Interactive Skills in a Networked Environment

Syllabus

This short professional development course is for busy professionals and managers who want to use online communications technologies to manage workplace change. The course provides a fast-paced, intelligent introduction to:

Forms of dialogue and principles of effective online communication
Qualities of a healthy online community
Critical thinking and problem-solving through online dialogue
Effective use of language when words are all you have
Strategies and skills for deepening dialogue

These skills are equally valuable for participants in online dialogue, and for those who moderate or facilitate it.

What makes this course work is asynchronous, structured participation. That is, participants need not be online at exactly the same time, but they do follow the same overall schedule for reading, exercises and discussion. Some of the coursework is done in pairs and groups. Assignments are due regularly, and are given immediate, customized feedback by the instructor. Participants are advised to set aside approximately one hour every four days to keep up with activities and maximize benefits.

Initially, the discussion topics are drawn from the subject matter of group and organizational dynamics, conflict resolution, and community building. As we progress, our focus will shift toward greater attention to the features and patterns of our own discussion, using this direct experience to reinforce or challenge theory.

Beginning in Part 2, the class is divided into four discussion groups of five persons each, and class members begin a four-days-each rotation as moderator. Posting at least every other day is required to make sure everyone has plenty of material to work with.

Part 1: Creating healthy online communities

Summary: Characteristics of a healthy online learning community include shared responsibility, collaboration, and the gradual decline of dependency on the moderator as participants learn to speak their minds and look out for each other. Our research shows that there is value in designating an active, skilled moderator with a deliberate plan to create this kind of culture. The facilitator makes sure all trainees participate to meaningful learning activities. He assists everyone with introduction, sets expectations, and ensures buy-in to the overall agenda. He also designs a clear, manageable feedback loop for discussion and evaluation, and get everyone talking without anyone dominating. Finally, he tracks the course of conversation to draw out patterns, cover the desired ground thoroughly, and move toward a conclusion that is acceptable to all.

Read: from Collison et al 5 - 15, 17 - 32, 77 - 83

Discuss: What kind of text and visual information attract your attention when you have the luxury of surfing the world wide web out of curiosity? When you contemplate having an in-depth discussion with professional colleagues using the Internet, what shapes your thinking about how much personal information to share? What does this tell you about the incentives and barriers that your colleagues might face in using online communications effectively, and about participating in a way that encourages others?

Part 2: Understanding and crafting interventions

Summary: In our educational model, an "intervention" is a carefully crafted text that is introduced, at a selected point in a dialogue, to achieve a change in the group's awareness and direction. It is not a direct instruction. It is language designed to raise awareness and guide participants toward actions that benefit the group -- for example, by uncovering information or insight, generating new options, clarifying the basis for action, and so on. The need for this kind of focusing is determined by analyzing the pattern of conversation with reference to the group's goals. Are people "listening" to each other with respect and open-mindedness? Is the subject at hand being explored thoroughly enough? Is there an "elephant in the living room" in the form of an unspoken question, concern, or idea? Will others in the group discover these things for themselves, or will they benefit from some sense of direction from you? An intervention can identify common themes and contrasting views, or note where the discussion has gravitated (and where it has not ventured). To craft interventions so that they draw together the elements of the conversation so far, and then invite a re-focusing, is an art that requires both language skill and active empathy.

Read: Collison et al 33 - 42, 161 - 164

Discuss: What do you do when you are running a meeting face to face, and the discussion appears to slip off point? In facilitating a discussion, to what extent are F2F tactics transferable to the online environment?

Discuss: When trying to build a consensus for action involving both technical and non-technical people, what are some effective approaches you have observed in the past?

Part 3: Voice and tone -- strategic online communication skills

You can bring a variety of dimensions of your personality to the table depending on the situation and the culture of the group because human conversation is social as well as goal-directed. You can give conscious thought to the personality that will be most effective in fostering insight for others–from reflective guide to mediator of conflict–because online dialogue gives the luxury of analyzing observations and crafting responses with better care than in the flow of face to face conversation.

Read: Collison et al 104 - 121, 123 - 126, 127 - 139

Discuss: What voices and tones do you tend to use in professional settings? Do they differ when you are "in charge" from when you aren't? Are there other voice and tone options that might expand your range?

Part 4: Digging deeper

Not only can you take advantage of the online medium to give careful attention to a particular conversational exchange. You can compare the life of the group as it evolves, and see patterns among the conversations. Doing so, you may be surprised at the way its very culture has evolved (less politeness? more intimacy? spontaneous rise and fall of "leaders" from among the participants?) And you can help fellow participants do this as well. When a group gains the skill and discipline to review its own dialogues and "hear itself thinking," a quantum jump is likely to occur in both insight and intimacy. Part 4 covers two dimensions of this process, strategies to sharpen focus, and strategies to deepen dialogue.

Read: Collison et al 140 - 164

"How to Make a Decision Like a Tribe," Fast Company...

Discuss: Identify one point in the previous weeks' discussion when you have been bored or disengaged. Without pointing a finger unkindly at any fellow participants, describe what was going on and what could have been done differently by the facilitator or participants to make the conversation more engaging for you.

Final two days: Post your favorite segment of the past four weeks' dialogue and identify what you like about it; review the posts of others.

Discuss: Does this group have a "personality" and if so, how would you describe it?