is the first time I’ve seen a qualitative method leading to a more refined quantitative method, and I think it’d be really useful for my own project.

Tomorrow we’ll be using the survey we created today, to generate data that we can analyse. While I really saw the value in today’s session, I’d have loved to have been able to use my own project for the afternoon session, much like we did in the morning session.

2010
03/05
POSTED BY
Michael Rowe
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SAFRI: drafting the proposal

Day 2 of the first residential session felt really productive, although I’m not sure if that was because I worked hard or because I spent most of the day staring at my tiny netbook screen (I love my NC10 but it’s definitely not for 8+ hour shifts). Before beginning this session, each of use had to have some ideas around a project that we’d be running over the next few years, as well as an idea for a study to run within that project.

The main theme of today was to make sure that we could conceptualise the research and project as 2 components of an integrated work, and to create strong links between the various parts of the study. The aim of the SAFRI programme is to develop leadership skills and research capacity within the domain of medical education in Africa, so the research project is a critical part of the programme. I was surprised to find that even though the emphasis on doing good research was only a recent development within the programme, it already seems to have been tightly integrated.

Most of today was spent writing (laptops allowed) and working closely with our supervisors (each Fellow is assigned a supervisor who helps to guide their project and studies). For anyone who joined this programme thinking it’d be a nice afterthought to add to their CV’s, today would’ve put that idea to rest. It’s intense, and there’s a lot of pressure to produce a good piece of work.

It’s the end of day 2 and I’m exhausted, but happily so.

2010
03/04
POSTED BY
Michael Rowe
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SAFRI: Introduction, teams and leadership

Today was the first day of the first SAFRI residential session in Cape Town, where SAFRI is the Southern Africa FAIMER Regional Institute, and FAIMER is the Foundation for Advancement of International Medical Education and Research.

We spent today working through a few activities that served as an introduction, both to the programme and to each other. It’s a nice, small group of health educators from several African countries, with diverse professional backgrounds. We also worked on group dynamics and did some interesting tasks around gaining insight into ourselves in terms of our MBTI results.

While it was a great start to the next week or so, I was surprised when I was asked to put my laptop away while taking notes during a presentation. I’m not sure how using a laptop will impede the advancement of medical education? I’m sure the presenter had concerns about me checking email or Facebook or something else that would, heaven forbid, impede my learning, but is a blanket ban the way to go?

Yes, I could make notes in the comprehensive handouts we received, and yes, I didn’t need my computer for a lot of the activities. But, I now have a set of notes that can’t be searched, can’t be modified, can’t be shared, and will never be linked to or from. Some people don’t understand that a laptop is the new pen and paper…would he have asked people to put down their pens in case they were drawing pictures? People need to move beyond this idea that computers and the internet are a source of distraction and accept that they are how we situate ourselves in the world.

2010
03/03
POSTED BY
Michael Rowe
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