With the end of any given course, be it for a few days or a few weeks, there will almost always be the question of "was this worth my time?" A lot of that can come down to very qualitative answers, perhaps maybe quantitative if you ascribe a value to what you gained from the time invested. But I digress. I would say that, given my overall objective of getting some kind of Master's degree to satisfy expectations at work, that I at least am another few credits closer to gaining the degree and even managed to walk away with a few additional ideas and thought processes.
On the positive side of things, through the discussions I was able to see some other people's experiences in being students, thinking through their thinking, and their leadership experiences up through now. I also did take away some food for thought in the form of CARS, qualitative versus quantitative thinking, and the general concept of Action Research.
There were though, some things that required a bit of resiliency and adaptability on my part. Among other things, I've found that the parallel to life nature of online learning in the context of my personal life demands a level of time management and self-discipline that can match and exceed what I had to muster during college. Back then, studying was my primary job and I had more time dedicated to it, mostly needing to cram in ROTC and a personal life with minimal commuting time. Now I have about a 40 minute drive each way to the office, a roughly nine hour duty day, and the need to maintain some semblance of order in my bachelor household. This doesn't include getting tasks done and turned in during vacation or business trips, which can be yet another adventure unto itself. It's not impossible, but it does add a level of planning and removes some potential for spontaneity. To improve my overall learning experience, I may have to take more concentrated efforts to "schedule" school time throughout the week so that I have a greater yield of free time over the weekends. This may have to extend as well to scheduling time for house cleaning, time for preparing the week's meals, etc.
Given the nature of how the material is being delivered on an asynchronous timeline to individuals across the globe, I believe that the staff and faculty at ERAU are already doing a great job with support. I can say that so far I've never had to wait particularly long for replies to queries, and everything has been running fairly steadily. The only real gripe I've had is the sometimes open ended instructions given to some assignments, as this makes it a bit more difficult for me to gauge whether or not I'm on the right track. I did, however, recently read in the discussion board that this was intentional and I can see where the development team is going with the pedagogy. The only recommendation I might give is to provide a listing of useful information for commonly used MSLD tools or concepts such as the Brain, SEE-I charts, presentation tools, and the like. When I took MSLD520, I had to do a fair amount of digging to figure out the formatting for SEE-I and had to mull a bit on good presentation resources. MSLD500 did a very good job of introducing resources on these subjects as we went along, I just didn't have the benefit of it being my very first course
I would say that most of the material is relevant to my experiences or at the very least relevant to what I expect to see in the course. I believe the general critical thinking methods we've discussed will be useful in my work so long as I can recognize when to use them. Being able to evaluate my own thinking, as well as the thought process of my organization, may prove extremely beneficial. Although I don't anticipate conducting a lot of research projects at the office beyond occasional efficiency studies, I certainly expect them to come as I complete my degree program. Again, having taken a somewhat circuitous path to the Foundations course, I would say this particular course does prepare us for what is to come later in the program.
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Sunday, July 22, 2012
A500.8.3.RB_SienkiewiczRaymond
I believe this is at least the second time I've had to consider the question of presentation design, not counting about six years about learning and refining the craft of the brief. Many an evening has been spent slinging letters, clip art, and non-copyrighted images into countless slides, and I can say that formed my own thoughts on good slide design.
At the very least, I'm on board with avoiding the most egregious errors of making presentations, namely to make the slides the absolute focus of the presentation, creating walls of text that mirror your own words, and failing to consider the slides from the perspective of the audience. Of course, something that I've learned is important and that I continue to refine is my individual skills as a briefer in terms of appropriate body language and motions, eye contact, and aspects of speech such as enunciation, projection, and speed. Something I've done to help with this is try and "act" like a briefer, with a set of lines and motions to follow on the stage made of my presentation and the room I'm in. I'm not sure if there's any particular protocol on this, but it seems to have made the difference more than once even given vanilla slide design.
Having said that, what we've learned in Garr Reynold's writings on Presentation Zen is certainly worth integrating more not just into my coursework, but also in my daily work. The example slides were, in concept, very simple, but following the prescribed practices made them look infinitely more professional, and create significantly more stage presence than slides of a more generic appearance. There were also some finer details I wouldn't have considered, such as using a consistent theme but making minor adjustments, as Reynolds noted in his example with the red bar and paperclip motif. I also appreciate that he emphasized the idea that slides are only part of the equation, and that he mentioned some of the same things I learned in school about speaking, appropriate motions, and so on. In short, I felt he was advocating a relatively simple but thoughtful and detail oriented approach to presentations, one that also respects the relationship and holistic results of presenter and presentation.
What I would like to find out, and perhaps I'll read deeper into his website, is how exactly he makes those slides that jump off the page so well. It doesn't seem like something easily executed with off the shelf PowerPoint template solutions, and some of what he does with blending images into backgrounds looks like it would require either his own stock of images or a certain amount of photo editing. I did try to integrate his style into my work with Prezi, but running off of the templates and trying to match pre-licensed images as well made this task easier said than done. Results with PowerPoint also seems to vary greatly, based on what I've seen in the last week or so of slides at work. Some people followed the principles very well, and others were more typical.
To bottom line this, there are definitely techniques to be learned, and tools to be practiced. But there is no doubt that seemingly small details can make a big difference when combined with an effective speaker.
References
Reynolds, G. (n.d.). Presentation Zen: How to Design & Deliver Presentations Like a Pro. In Garr Reynolds Official Site. Retrieved July 18, 2012, from http://www.garrreynolds.com/Presentation/pdf/presentation_tips.pdf
Reynolds, G. (n.d.). The Big Four: Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, Proximity. In Presentation Zen. Retrieved July 18, 2012, from http://www.presentationzen.com/chapter6_spread.pdf
At the very least, I'm on board with avoiding the most egregious errors of making presentations, namely to make the slides the absolute focus of the presentation, creating walls of text that mirror your own words, and failing to consider the slides from the perspective of the audience. Of course, something that I've learned is important and that I continue to refine is my individual skills as a briefer in terms of appropriate body language and motions, eye contact, and aspects of speech such as enunciation, projection, and speed. Something I've done to help with this is try and "act" like a briefer, with a set of lines and motions to follow on the stage made of my presentation and the room I'm in. I'm not sure if there's any particular protocol on this, but it seems to have made the difference more than once even given vanilla slide design.
Having said that, what we've learned in Garr Reynold's writings on Presentation Zen is certainly worth integrating more not just into my coursework, but also in my daily work. The example slides were, in concept, very simple, but following the prescribed practices made them look infinitely more professional, and create significantly more stage presence than slides of a more generic appearance. There were also some finer details I wouldn't have considered, such as using a consistent theme but making minor adjustments, as Reynolds noted in his example with the red bar and paperclip motif. I also appreciate that he emphasized the idea that slides are only part of the equation, and that he mentioned some of the same things I learned in school about speaking, appropriate motions, and so on. In short, I felt he was advocating a relatively simple but thoughtful and detail oriented approach to presentations, one that also respects the relationship and holistic results of presenter and presentation.
What I would like to find out, and perhaps I'll read deeper into his website, is how exactly he makes those slides that jump off the page so well. It doesn't seem like something easily executed with off the shelf PowerPoint template solutions, and some of what he does with blending images into backgrounds looks like it would require either his own stock of images or a certain amount of photo editing. I did try to integrate his style into my work with Prezi, but running off of the templates and trying to match pre-licensed images as well made this task easier said than done. Results with PowerPoint also seems to vary greatly, based on what I've seen in the last week or so of slides at work. Some people followed the principles very well, and others were more typical.
To bottom line this, there are definitely techniques to be learned, and tools to be practiced. But there is no doubt that seemingly small details can make a big difference when combined with an effective speaker.
References
Reynolds, G. (n.d.). Presentation Zen: How to Design & Deliver Presentations Like a Pro. In Garr Reynolds Official Site. Retrieved July 18, 2012, from http://www.garrreynolds.com/Presentation/pdf/presentation_tips.pdf
Reynolds, G. (n.d.). The Big Four: Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, Proximity. In Presentation Zen. Retrieved July 18, 2012, from http://www.presentationzen.com/chapter6_spread.pdf
Sunday, July 15, 2012
A500.7.3.RB_SienkiewiczRaymond
Quantitative research, according to the slides by Tero Mamia, is "based around the idea that social phenomena can be quantified, measured, and expressed numerically." This is in contrast to qualitative research that is more focused on coding not based upon hard numbers and statistics. Whereas qualitative research "aims at understanding" and answers primarily the question of "how", quantitative research "aims at (causal) explanation) and primarily answers the question of "why". Both methods, according to Mamia, can aim at a description of social reality, and can be complementary rather than contradictory as they take different paths on research and perspectives for the same question.
Mamia also laid out an outline of the quantitative method. It's useful to know that the overall method is "based on the idea that social phenomena can be quantified, measured, and expressed numerically." The information gained can be expressed in numeric terms and thus analyzed by statistical methods, or even be classified into numeric variables.
Quantitative Research, like most other research methods, comes with its own strengths and weaknesses. On the side of strengths, it does allow research of structures and processes not direclty observable, it is well suited for quantitative description and comparisons, and works well for description of change as well as analysis and explanation of causal dependencies between phenomena.
The weaknesses to be considered are ones arguably inherent to anything depending on raw numbers. It can potentially simplify or "compress" the complex reality and thus make it somewhat constrained. It's only applicable for things that can be measured or quantified, and presumes the necessary knowledge to ask "correct" questions. Not only that, but quantitative research makes it difficult to study processes or "dynamic" phenomenon, creating a static view of reality, and makes it harder to catch onto the intentions and meanings when an actor's perspectives are described.
The would be researcher also needs to bear research in mind as dialogue between theory and empirical observations. Theory will direct observation, and provide a framework for the research. This leads into the planning of the research, which includes selection of the theme or topic, getting familiar with any previous research, selecting a theoretical approach, specifying the research problem, and planning the empirical research process through research design. Research design would include elements such descriptions, the time dimension involved, target population, method of data collection such as sampling representative groups via surveys and observation, and so on. On top of these considerations and arguably most importantly, the researcher must remember to never do harm to their participants, ensure informed consent and anonymity, and thus earn the confidence of the participants.
References
Mamia, Tero "Quantitative Research Methods" https://erau.blackboard.com/bbcswebdav/institution/Worldwide_Online/MSLD%20500/msld_500_quant_research_methods_lecture1_tero_mamia.pdf
Accessed 14 July 2012
Mamia also laid out an outline of the quantitative method. It's useful to know that the overall method is "based on the idea that social phenomena can be quantified, measured, and expressed numerically." The information gained can be expressed in numeric terms and thus analyzed by statistical methods, or even be classified into numeric variables.
Quantitative Research, like most other research methods, comes with its own strengths and weaknesses. On the side of strengths, it does allow research of structures and processes not direclty observable, it is well suited for quantitative description and comparisons, and works well for description of change as well as analysis and explanation of causal dependencies between phenomena.
The weaknesses to be considered are ones arguably inherent to anything depending on raw numbers. It can potentially simplify or "compress" the complex reality and thus make it somewhat constrained. It's only applicable for things that can be measured or quantified, and presumes the necessary knowledge to ask "correct" questions. Not only that, but quantitative research makes it difficult to study processes or "dynamic" phenomenon, creating a static view of reality, and makes it harder to catch onto the intentions and meanings when an actor's perspectives are described.
The would be researcher also needs to bear research in mind as dialogue between theory and empirical observations. Theory will direct observation, and provide a framework for the research. This leads into the planning of the research, which includes selection of the theme or topic, getting familiar with any previous research, selecting a theoretical approach, specifying the research problem, and planning the empirical research process through research design. Research design would include elements such descriptions, the time dimension involved, target population, method of data collection such as sampling representative groups via surveys and observation, and so on. On top of these considerations and arguably most importantly, the researcher must remember to never do harm to their participants, ensure informed consent and anonymity, and thus earn the confidence of the participants.
References
Mamia, Tero "Quantitative Research Methods" https://erau.blackboard.com/bbcswebdav/institution/Worldwide_Online/MSLD%20500/msld_500_quant_research_methods_lecture1_tero_mamia.pdf
Accessed 14 July 2012
Sunday, July 8, 2012
A500.6.3.RB_SienkiewiczRaymond
I must admit, when I first read the term "qualitative research", that kind of flew in the fact of everything I knew up to this point about research. Sure, I've done research papers in the liberal arts that were very qualitative and based on people's writings, but I couldn't easily see this being used for a formal study. But the idea is certainly an interesting one.
Hoepfl's definition captured the idea very nicely, stating that qualitative research "...broadly defined, means 'any kind of research that produces findings not arrived at by means of statistical procedures or other means of quantification'." In short, it's research that doesn't rely on raw numbers.
One first needs to be aware of situations where a qualitative method is appropriate. Hoepfl' writes that these methods are appropriate when one first needs to find the variables for later quantitative testing, or where a researcher determines that a quantitative measure can't "accurately describe or interpret a situation". Thus, the problems tend to be framed as open ended questions that facilitate "discovery of new information".
Hoepfl also synthesized the findings of several writer's viewpoints on qualitative researched and summarized these in a list that defined feature's of qualitative research. First, the research uses a natural setting as the source of data, with the researcher observing and interpreting yet maintaining neutrality. The researcher will also act in the capacity of a "human instrument" of data collection, and will also predominantly be using "inductive data analysis". A qualitative research report will also have some unique characteristics. Among other things, these reports are more descriptive and expressive in their language. There is also what Hoepfl calls an "interpretive character" in the research, "...aimed at discovering the meaning events have for the individuals who experience them". In dealing with all this, a researcher needs to "pay attention to the idiosyncratic as well as the pervasive," and understand what makes each case unique. It must also be understood that this research is of an emergent design, and needs to be judged with special criteria for trustworthiness.
The researcher, being an instrument of the research itself, also has some special considerations. Hoepfl writes they must adopt a stances suggested by characteristics of the naturalist paradigm, and they need to develop an appropriate skill level, as well as prepare their research design to use strategies for naturalistic inquiry. To this end, there are some general steps for the design of a naturalistic inquiry to include determining and planning: a focus for the inquiry, the fit of the research paradigm to the focus, how data is collected, what the phases of the inquiry will be, what other instrumentation may be used, the collection and recording modes for the data, which analysis procedures will be used, logistics of data collection, and techniques for determining trustworthiness. These steps, in turn, have a number of sub-steps and points of consideration.
Overall, Hoepfl recognized that qualitative research can be taxing upon the researcher and consumer a significant amount of time. The researcher will also bear much of the burden for discovering and interpreting the importance of their findings, as well as establishing connections between observations and conclusions. However, this type of research can also yield results not easily acquired through conventional statistical techniques.
Hoepfl's definition captured the idea very nicely, stating that qualitative research "...broadly defined, means 'any kind of research that produces findings not arrived at by means of statistical procedures or other means of quantification'." In short, it's research that doesn't rely on raw numbers.
One first needs to be aware of situations where a qualitative method is appropriate. Hoepfl' writes that these methods are appropriate when one first needs to find the variables for later quantitative testing, or where a researcher determines that a quantitative measure can't "accurately describe or interpret a situation". Thus, the problems tend to be framed as open ended questions that facilitate "discovery of new information".
Hoepfl also synthesized the findings of several writer's viewpoints on qualitative researched and summarized these in a list that defined feature's of qualitative research. First, the research uses a natural setting as the source of data, with the researcher observing and interpreting yet maintaining neutrality. The researcher will also act in the capacity of a "human instrument" of data collection, and will also predominantly be using "inductive data analysis". A qualitative research report will also have some unique characteristics. Among other things, these reports are more descriptive and expressive in their language. There is also what Hoepfl calls an "interpretive character" in the research, "...aimed at discovering the meaning events have for the individuals who experience them". In dealing with all this, a researcher needs to "pay attention to the idiosyncratic as well as the pervasive," and understand what makes each case unique. It must also be understood that this research is of an emergent design, and needs to be judged with special criteria for trustworthiness.
The researcher, being an instrument of the research itself, also has some special considerations. Hoepfl writes they must adopt a stances suggested by characteristics of the naturalist paradigm, and they need to develop an appropriate skill level, as well as prepare their research design to use strategies for naturalistic inquiry. To this end, there are some general steps for the design of a naturalistic inquiry to include determining and planning: a focus for the inquiry, the fit of the research paradigm to the focus, how data is collected, what the phases of the inquiry will be, what other instrumentation may be used, the collection and recording modes for the data, which analysis procedures will be used, logistics of data collection, and techniques for determining trustworthiness. These steps, in turn, have a number of sub-steps and points of consideration.
Overall, Hoepfl recognized that qualitative research can be taxing upon the researcher and consumer a significant amount of time. The researcher will also bear much of the burden for discovering and interpreting the importance of their findings, as well as establishing connections between observations and conclusions. However, this type of research can also yield results not easily acquired through conventional statistical techniques.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
A500.5.3_SienkiewiczRaymond
When I first came into the course, my concept of critical thinking went so far as an amalgamation of the three definitions offered in the first chapter of our text. I knew critical thinking was basically thinking about my thinking in order to improve my thinking. That's about all there was to it, and it seemed like a much more soft, perhaps philosophical line of thought for me.
Now however, I've been working with the subject long enough to realize that there is a much more robust framework for the study of critical thinking than I previously thought. There is definitely a much deeper realm of terminology, processes, and factors than I previously thought, and I feel I'm only just beginning to really understand it all. Although I might have been taught in the ways of the elements of reasoning, as well as the standards of critical thinking, I definitely can't say that I consciously think about this in my day to day problem solving, and I would have to sit down to think about whether or not I might have used the concepts unconsciously during the course of a regular day.
So, frankly speaking, unless I just happen to be unknowingly running through the process, I think I still have to invest further time in internalizing the techniques and concepts for maximum effect beyond the class environment. What I might have to do is on a weekly basis, take a problem that isn't especially time sensitive and attempt to analyze it in the context of the elements of critical thinking and check my thoughts against the standards of critical thinking. I might even compare that to my "gut reaction" I might have gone with had I not engaged in thoughtful, critical thinking.
Admittedly, I'm not currently at the level of performance one might aspire to be, but I am under the impression that this is one of those skills that one is never really "done" learning, but rather continuously builds upon and refines over a lifetime. It won't be an overnight process, but I do think it would do me good to be more sensitive to these themes.
Now however, I've been working with the subject long enough to realize that there is a much more robust framework for the study of critical thinking than I previously thought. There is definitely a much deeper realm of terminology, processes, and factors than I previously thought, and I feel I'm only just beginning to really understand it all. Although I might have been taught in the ways of the elements of reasoning, as well as the standards of critical thinking, I definitely can't say that I consciously think about this in my day to day problem solving, and I would have to sit down to think about whether or not I might have used the concepts unconsciously during the course of a regular day.
So, frankly speaking, unless I just happen to be unknowingly running through the process, I think I still have to invest further time in internalizing the techniques and concepts for maximum effect beyond the class environment. What I might have to do is on a weekly basis, take a problem that isn't especially time sensitive and attempt to analyze it in the context of the elements of critical thinking and check my thoughts against the standards of critical thinking. I might even compare that to my "gut reaction" I might have gone with had I not engaged in thoughtful, critical thinking.
Admittedly, I'm not currently at the level of performance one might aspire to be, but I am under the impression that this is one of those skills that one is never really "done" learning, but rather continuously builds upon and refines over a lifetime. It won't be an overnight process, but I do think it would do me good to be more sensitive to these themes.
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