Learners have been working on a report for TECH2005 and TECH3013, and it has been a very interesting process. Generally I’‘m pleased with the work. There is a good attitude to working for DemonFM, and some good approaches to self-defining the range of tasks and activities that learners are engaged in.
Some learners have been resistant to having to work in an independent manner, in that they have expected things to be provided for them. What is remarkable it how few of them have attempted any kind of research and reading in order to back-up what they are trying to achieve.
So, the job to be done in these modules is really to shift their expectations and their beliefs about themselves. It’s an interesting process moving them from merely being ‘consumers of information’ to give them a sense of confidence that they become part of a learning community that ‘develops knowledge’.
I’m sure I can be doing this in a more methodical manner, in that I have attempted to bring about this shift because I’ve personally benefited from some NLP coaching. I’ve adopted an approach in these modules where we ‘model success’ and we use a lot of praise to recognise the positive contribution that is being made. This shifts us away from the sequential and linear or ‘bite-size’ approach, to something that is more holistic and design oriented.
One of the big changes that this has brought about is a key change in phraseology. We started by modelling the role of the radio ‘producer’, but because the connotations of command and control have been so strong, I’ve reoriented the discussion to that of ‘developer’ of content and services. For some learners this is a real problem, because it implies a very definite shift in the expectations and behaviours that they adopt.
I’m going to discuss this more frequently and to mind map some key issues that I can develop in to a process chart and a workflow analysis.
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