Community Engagement

Another session from the eDayz experience - very useful for people working with young people.Our favourite agent of chaos and creativity, Marie Jasinski, this year worked with the staff at TafeSA, Regency Campus, to find out what was going wrong in their attempts to teach the “next generation”. Research had come out of the USA, but they wanted to verify some of the results themselves.

Who is Gen Y?

• Born/grew up in late 70’s - mid-90’s
• had ‘programmed activities’ from an early age, grew up in relative affluence - choices
• media-saturated, visually stimulating, connected, always known digital technology
• always lived with accelerating change
• personal relations with adults, involved in family decisions
• constantly rewarded, “seen and heard”
• “self-esteem on steroids” (P Sheahan).

Results of their research

These people:

• expect to be treated with respect and as a peer in all situations, and by all people, no matter what the relationship (79%).
• Say NO to lectures and boring presentations, say YES to collaboration and working with peers.
• Love variety, and expect to have choices; they expect that their opinions will matter, that the teacher will support them always, no matter what. They prefer to see and discuss, rather than read.
• Like technology, problems to solve, support of others, challenging levels of thinking, opportunities to be innovative and creative when learning, as well as levels of risk.

So, what happens? The teachers give them everything.

They do however like clearly defined tasks, and ongoing, immediate feedback.

An interesting feature of this project was the way it was conducted. The institute gave all staff Monday morning off .. to sit around and talk. No classes Monday morning, and an optional “Conversation Cafe”, so that teachers could brainstorm problems and solutions every week for a whole year. Reportedly a huge success. Teachers are not going to abandon lectures, but discover ways to make them more interactive.

More info about Gen Y, in Research from the Dusseldorp Forum, here.

Last week Mary and Josie co-presented with the 2005 Bundaberg project and the 2006 Northern Queensland Small Business Project at the Learning Communities Conference in Brisbane (24 - 27 September). A brief overview of the Community Engagement project was followed by case studies very enthusiastically presented by Sandra, Tony and Andrew.

It was particularly pleasing to hear Sandra talk about how the project in Bundaberg had moved forward into 2006 and how ‘IMPACT Make Your Mark’ as a training organisation was embracing the e-learning environment as a result of their 2005 project experience.

After the presentation a stimulating conversation between the presenters and the participants around some of the key issues participants had been asked to reflect upon during the session:

• Harnessing the power of technology as a tool for learning, job creat, social capital and more?
• What is the power of e-learning? What are the benefits? Who knows about it, who uses it? And how is it used?
• Who is in, who is on the margins or out and what strategies are in place to modify this?

resulted in some interesting responses and challenges. Overall this was a great opportunity to promote the project and showcase some of the great work and fantastic results our 2005 and 2006 projects are achieving!

For more information on the ALCN Conference go to the Learning Community Catalyst, at lcc.edu.au

Over here in Adelaide, at “eDayz”, where three of the Community Engagement projects are presenting, keynote speaker Bruce Sullivan opened the proceedings with a very enthusiastic and heartfelt session, reminding us to focus on the outcomes, not the “time and effort”.

“If you really want something, you’ll do whatever it takes to achieve your outcome,” Bruce assured us. Knowledge workers need a lot of mental space; however, if you focus on the time, the effort, the difficulty and the distractions, you’ll find your energy drained away. One of his mottoes was “Do things poorly, until you (learn to) do them well.”

His follow up workshop gave some strategies for managing transitions, tackling relationship and environment, when you deal with people’s resistance to change. People often acknowledge the physical aspects of transition, but fail to notice or attend to the emotional side of things. When you plan your transitions, plan to manage the emotional transition too.

Because of the emotional response, resistant behaviours are normal, Bruce assured us, when change processes hit. When people resist or sabotage change processes, “don’t tackle their behaviour”. Bruce urged us to focus on improving relationships and the work environment, as well as the ‘bright future’ of your hoped-for outcomes.