Using E-Mediation to prepare students for the Real World.

1
Using E-Mediation to prepare students for the
Real World.

• About an Assignment in IT-Project Management.

• Dr. Marc Conrad, University of Luton
• Marc.Conrad_at_luton.ac.uk
• These slides are available at
• http//perisic.com/e-culture

Cambridge
Luton
Oxford
London
2
People and Projects

• Human Resources are a central issue in companies.
  
• Human Resources usually refers to people working
  together, for example you, me, or our students in
  their future job.
• Productivity, job satisfaction, or simply the
  quality of our life depends on how we get on with
  people that are not our friends!

• Can we teach that to our students?

3
The Assignment

• 150 Students
• Distributed randomly in groups of 8-10 people
  (via discussion boards in the VLE).
• Given the task

• Form a team!

4
From the Assignment

• Tasks
• Each group has to organise at least two social
  events.
• Generate reports (reflection).

• Marking
• Participation in the discussion group.
• Activity shown in organizing team building
  activities.
• Approaches to conflict management.
• Quality of contributions.
• Weekly summaries
• This is not a group assignment!

The assignment
5
The final report

• 13 questions, for example

• This assignment, as you know, is about working
  relationships and not making friends. Anyway
  did you make new friends in doing this
  assignment?
• What do you think was your most useful
  contribution to the group?
• If you had to start the assignment again would
  you do it differently? Did you learn something
  from it?
• What was the biggest problem in your group and
  what did you do in helping to solve that problem?
  Was the problem solved?

6
Cultural Underpinning

• Hofstedes cultural dimensions
• Power distance
• Individualism/Collectivism
• Femininity/Masculinity
• Uncertainty avoidance

• The student reports give evidence on their
  cultural profile.
• (see next slide for example)

7
Example Uncertainty Avoidance

• Question 11
• What do you think was your most useful
  contribution to the group?
• A focus on intellectual contributions, or
  responsive participation (I attended all the
  meetings which took place every Wednesday) may
  indicate that the individual is able to cope with
  a high amount of uncertainty while a high
  proactive behaviour showed that uncertainty
  should be avoided at all cost (I undertook the
  responsibility and orchestrated the majority of
  the groups meetings).

• See paper for more

8
Student Experience (based on data of report)

• 92 of the students explicitly acknowledge that
  they either did learn something or would do
  things differently.
• Answers vary in the details given
• Of course, the main thing I will do is how to
  organise the time, that because we had a problem
  in organising the time before (time management)
• I would probably put a little bit pressure on
  some members and wouldnt be so trustful.
  (social skills)
• I have learnt from this assignment that good
  communication skills and enthusiasm has got to be
  at the heart of each of the team members, ...
  (team skills)

• The open structure of the assignment that gives
  the students a high level of freedom on how to
  solve their tasks evidently shows here its
  strength.

9
Conclusion

• E-Mediation (here discussion boards) provides a
  powerful tool for teaching students fundamental
  team skills.
• Students gain valuable experience via the
  transition from a virtual environment to a real
  team.
• The reflection in the final report leads to an
  understanding of the students own behaviour in a
  team environment.