A Questionnaire group for a rainy day

When we set on developing a curriculum and after we have identified the needs we decide on the level of proficiency we need to achieve for our learners. I have personally found a great deal of joy in designing and evaluating a curriculum with a spiral design. This design offers an incremental revisit of subject areas in an indication that a normal learner will need to revisit concepts at spaced out intervals.

The beauty of designing spirally is that you get the opportunity to change the angle and method of instruction with every revisit. So every revisit is a new adventure.

A spiral design is every educationists dream

In ASU MENA FRI we consider the distant ML Web sessions as revisits of the already existing base line knowledge and it is our adventure. We enter each of these ML Web courses targeting a new undiscovered land. Fellows work their plans around a revisit model for two or three objectives that should be tackled within two weeks. It is hard to decide what the learners already know and what they need to know and so the innovation lies in choosing an angle that adds to everyone. Failure is when a learner leaves the course with nothing added to his knowledge and it is the nightmare course designers dread the most. You can imagine how you would feel after wasting two weeks for an executive educator with zero gain.

A big part of the design of any program is to respect the time of the participants

The Questionnaire design group, as they chose to call themselves in relevance to the topic they chose to design and deliver, were getting the jitters planning over the last weeks before they had planned to start delivery. From the first moment of this group's work, It looked like they had no problem embracing new technologies and techniques. They were ready to try anything and everything. They did not look for expertise in the group and rely on it as would any other group in their shoes. On the contrary they decided to try and learn and grow.

The openness to explore was so intriguing that I thought it is important to reflect on the dynamics that lead to this.

A group with an apatite for adventure

Hayam is an associate professor, very energetic and highly dependable. she was the individual in this group that gave it the most dynamics. Although her quiet nature rarely allowed for outspoken expression of enthusiasm, her sense of engagement could be felt all through the planning and delivery phase. Hayam was the glue that kept the very busy team together and kept them aligned. A look back into her beginnings at the institute, Hayam passed through phases where she questioned her capacity to perform and deliver. She lived a short phase of lack of self actualization that was totally against her nature. After growing out of her fears she encountered a vision of herself that she did not want to see again and ever since that moment she has evidently taken the conscious decision to never be discouraged and to have not fear.

A relaxed learning environment can turn around the experience for some people... It is an added value we should strive to achieve

Elsayed, the youngest and busiest at the same time, struggled against his commitments to be able to deliver in style. He spoke very few words but listened very well. He processed all stimuli around him and processed them keenly acted upon them, delivered in silence. Elsayed demonstrated traits of a true upper Egyptian man with his reliability and need for style. He has the sense of tribe inherent in his built and was rarely spotted trying to take the spotlight even when he deserved it the most. The group was the focus of his attention for as long as the group were on the task. His openness to experiment and try new applications like Explee for video production for the first time was driven by his need to fill the group's gaps in skills.

The number one starting point of effective team productivity is an open channel of communication and understanding

As if experimentation was contagious in this group everyone gave themselves the permission to adventure and beyond all our expectations were were surprised by an audio dialogue between Alyaa and Hala Sweed designed for raising questions and opening discussions among the learners. Being in an acting mode they both gave the impression that they were enjoying themselves designing and learning at the same time.

The rally started and fellows above fourty-five, supposedly in the phase where using familiar techniques is their comfort zone, started offering to use poll applications and google sheets and so much more. This was all outdone the moment Alyaa Saleh, a professor of oral biology King Abdelaziz University decided that she decided to use polarity mapping as an escalated method of teaching and learning for fellows. She demonstrated how beautifully and inclusively she saw the topic under study. She demonstrated a large degree of depth and richness of understanding of the topic and a will to take a huge risk; use a tool she had just learned about an make it a vessel for information and an aid for decision making. The whole world turned around when that decision was made and finally the team found their edge and the journey started.

Habits are contagious in groups, make sure to nurture and positively reinforce the best habits

This feature became significant of the group and was defining for the nature of all interactions within them on all levels. Hala Elwakil, professor and a lively smile mixed together with a beautiful easy going nature that gives everyone the sense that everything is under control, was the formal group leader who basically lead by listening and absorbing all innovations around her and taking the conscious decision to let them all shine. She encouraged and saluted every attempt at novelty and when it was her turn decided that she will not be a broken step in the groups climb to success. She decided that nothing was too hard.

The environment of work in this particular group was different. It was not easy to spot any age difference between participants. Team member ranged from young lecturers to professors of more than five years. For some reason this variation in age was not felt at any point during the planning or implementation. The only factor in my opinion that contributed to this was everybody's willingness to open new doors.

Sometimes individuals relying on others to perform within a group hinders learning and growth. Full engagement in all tasks and deliverables ensures learning for all group members

The cumulative learning that happened in that group was bigger than any other I witnessed. This group was by far the most engaged in all activities and demonstrated the highest level of alignment with activities and objectives than any other group. The understanding of the nature of activities and tools available for use made it easier for the group to engage in discussions that related planned educational activities to the targeted objective and to the level of attainment expected from the learners. It was more feasible to engage at a higher planning level that attributed learning methods chosen to the learning environment that was not always their first choice.

The questionnaire design group managed to restructure and realign their methods systematically with change in favored environment. This was evident when the email listserv they use for educational posting crashed for 36 hours and a transition had to be made to another medium. The group shifted to using whats app readily to revise and make sure that they have captured all responses from participants. They reformulated their lines as ants would when on a quest to get fed after the winter hibernation and in no time were performing on an entirely different strategy with very minimal chaos. The group had adapted all through the planning phase to daily change and innovation and they would realign with them readily until it was time to manage contingency and realignment was nothing more than daily practice.

Adapt to change so that when disaster happens you hit the ground running

During that time everybody's tone changed. Elsayed who is an extreme introvert changed his vocabulary and added a lot of appreciative language to all his interactions. Hala Sweed who is the chair of a department and a hospital director and whose responsibilities outside the mandate of the group were extensive, changed her level of engagement totally and started giving her group a bigger amount of attention. language of encouragement became the norm and everybody was saluted and applauded on every small occasion as if the group were looking for an opportunity to raise the collective morale.

When disaster struck a new self reserved leader rose to the occasion, Hayam started organizing acting and aligning people using all possible methods to make the transition smooth and the beauty was that the whole group followed her calmly. There could have been a degree of tense engagement but that did not emerge at any point. My observation is that probably when team members are actively engaged in taking responsibility for their share of the product they rarely generate stories revolving around other member's actions. They take volunteer actions in their true worth and value to the whole group. When people on the other hand are too busy analyzing intentions rather than on their task, they end up creating relations and attributes in their heads to each others' actions and choices and tension arises when misinterpretation is involved. We call these "Intention Stories"

A lesson learned from the questionnaire design group: In order to function as a team during hardship and chaos:

Be brave and willing to experiment

Communicate openly and regularly to avoid misunderstandings

Make it your quest to learn something new when in a team and focus on it so you will not have time to build an story of intentions behind actions

Get used to change and embrace it in times of structure so you transition easier in times of chaos

It is true the leader is he whoever steps up to walk the team through transitions, but the true leaders are those who who stand in the line to make the transition work.

Make sure that the everyone in the team has the same objective. Having someone in the team with a side gain can derail the whole process.

It is important to speak up and support your team even if it means acting against your nature

The more you are informed of the dynamics and expected deliverables of the whole team the more sophisticated the level of engagement and discussions in the group

Make sure that you capture every moment as an educational opportunity

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