Spring 2010 course: Social Media in the Workplace

Here is info about one of the courses I’m teaching in the Spring semester. The other one is Qualitative Research Methods for Technology Studies, TECH 621.

CGT 581: Social Media in the Workplace

Social media such as blogs, Twitter, Facebook, wikis, and podcasts are radically changing several aspects of contemporary culture and society. But what happens when social media is brought inside organizations?

How does it affect productivity, collaboration, organizational structure and organizational culture?

Should social media be used within organizations, and if so, what are best practices?

In this course, we examine the use of social media in the workplace and conduct original research projects in order to derive conclusions about the optimal use of social media within organizations.

Students will learn how to:

1. Identify the best Web 2.0 tool fit for any specific task
2. Implement best practices for the use of social media in the workplace
3. Coordinate large group collaboration using social media
4. Make recommendations for social media use in specific organizational situations
5. Plan, implement, and assess social media adoption in the enterprise
6. Consider the interaction of social media and organizational culture
7. Identify the skills needed of leaders in the social media workplace
8. Implement leadership 2.0 skills

Sphere: Related Content

How to be a successful grad. student

I asked my TECH621 students to interview 3 professors each and get tips about graduate school success.

Here are their posts: Scott S., Stephen W., Jenny S., Zheng Z., Andrew B., Scott K.

A bit late, here are my tips & expectations about being a successful graduate student. They are derived from my experience in grad. school, both as a student and professor:

Be self-motivated

You don’t have to be in grad school. Your parents may have forced you to get an undergrad degree, but you are in grad school because you want to learn. So, learn.

A successful graduate student doesn’t only “absorb” information. She actively seeks knowledge.

Professors might mention something in passing, and the grad. student goes out to research that topic in depth and learn about it, because he wants to, because he’s curious – because he’s a born researcher (you know who’s a born researcher? Don Bulmer. He has an innate curiosity and the drive to pursue knowledge. Those are characteristics of the ideal grad. student.)

Actually, several other tips follow from the first one:

• work hard. As a grad student, I put at least 4 hours of reading & other work preparing for each 3 hour class I took.
• be conscientious. Grad students don’t miss assignments, don’t turn them in late. They don’t miss class (there was never an attendance policy in my grad. classes, but I didn’t even dream of missing class unless I was very sick).
• be critical. Try to view different points of view. Question. Explore. Ask:
  • “why?”
  • “does it have to be so?”
  • “what/who are we leaving out?”
  • “what’s the downside of that?”
  • “what are the long-term effects?”
• create knowledge. Most grad. students learn to be researchers. Assume your researcher role and if there’s no easy answer to a question, go ahead and research it – create new knowledge.

Try to learn the culture of academia & to fit in

You can’t succeed in academia without doing good work. But you can do good work and not succeed in academia, because you don’t understand how to present your work in ways that are valued by academic culture. The values vary by field and even by department, but be on the lookout, try to identify and learn things such as:

• the accepted/valued outlets for presenting research (posters, conference papers, or panels, and at what conferences?)
• the accepted/value format and writing style
• and even… the accepted/valued topics. There are certain “hot topics” at any given time, just as there are certain “passe topics.”

A mentor can help you figure these things out – but it doesn’t have to be your academic adviser. Ask faculty members, we love to give advice. You learn a lot just by hanging out with faculty or senior grad students. Create these opportunities. Organize a seminar or a get-together, or ask if you can go to lunch with someone.

Think long-term

Every class you take is a potential job interview. I’ve had several professors approach me and offer me teaching or research assistantships while I was taking their course, or as soon as the course was over. In fact, many classes ARE job interviews.

Maybe today’s class or assignment is boring, or seems irrelevant. It doesn’t matter. Try to do your best anyway. Keep in mind that 2 or 4 years down the road, you might need to ask that professor for a recommendation letter. The best thing we can write about a student is that she consistently exceeded expectations. Great work is great. Doing great work consistently and repeatedly is even greater.

As always, please add your tips, comments, reactions, comments or… cabbage jokes

Sphere: Related Content

How I read a book in 2 hours

I promised this post to my students. This is how it works for me:

>

Preparation:

• quiet time, free of distractions and noises (TV, music with words)
• clear, rested, focused mind (coffee or tea help, or read in the morning)
• upright body posture to maintain alertness: sit at table, not lounge chair or bed. Look down at book.
• keep large notebook & pen on hand (for outlining main argument and/or book’s structure)

Clear goals in mind:

1. to understand what the book is about (TOPIC)
2. to understand the MAIN ARGUMENT of the book
3. to understand what types of SUPPORTING EVIDENCE the author uses to support the main argument

My strategy: get the big picture of the book by understanding its structure (outline).

>

I read word for word, in this order:

• inside flap – b/c it’s usually a concise summary of the book
  .
• back cover – the praise for the book tells me in which contexts the book has been found useful (i.e. education, or marketing, or economics). This helps me place the book in context. (oh, this is useful for marketing professionals).
  .
• table of contents – I spend a lot of time with the table of contents, because it tells me what the outline/structure of the book is. If the chapter tiles as smarty-pants instead of descriptive (boo!) I flip through the book to see what the author means by a certain smarty-pants chapter title. Here, I make my selections of chapters I might be more interested in than others.
  .
• Preface, Introduction, first chapter – the Introduction especially gives me 80% of what I need to know: the problem addressed in the book, the book’s main claim (thesis statement) and an overview of the contents of the book. I ask myself: if this book could be summarized in ONE sentence, what would this sentence be? I hunt for this sentence and underline it boldly when I find it (sometimes I find 2 or 3, but not more – you have to be very picky here).

For example, I think this is that ONE sentence from Content Nation, found in Ch. 1, p. 2:

“In the process of becoming publishers who can reach and interact with a potentially global audience whenever they need to or want to, something is changing in the way that everyday people look at themselves and their world. [...] We are beginning to look upon institutions that we used to rely on for providing us with cohesion and value in our lives as less valuable in the face of publishing technologies that allow us to organize ourselves and our lives more to our suiting.“

This is, I believe, the thesis statement of the book. It tells me what to look for from now on:

• I know the book is about self-publishing – I will look for definitions and explanations of self-publishing (TOPIC)
  .
• I know the book is about change brought about by self publishing – I will look for an argument about the nature and the dynamic of that change (MAIN ARGUMENT)
  .
• I know the book will talk about change in specific contexts or institutions – these will be examples, EVIDENCE that SUPPORTS the main argument

Once I identified the 3 main ingredients of the book, I go looking for them in the other chapters. I will read carefully (if I have time) the parts that inform the 3 main ingredients above (topic, main argument, supporting evidence). But, to get an idea of the entire book, I read:

• the first paragraph of each chapter – it is usually the thesis statement of that chapter. If it’s not the first paragraph (boo!) then I look for it further down the page.
  .
• • the first sentence of each paragraph (GRE tip, remember?). If the book is well written in the U.S. writing style, the first sentence of each paragraph is the paragraph’s main idea. In European writing style, it’s more complicated. It may be the last sentence.

  .

• headings and subheadings (love them!), and the first sentence/para under each of them
  .
• the last paragraph of each chapter, because it should be a summary/conclusion of that paragraph
  .
• the Conclusion chapter (last chapter) because it should contain a summary of the book, some context for the book, and takeaways.

Try it out. Share tips that have worked for you. And most importantly ask yourself:

Do I write such that people can quickly grasp the meaning of my text?

[update/one more thought:] – ultimately, no matter what you do, make sure you get a few specific ideas out of your reading. If, after spending time with a reading, all you have in your head is an amorphous blur and no specific ideas, then you know you’re doing something wrong.

Sphere: Related Content

Social Media Reading List

[update Aug. 20]: This is what the list looks like now:

Anderson, C. (2008). Long Tail, The, Revised and Updated Edition: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More. New York: Hyperion Books.

Anderson, C. (2009). Free: The Future of a Radical Price. New York: Hyperion Books.

Blossom, J. (2009). Content Nation: Surviving and Thriving as Social Media Changes Our Work, Our Lives, and Our Future Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Clapperton, G. (2009). This is Social Media: Tweet, blog, link and post your way to business success. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Davenport, T. H., & Beck, J. C. (2001). The Attention Economy: Understanding the New Currency of Business. Boston: Harvard Business Press.

Fogg, B. (2007). Mobile persuasion. Stanford: Stanford Captology Media.

Israel, S. (2009). Twitterville: How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods.

Jackson, M., & McKibben, B. (2008). Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.

Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York University Press.

Jue, A. L., Marr, J. A., & Kassotakis, M. E. (2009). Social Media at Work: How Networking Tools Propel Organizational Performance: Jossey-Bass. (N/A until November 2009)

Locke, C., Searls, D., Weinberger, D., & Levine, J. (1999). The Cluetrain Manifesto.

O’Reilly, T., & Milstein, S. (2009). The Twitter Book. Sebastopol, Ca: O’Reilly Media.

Palfrey, J., & Gasser, U. (2008). Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives Philadelphia: Basic Books.

Postman, N. (1992). Technopoly. New York: Vintage Books.

Qualman, E. (2009). Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Safko, L., & Brake, D. (2009). The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Scoble, R., & Israel, S. (2006). Naked conversations. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Shirky, C. (2008). Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. New York: Penguin Press.

Solis, B. (2010). The Social Media Manifesto: The Revolutionary Guide to Build, Manage, and Measure Online Networks in Business Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Surowiecki. (2005). The Wisdom of Crowds: Anchor Books.

Tapscott, D., & Williams, A. D. (2008). Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. New York: Portfolio.

Zittrain, J. (2009). The Future of the Internet–And How to Stop It: Yale University Press.

Social media & Marketing

Bhargava, R. (2008). Personality Not Included: Why Companies Lose Their Authenticity And How Great Brands Get it Back. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Brogan, C., & Smith, J. (2009). Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Gillin, P. (2007). The new influencers: A marketer’s guide to the new social media. Sanger, CA: Quill Driver Books.

Gillin, P. (2008). Secrets of social media marketing. Fresno, CA: Quill Driver Books.

Halligan, B., Shah, D., & Scott, D. M. (2009). Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Holtz, S., Havens, J. C., & Johnson, L. D. (2008). Tactical Transparency: How Leaders Can Leverage Social Media to Maximize Value and Build their Brand: Josey-Bass.

Li, C., & Bernoff, J. (2008). Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Livingston, G., & Solis, B. (2007). Now is gone: A primer on new media for executives and entrpreneurs. Laurel, MD: Bartleby Press.

McConnell, B., & Huba, J. (2007). Citizen Marketers: When People Are the Message. Chicago: Kaplan Publishing.

Scott, D. M. (2008). The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Scott, D. M. (2008). The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Thomas, M., & Brain, D. (2009). Crowd Surfing: Surviving and Thriving in the Age of Consumer Empowerment. London: A&C Black.

Weber, L. (2009). Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

—

—

[original post:]

I’m putting together a reading list for my graduate seminar (TECH 621 – Research Focus: The Social Internet). I’m trying to get to books that discuss social media principles, and research – not only how-to guides and marketing advice.

Here is the list as it stands right now:

Blossom, J. (2009). Content Nation: Surviving and Thriving as Social Media Changes Our Work, Our Lives, and Our Future Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Clapperton, G. (2009). This is Social Media: Tweet, blog, link and post your way to business success. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Gillin, P. (2007). The new influencers: A marketer’s guide to the new social media. Sanger, CA: Quill Driver Books.

Halligan, B., Shah, D., & Scott, D. M. (2009). Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Holtz, S., Havens, J. C., & Johnson, L. D. (2008). Tactical Transparency: How Leaders Can Leverage Social Media to Maximize Value and Build their Brand: Josey-Bass.

Israel, S. (2009). Twitterville: How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods.

Jue, A. L., Marr, J. A., & Kassotakis, M. E. (2009). Social Media at Work: How Networking Tools Propel Organizational Performance: Jossey-Bass.

Li, C., & Bernoff, J. (2008). Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Locke, C., Searls, D., Weinberger, D., & Levine, J. (1999). The Cluetrain Manifesto. http://www.cluetrain.com/

O’Reilly, T., & Milstein, S. (2009). The Twitter Book. Sebastopol, Ca: O’Reilly Media.

Qualman, E. (2009). Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Safko, L., & Brake, D. (2009). The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Scoble, R., & Israel, S. (2006). Naked conversations. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Scott, D. M. (2009). World Wide Rave: Creating Triggers that Get Millions of People to Spread Your Ideas and Share Your Stories. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Solis, B. (2010). The Social Media Manifesto: The Revolutionary Guide to Build, Manage, and Measure Online Networks in Business Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Do you have a book I should add to this list? Please let me know!

Sphere: Related Content

How to read a research article

Most research articles you find in academic journal follow a similar recipe. If you understand how the article is structured and what to look for in each section, you can read articles much faster. I can get what I want from a research article in 5 minutes or less. When I started grad. school it took me 45-60 minutes to get through a research article and I still didn’t get much out of it. I wish someone had taught me how to read them.

Here are my lessons, based on my experiences. They work for me. I hope they work for you, too. If they don’t, use this as a starting point to figure out your own reading process.

Understanding the anatomy of a research article will also help you write easier.

Title

Usually long and cryptic. Most titles are poorly written. I don’t pay much attention to the title.

Abstract

I read it carefully and look for:

• purpose of study/research question
• a hint as to research methods
• key results

Introduction

I read the introduction looking for the following information:

• explanation of the problem the study addresses
• explanation of the larger context of the problem
• argument about the importance/need/relevance of studying the problem
• purpose of the study
• an overview of how the article is structured, and how the next section is organized

Literature review

It may be called something else, or the article may not even have headings – but it should be there somewhere. The literature review should accomplish 2 purposes:

1. make an argument for the need to conduct this specific study (identify a gap, or a need in previous literature)
2. present the previous theories, concepts, etc. that this study uses and builds upon

Usually, each paragraph or small section of the literature review covers a body of literature (the best lit. reviews are organized thematically, IMO). When reading the literature review it is important to identify these major themes. They give you a lay of the land.

Imagine the body of literature is a garden. The article you’re reading attempts to plant a new seed in this garden. Before doing so, the authors explain the layout of the garden (vegetables here, flowers there, weeds over there) and they explain why their plant is needed and where it fits in.

When reading the lit. review, you get a feel for this garden. If you are:

• very familiar with the literature, the lit. review confirms that the authors looked in all the right places and didn’t reinvent the wheel. OK to skim.
• completely unfamiliar with the literature, this section will be terribly confusing. Don’t worry. All you have to get out of it are the major themes (sections of the garden). You can come back later and examine each individual plant. OK to skim.
• are trying to learn the literature – read carefully, and mark on the list of references the sources you want to read.

The literature review ends with the research question(s). Find them and highlight them. They are promises that the article should deliver on.

Methods

This section explains the research methods and procedures used for the research study. Read them carefully, make sure they are valid. If the research methods are faulty, the data are not to be trusted. If the research methods are absurdly faulty, stop reading here. Go back to the literature review and the list of references and see if they can help you find better articles on the topic.

Results

In this section, the authors present their data, along with their (statistical or interpretive, etc.) analysis. This is as close as you can get to the raw data. This section, in a quantitative article, should be as free as possible of interpretation. Try your best to understand the results for yourself, so you can create your own interpretation of what they mean. But, if the statistics baffle you AND if you trust the authors, skim this section and move on to:

Discussion

This section explains what the results mean, in the context of the garden (literature review). You should see how the problem from the introduction is solved, how the research questions are answered, and whether the purpose of the study was accomplished. I usually read this section very carefully, because it tells me what the authors think they have accomplished.

Either here or at the end of the conclusion, you will find suggestions for future research. These can be very useful for your own literature review – you can cite the article, if it calls for exactly the research you’re doing. You can use this to support your own argument about the need for your research.

Conclusion

The first part of the conclusion should be a summary of the entire paper. I read it carefully, because the repetition helps me remember what I read. The last part of the conclusion is usually the most difficult part to write, very often fluff, and I don’t feel guilty about skimming or skipping it.

I used to teach this recipe to graduate students and they found it very helpful. I hope you do, too. Please share your own reading and writing tips, and ask me other questions you may have about graduate school.

There are several books that can help you, and the APA style manual has a chapter that explains the structure of APA research papers.

[update:] Barbara Nixon created a slide presentation for this content:

Sphere: Related Content

Research Focus: The Social Internet

This is the course I’ll be teaching at Purdue this Fall. I’m so excited, I can’t wait for the semester to start already! It is a Ph.D. level seminar, open to Master’s students too, open to all departments.

If you’re a Purdue graduate student interested in taking the course and have any questions, feel free to contact me (my Purdue username is my first name, Mihaela. You can figure out the rest).

Thank you, dear friend Rashee of Pulchitrude Graphic Design for the flier!

Sphere: Related Content

Quantum Physics

Someday, I will understand quantum physics. But since in the past few weeks I’ve been unpacking, unpacking, unpacking, unpacking, unpacking… (you get it)… OK, never mind. Here’s a video about quantum physics. It should be the beginning of any research methods class.

Thanks to Twitter user @c4chaos for pointing to a link that lead me to this video.

Sphere: Related Content

Teaching online

I’m teaching PR Principles online this summer, and I thought I’d share with you my top 3 tips for online teaching:

1. Discussions don’t work. Unless you present very controversial, ethical issues where students can share opinions, discussions don’t take off in online classes as most teachers wish. I’m trying to use discussions now as preparations for assignments (solve a PR case in a discussion thread so you know how to solve it for a graded assignment). However, I see better discussions as comments to blog posts (all students are required to blog on PROpenMic). I hate grading discussions based on number of posts. I think it’s meaningless, I don’t do it, I don’t use it to motivate students to participate.

***
2. For every learning objective, think two steps: information input and information processing/output. That is, for every learning objective my students have to take in information (from book, recorded online lecture, blog, etc.) and then do something with it (take a quiz, write a blog post, write an assignment) that shows me they’ve processed the information and now they’re outputting it for me to evaluate. I usually have a relatively easy quiz, and a more complex application assignment.

***
3. Allow students to work at their own paces, but provide a lot of structure. I issue a schedule for every week, that includes learning objectives and for each learning objective information input and output activities (assignments), along with deadlines.

What works for you, either as a teacher or student, in online education? Please share tips, comments, questions, frustrations

Sphere: Related Content

PR students on learning Twitter

I place a lot of emphasis on Twitter in my PR courses, but were not sure whether that was such a good idea – from their perspective. So I asked my PR students from the Spring 09 Stakeholder Communication class to respond anonymously to a survey about learning twitter. Their answers are below:

Do you believe it was beneficial for you to learn how to use Twitter? Please explain why or why not.

• - Yes. Twitter is a good example of a social media tool and the only way to truly know about these tools is to use them. It was good for us to use because it was not too demanding, yet still allowed us to get a feel for how these different tools work.
• - Yes I do. There are many social norms and things about twitter that I learned from this class and I think its great to show a potential employer that I understand those things. I also think it was great to teach us to be active when you get on twitter because its annoying if you just get on and don’t do anything with it!
• - Yes. I think that we kind of “jumped onto something” much earlier than a lot of other people. I think it was beneficial because it helped us learn how news can spread really quickly and network with others.
• - I do believe it was beneficial to learn twitter, especially since it has become so prevalent in today’s society. People ask me what Twitter is and it eels good to know that I can explain it to them because I learned it through class. It’s becoming more and more mainstream everyday and I’ve enjoyed learning how to use it.
• - Yes. I liked that I already knew what Twitter was all about and how to use it before it became such a hot topic. Since I had already learned about the professional value of Twitter, it prevented me from getting caught up in the hype. I think this is allowing me to be a more constructive Twitter user.
• - Yes. Not only is Twitter a necessary tool for PR practitioners, but it is becoming mainstream for all people involved in social media. Within a year or so Twitter may be the equivilent of Facebook, and it is important that PR students stay ahead of the trend.

Has Twitter helped you learn in any way? How has it helped (or not)?

• - Yes it has helped me learn about social media. Basically the general rules of using o twitter are applicable to most social media tools. For example, you have to be consistent with using it- you can’t just create an account and then forget about it. You have to interact with people – not just broadcast random things. Twitter has a culture about it, just like other social media tools – and it is important to be able to tap into the culture of the various tools.
• - It has helped me learn more about social interaction with PR people. I think urging us to get on to communicate and teaching us to tweet during class helped us learn it. Especially when you told us how to interact with professionals.
• - yes. When we used it in 301, I thought it was kind of pointless, but I completely see how useful it has been in a PR class. You always have said that social media is becoming more and more important and it really is. You have showed us how jobs are hiring people to just do social media so I think that it has helped us learn to get to know other people and be less shy when it comes to networking and see how a problem can occur very quickly over Twitter, etc.
• - Yes it has helped. It’s helped me become more comfortable with contacting people I don’t know, expressing myself, learning more about others, and become more connected.
• - I like being able to connect with people from all over.
• - Following the conversations of PR professionals has helped me get insight into what their world is like on a day to day basis. It also helped me to make a few connections for myself.

Do you feel you “get” Twitter? What about it do you (not) understand?

• - I do feel that I get Twitter, but I feel that I am not using to my full capacity. I understand what is valued in the community, but I feel that I don’t always bring that value because I feel I don’t have the time to go out and find the interesting thought provoking news – I feel that I am on more of the receiving end of what’s going on – and that’s fine with me…
• - I think I “semi” get twitter. I still don’t completely understand retweets and stuff like that. but I understand how to search for things from what you taught us.
• - Yes very much so.
• - I do “get” Twitter. I still have a lot to learn, and I need to become better about posting original thoughts and putting more depth into what I saw, but overall I do eel that I “get” it.
• - It took a while, but I think I get it now. Sometime I think I get it too much because I get so frustrated with the whole fad aspect of it.
• - I understand Twitter, but I feel like you have to almost become addicted to it to become a full-fledged user. You have to be constantly engaged with someone else in conversation and understand all of the lingo and special tools (i.e. RT, #) to use Twitter to its full potential. Sometimes its unnerving to try to start/join a conversation rather than just give updates on what you’re doing, which most people won’t reply to.

Aything else you’d like to tell me about Twitter in PR classes?

• - Twitter is good for PR classes. Regardless of what people say.
• - This was great for communication with you as well. I think it helped us be able to interact and I think its great to keep the lines of communication open with you!
• - I like being able to Twitter about class…during class. It’s nice to be able to bounce ideas off of other classmates.
• - I would recommend giving students a few contacts outside of the classroom to follow when starting. For instance, offer students the names of PRSSA mentors to follow first who can springboard them into conversations with other professionals.

What has your experience been learning or teaching Twitter?

Sphere: Related Content

Learning happens

I’ve been trying to practice more mindfulness lately and one of the things I’ve noticed as a result is how often informal learning happens. It made me think that we should create more opportunities for that – after all, isn’t a teacher one who creates opportunities for learning?

A few examples:

• At an informal PRSSA get-together, we were sitting around a table munching on chips & salsa, and students were exchanging interview experiences. People would tell stories, share advice and resources. It hit how much the students were learning about job interviewing during that relaxed, informal conversation.
• ***
• When I was a graduate student at Purdue and had first started teaching, other grad. students and I would often get together and “bitch” about students and teaching. I’m now realizing that those bitching sessions were actually learning sessions – we learned a lot from each other about classroom management, assignments, and new exercises to use in our classes.
• ***
• I was sitting in my office with a couple of students earlier today talking about a report they have to write about Career Launch Day. One of the students interrupted me to ask “Where did you learn this? How do you know so much?” Compliment aside, I realize her question marked an instance of learning. She was learning something new during our informal conversation.

My previous employer, the University of Dayton, had launched this program to encourage informal interaction between faculty and students. For example, I could host a book club at my house, and the university would pay for pizza. I left UD before I got a chance to take advantage of that program, but I now understand they were on to something: Creating opportunities for informal learning.

The Clemson culture is more formal than UD, where it was usual for faculty to go out to lunch with undergraduate students – so, other than PRSSA meetings, I don’t see many opportunities for informal learning here.

How can educators create more opportunities for informal learning? Or should we? Will students count it as “real” learning? Will administrators?

Even outside academia, I hope we’ll take that second to acknowledge and appreciate when learning happens – many times not at formal lectures and conferences, but on the beach or over a beer…

Do you have any informal learning stories? Care to share?

Sphere: Related Content

« Previous Entries