Team comprised of cyber security students from UH West Oahu and Honolulu CC wins national contest.
Category: EMC
System: World’s best hybrid visualization system up and running at the University of Hawai`i at Mānoa
UH Manoa students have helped to build the best hybrid visualization system in the world.
Save time with new custom templates in Docs, Sheets, Slides and Forms
That’s why, today, we’re rolling out custom templates in G Suite for the Docs, Sheets, Slides and Forms files your teams use the most.
With this new feature, your team can simply submit files to shared template galleries in the Docs, Sheets, Slides and Forms home screens for your co-workers to adapt and use as needed. With these customizable templates, your teams can focus less on formatting and more on driving impact and sharing success.
Google Team Drives Early Adopter Program now accepting applications
11/21/2016
In September, we announced that we would soon launch an Early Adopter Program (EAP) for the Team Drives feature in Google Drive. We’re now ready to accept applications for that EAP, which will kick off shortly.
Team Drives are shared spaces where teams can store their files and guarantee that every member has the most up-to-date information, no matter the time or place. Team Drives make onboarding easy, because every person and Google Group added to a Team Drive gets instant access to that team’s documents. Moreover, Team Drives are designed to store the team’s work collectively, so if a document’s creator moves off of the team that document doesn’t go with them. Advanced access controls make Team Drives even more robust, preventing team members from accidentally removing or deleting files that others need.
Before applying for the Team Drives EAP, please note the following restrictions:
- The Team Drives EAP is only open to G Suite Business and Educationcustomers.
- Only G Suite admins can sign up for the Team Drives EAP. If you are not the G Suite admin for your organization, please contact that individual and ask them to sign up.
- Admins will need to enroll their entire primary domain in the EAP. They will be able to restrict Team Drives creation to certain organizational units, but all users in the domain will be able to see and access Team Drives. They will not be able to enroll secondary domains.
- At the moment, Team Drives does not support some features, including adding members from outside of one’s domain, syncing to a desktop computer, and Vault capabilities.
Apply for the Team Drives Early Adopter Program (EAP) today, and help teams of all sizes at your organization work better together.
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Why It’s So Important to Lead By Example
I have been thinking about what it means to ‘lead by example’. It’s a relatively simple concept that was hammered into us as Royal Marines Officers. It makes the point that it’s not what you say, it’s what you do that counts. People follow the example you set through your behavior – not your words.
Demonstrate high standards – don’t preach them.
It’s one of the reasons why children of smokers are twice as likely to start smoking. It doesn’t matter what we say, what matters is the positive or negative example that we set.But how do we do this in reality – how do we actually lead by example?I think the first thing you have to do is be brutally honest with yourself. Ignore what you’re good at for now. What are your weaknesses? What behaviors do you have that are going to damage you or those around you in the long-term?This should hurt a little bit… but it’s a pain that will make you stronger in the long-term. It hurts but it doesn’t ‘harm’.If you’re struggling to think of some of your own weaknesses – ask someone to play a ‘critical friend’ and give you some feedback for improvement. What are the things that you do that are likely to have a negative impact over the long-term?This is the first step. Understanding that there is you as a person and then there is your performance. The two are completely separate.
The truth is that you are a person, flawed in your own way just like everyone else.
That’s fine – ‘I’m okay, you’re okay.’
Your performance has nothing to do with you as an individual. Unless you can divorce your performance from your personality, it will be too painful to receive feedback and you’ll be on the slow path to self-development.If you’re able to separate your performance and your personality – you’ll be able to take critical feedback and be able to adapt and improve faster.
The most unhelpful belief people can have is that they are not flawed in some way. We all are. The strongest and most successful know that they’re flawed – they just work on it.
Now you know what you’re weaknesses are, you can start to work on them. Look for moments where you slip-up and make mistakes. Try and catch yourself and ask yourself the following…
What if everyone behaved like this?
Working in Groups and Facilitating Discussions
Group Composition
- Do not let students pick their own groups.
groups if appropriate.
- Before groups begin work, ask them to introduce themselves and share contact information.
Group Process Issues
- Ask students in their groups to discuss the best and the worst group they ever belonged to. Then have them report their findings to the class and draw some general conclusions about what makes a group work well. Summarize this list of effective behaviors and write the list on a whiteboard or blackboard and/or post it online. It is also illuminating to have a classroom discussion about why these behaviors make a group work. You definitely do not need to be the expert. You just need to listen, summarize, and if appropriate ask the students how this approach to group work might help them in their careers. This discussion might even provide an opportunity for a grad to come to class and talk about work environment or for the students to talk about places where they have worked.
- Ask students within their groups to discuss how they handle conflicts or what they do when they really disagree with somebody, report their findings, and discuss good conflict management strategies. If you need support in the conflict management strategies area, try searching the topic online, inviting a member of the student affairs staff to co-teach that class, or find a partner on the faculty who is experienced in this area.
- Have each group pick an easy to use signal for stopping work when somebody feels ignored. This can be as simple as saying, “I’m stuck.”
Group Facillitation Skills (for the professor)
There are at least two keys to effective group facilitation. One is active listening and the other is observing group dynamics.
Active Listening
* When you listen to what students are saying, try not to think about what you are going to say afterward. Listen with a clear mind (see Appendix B) and listen for themes. Then tell the students what you have heard or seen. For example, “You seem to be confused about who’s at fault in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. You seem to want to place the blame on one of the groups.” Rephrasing what the student said before responding assures the student that you have understood the student’s intended meaning. The student is then more open to listening to new information. This process creates the beginnings of a dialogue.
* Encourage students to speak with each other rather than to you alone. For example: “Jorge, that was an interesting idea. Susan, you seemed to react to what Jorge said. What do you think about the idea? Anybody else want to respond?” I think of this aspect of group facilitation as weaving. You want to teach the students to listen to each other because it builds trust, encourages self-authorship, and teaches them how to treat differences of opinion respectfully. After you have exhausted a particular topic, summarize what you think you heard. For example: “It sounds as if you are concerned about being misunderstood or not being able to express yourself accurately. Some of you may be concerned about being attacked or dismissed for your opinions.” Then ask the students if you got it right or missed anything important.
Observing Group Dynamics
- Watching group dynamics is like watching a pot of soup heat up. As the soup gets hotter you can see currents and bubbles in the pot. These currents affect the various ingredients in the soup differently depending on their density, size, and so forth. You can also see dynamics in any body of water by watching currents and the objects floating in the water. If you like to fish you have seen this phenomenon. If you haven’t noticed, perhaps you should go fishing. Once you experience dynamics in fluid, try watching a department meeting. Similar phenomena occur.
- In your classes begin observing the connections among your students – either positive or negative. When some students speak, everybody listens. Others seem to evoke eye rolling, looking down or toward each other, or arm crossing. If there are out-of-class alliances in the group, students may speak in an invariant order. For example, as soon as Kemesha speaks, her friend Jamal may follow up. If people ignore Kemesha, Jamal may get agitated. If students have competitive relationships or are trying to outspeak each other, the follow-up is likely to be a contradiction or a challenge. There are gender patterns to this phenomenon as well (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986).
- Be aware that sometimes the professor is the target of the dynamic process. You are the authority figure. Students who are engaged in the self-authorization process may begin to challenge authority. This is normal but uncomfortable for the target. Generally speaking, this is not personal, however personal it may feel. It is very important to respond impersonally. For example: “There seems to be some agitation [distress, upset, anger, and so on] in the conversation. Anybody want to talk about what’s going on?” Your role is to encourage reasonable expression of feelings and minimize student attacks or disrespect. You can refer to the class rules. You need to think of yourself as an observer and a person who helps students talk to each other. Remember to summarize what you have heard before adding your observations or additional information.
- Do not join the conflict. Remember, your job in this situation is to observe the dynamics and label them, not to join the conflict. Take the lid off the pot before it boils over. What people really want is to be heard. Summarize what you’re hearing. That typically calms things down considerably.
- If you know you will be teaching a class where conflict is inevitable, and you want to use conflict as an educational tool, invite a person with good group skills to join you for that class. Group process experts can be found in student affairs, in departments of communication, and possibly in the human resources department of your institution.
- Learning to watch and use group dynamics as an educational tool is an endless process. Start where you are. If what you see doesn’t make sense to you, find somebody who is an experienced facilitator to discuss the situation with you. I recommend seeking out student affairs people, but there are also many academic departments that teach about groups. Ask your friends for suggestions. Do not talk to people who are more likely to have group counseling experience because what you are doing is not counseling and counseling issues will probably confuse the process.
Resources
* If you really want to explore this topic in greater depth, search out group decision-making styles online. Many assessment tools are available that can be used to help students develop a language for addressing and resolving differences of opinion. If you don’t feel comfortable participating in the clarification process as a facilitator, ask a staff member from student activities or residence life to help. Many of these people know how to use these tools. There are also potential partners in communication and business departments.
* Consider consulting a book on group dynamics. My favorite group dynamics book is Joining Together: Group Theory and Group Skills (Johnson & Johnson, 2013). This book organizes group process by issues and contains many exercises to illustrate each topic.
Assessment
- *Make the students assess the quality of the group work as part of their final grade. I usually ask students to write a short reflection paper after completion of a group project. This allows me to find out who really did what and how satisfied with the group the individual members were. If there are different renditions of what happened that is a good subject for a meeting with the group.
- Remember, the key to good assessment of group skills is to identify specific behaviors that are the positive contributors. You can probably develop the list from the earlier student conversations about how good groups work.
References
Belenky, M.F., B.M. Clinchy, N.R. Goldberger and J.M. Tarule. 1986. Women’s Ways of Knowing. Basic Books, NY.
Johnson, D., & Johnson, F. (2013). Joining together: Group theory and group skills (11th ed.). Minneapolis, MN: Pearson.
Engaging and motivating each learner
Following our last article on the need for training to create value, we would now like to present another of the seven key principles that need to be implemented in order to optimize your training performance.
Learner motivation in corporate training is a tricky subject, especially where digital training is concerned. If the latter is not carried out properly, learners can be confused by the absence of a face-to-face trainer to stimulate them; they might be unaware of the potential benefits of the training; or they might get bored, feel that they’re wasting their time, be scared away by difficulties, etc.
This can result in very low participation and completion rates, which means that companies fail to get a return on their investment and, even more importantly, fail to meet the objectives that training is supposed to help them to achieve.
In response to this, John Keller’s A.R.C.S. model (1983) suggests four steps toward sparking and maintaining learner motivation and engagement.
Attention
You can hold people’s attention in two ways: via stimulation based on surprise and/or via stimulation based on questions. There are several effective methods for achieving this, including active participation, varied formats, humor, unusual turns of phrase, storytelling, or problem solving.
Relevance
This involves reassuring learners by using familiar points of reference, for example by showing them that they will be using already acquired skills, highlighting the important present and future benefits of training, connecting training to their needs, etc.
Confidence
It’s important to reassure learners about their chances of success (especially by clearly setting out objectives and assessment criteria) and about their progress throughout the training program (by indicating the steps they have completed and by providing regular feedback), so that they fully understand the training and assessment process.
Satisfaction
Training must bring satisfaction by responding to extrinsic motivations (recognition, certificates, etc.) and intrinsic motivations (a feeling of success, enjoyment, personal fulfillment, etc.) Satisfaction can also arise from gamification (badges, likes, etc.), which makes training more fun and thus more effective.
By ensuring that learners are motivated to follow their digital training, organizations can be sure that most of them acquire the skills they need in the fastest and most constructive way possible. Training, if it meets its aims, can also create a virtuous circle as described by Edward Lawler. Training must be a motivating factor that triggers staff engagement, enhances corporate performance, and helps to ensure talent retention.
Collaboration, Communication, and Cooperation
So why do I talk about communication and collaboration? Because the vehicle for cooperation is communication, and so we not only need the impetus to contribute, but the skills. He’s talking about creating an effective network, and I’m talking about getting the job done. He’s nurturing a culture, and I’m about developing practices. Which are both needed and mutually reinforcing, and so I think we’re agreeing furiously.
And as I write this, my own thinking is changing. I do believe collaboration is what’s going to get things done for organizations in the short term, but I think there are two notions of collaboration. One is the traditional form of a team working on a project. However, there’s another approach that takes the longer term view. Here, it’s about people keeping a casual eye on what’s going on and serendipitous sparks fan flames. That does require cooperation, of course.
I’ve recently been reading Stephen Johnson’s Where Good Ideas Come From, and Keith Sawyer’s Group Genius (both recommended), and it’s clear that true innovation is about getting people to work together over time. Real innovation percolates, suffers mistakes, and can’t be forced or planned. While I think progress can be made by teams working on specific needs, the change in my thinking is realizing that the longer term process of real innovation requires continual contribution in networks. What Sawyer terms ‘collaboration webs’. And this will require cooperation.
As an aside, there are still big opportunities for collaboration tools. On a recent #lrnchat, a colleague shared how she was collaborating on presentations using Google Slides. And I’ve done much important work with others using Google Docs and Sheets. And tools exist for diagramming, and white boarding, and more. Still, the tools feel embryonic. I want voice and text live as well as comments. I want to have flexible representations mixed in, so I can be working on numbers and diagrams and text in one doc (a brief eulogy here for the fabulous program Trapeze that had a revolutionary document model decades ago).
While collaboration may get the immediate focus and the ink inches (I guess pixels these days 🙂 – because of new tools, and the immediate business benefits – I think the longer term need will be to create an environment where the culture, the practices, and the tools are aligned for successful learning. I think there’re reasons to focus on both, but the important thing is to recognize the differences and get both right. Amy Edmondson, in her book on organizational agility Teaming, suggested using the term ‘learning’ instead of innovation, as it focused on longer term and made it safer. So perhaps I’ll talk about organizational learning for the long term, and use collaboration for the short term work. What do you think?
Collaboration, Communication, and Cooperation
The post Collaboration, Communication, and Cooperation appeared first on Learnlets.
ecafe Instructor Setup Ends Tomorrow
For Distance Courses:
The Leeward Distance Education Committee has approved the following recommended survey questions. We highly encourage you to use these questions.
This will help to establish consistent evaluations each semester for your online course and can be compared across courses and disciplines.
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Online communication with class members and the instructor helped me to learn course materials in an effective manner.
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The instructor appears to have a thorough knowledge of the subject.
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The instructor treate
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d students with respect.
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The instructor was willing to help and respond to questions in a timely manner.
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Assignments are returned promptly.
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Work requirements, course objectives, and grading system were clear from the beginning.
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The instructor presented the course materials in a clear and organized way.
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The amount of work required is appropriate for the credit received.
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The course workload was well-distributed throughout the semester.
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The materials provided by the instructor were relevant to the course objectives.
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The activities & assessments in the course were reflective of course objectives.
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I learn to apply principles from this course to new situations.
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What did you like least about your online course experience?
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What did you like most about your online course experience?
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I would recommend this instructor to other students.
Global appraisal: Considering everything how would you rate this course?* This question is added to all Leeward CC surveys.
What is eCAFE?
Who can use eCAFE?
How do I get access to eCAFE?
How does eCAFE work?
How can I get help with eCAFE?
System: UH holds grand opening for first net-zero buildings
UHʻs first net-zero buildings are online at UH Mānoaʻs College of Education.