Category: leadership

Academic Change, Faculty Development, leadership

We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Lever

by macheditorLeave a Comment on We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Lever

By
Julia M. Williams,
Interim Dean of Cross-Cutting Programs and Emerging Opportunities & Professor of English, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology

leversOn May 7 and 8, I joined a group of STEM educators for the inaugural “Levers for Change” meeting, sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).  The goals for the meeting were clear:

  • To capture a snapshot of the current state of research-based reform in undergraduate STEM instruction within six clusters of STEM disciplines: biological sciences, chemistry & biochemistry, engineering & computer science, geosciences, mathematical sciences, physics & astronomy.
  • To identify key levers of change that are seen to have been effective in reaching this state, and to identify additional levers—less-tapped or untapped—that may be useful for fostering further change in the next decade.
  • To convene a group of leaders with experience in research and practice on STEM instructional change in higher education, to learn from, inspire and connect with each other.

In advance of the meeting, certain individuals were asked to write a white paper in each of the six cluster areas, a paper that attempted to demonstrate the current use of research-based reforms, particularly the use of RBIs, or Research-Based Instruction practices, in STEM classrooms.  As the meeting commenced, “Faculty Focus” published a report on the work of one of the Levers attendees [3].  Dr. Marilyne Stains (University of Nebraska) and colleagues had just published the most comprehensive study of the use of RBIs in STEM education, in the journal Science (March 29, 2018).  In that study, “the largest-ever observational study of undergraduate STEM education,” researchers monitored “nearly 550 faculty as they taught more than 700 courses at 25 institutions across the United States and Canada.”  The results of the study were not promising:

55 percent of STEM classroom interactions consisted mostly of conventional lecturing, a style that prior research has identified as among the least effective at teaching and engaging students.  Another 27 percent featured interactive lectures that had students participating in some group activities or answering multiple-choice questions with handheld clickers. Just 18 percent emphasized a student-centered style heavy on group work and discussions. The predominance of lecturing observed in the study persists despite many years of federal and state educational agencies advocating for more student-centered learning, the researchers said. [3]

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Academic Change, leadership, Systems Thinking

Retooling for the Future

by macheditorLeave a Comment on Retooling for the Future
Retooling for the Future

Craig Downing
Associate Dean for Lifelong Learning and Professor of Engineering Management

In the article The Skills Future Higher-Ed Leaders Need to Succeed, authors Amit Mrig and Patrick Sanaghan observe, “The playbook of the past does not offer a sustainable path forward for all institutions.” [1] They further suggest that academic challenges are too complex and dynamic for senior-level leadership to resolve on their own.  The path forward, they argue, is characterized by multi-level, internal and external, collaboration:

“These [issues] are whole-campus challenges, and they require whole-campus solutions.  Identifying and actually implementing appropriate responses requires the engagement and participation of the whole campus.” [1]

I find this last statement both encouraging and concerning.  Seeking a whole-campus solution will require contributions from a new array of individuals, including individuals who do not consider themselves as change agents or influential.  Additionally, the array may contain individuals who are against changing the status quo.    From my perspective as a change agent on a tight-knit college campus, I am always seeking out tools that can help me persuade faculty to look at themselves from a very different perspective.

For those who have the opportunity to influence possible changes, Mrig and Sanaghan suggest we consider the adoption of a refined skill set.  More specifically, they believe leaders (agents of change) should be:

  • Anticipatory thinkers
  • Risk-tolerant and supportive of creativity and innovation
  • Effective conveners/brokers/facilitators
  • Courageous decision makers
  • Resilient and able to “bounce forward” after a crisis or setback

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Academic Change, leadership, teamwork

Cognitive biases that impact your team performance

by mohanrosehulmaneduLeave a Comment on Cognitive biases that impact your team performance
Cognitive biases that impact your team performance

By Eva Andrijcic
Assistant Professor
Engineering Management

Cognitive biases that impact your team’s performance

Psychologist Daniel Kahneman’s 2011 book “Thinking, Fast and Slow” has become the favorite of many of us who are interested in how cognitive biases impact our ability to make decisions, especially under constrained and uncertain conditions [1, 2]. According to Kahneman, cognitive heuristics are mental shortcuts that allow us to simplify our complex thought processes and come to a decision faster and with less mental investment.  Cognitive biases are the resulting effects of taking such shortcuts. It may be surprising to learn that cognitive biases are not always bad, but they often lead to poor decision making. Research has shown both laypeople and experts are prone to using them. Why do we use them, you may wonder, when many of us have been trained to carefully process data and information, clearly state and test our assumptions, and consider problems from a holistic perspective?

Kahneman (who has won a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics) and his collaborator Amos Tversky (now deceased; had been a psychologist) hypothesized and proved that people unconsciously employ a variety of cognitive heuristics in specific situations:

  • When they have too much information to process, or conflicting information;
  • When they lack meaning/context;
  • When they have to operate under time constraints;
  • Or because they don’t have enough mental capacity to process all information.

Consequently, humans remember “representative” examples and extremes, they generalize, make assumptions, and create patterns, all of which allows them to make decisions faster. While, from an evolutionary perspective, this ability to react fast was needed for the human species to survive, it often causes us to make sub-optimal decisions which can have significant strategic implications.

When people learn about cognitive biases, their typical response is, “Yes, I know others are prone to these biases, but I am not, or not to the same degree,” which is a bias in itself (blind spot bias). In fact, most biases occur subconsciously so people don’t even know that they are using them, unless they have been trained to notice them.

A few months ago, while teaching a professional development seminar on cognitive biases to graduate students and working professionals, I decided to illustrate the degree to which we all (even experts!) fall prey to these cognitive biases.

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Academic Change, change management, leadership

The 4 Disciplines of Execution – Keeping Score

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The 4 Disciplines of Execution – Keeping Score

By Kay C Dee
Associate Dean for Learning & Technology

This post is the second in a two-part series on executing strategic initiatives. Read the first one here.

In The 4 Disciplines of Execution, the authors claim that “People give less than their best and finest effort if no one is keeping score — it’s just human nature” (pg 155). I may be revealing too much about myself when I confess that I had a small fit of impotent fury over this (to be honest, brief fits of impotent fury are not uncommon events for me), but the claim in question sounded like an evidence-free assertion at best, and ‘begging the question’ at worst. While constructing fierce internal philosophical arguments on the question of whether one’s best and finest efforts can be intrinsically inspired, I began to mentally challenge the assertion that people “play differently when they are keeping score” (pg. 155).

I am mildly chagrined to report that it does appear that people play differently when they are keeping score. For example, a meta-analysis by Harkin et al., published in Psychological Bulletin and freely downloadable, found that monitoring progress toward a goal promoted the attainment of that goal. Furthermore, “…monitoring progress in public and physically recording progress had larger effects on goal attainment than monitoring that was done in private and not recorded” (pg. 219).

This aligns with suggestions in The 4 Disciplines of Execution about keeping a compelling scoreboard. The authors suggest that the individuals working toward a goal should be the ones who design and use the scoreboard to record/monitor progress (instead of, for example, the person to whom these individuals report). The authors also suggest that these individuals should all be able to see the scoreboard change quickly as measures of progress change.

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Academic Change, change management, leadership

Do the Right Things

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Do the Right Things

By: Ella Ingram,
Associate Dean for Professional Development

This post is the first in a two-part series on executing strategic initiatives.

Change agents are faced with endless options for what to do next. Draft that strategic plan? Plan a team meeting? Read that new national report? All are important, and all are relevant to achieving the desired change, but it’s hard to decide where time is best spent. McChesney, Covey, and Huling’s Four Disciplines of Execution (4DX) gives us some guidance in answering this question. Lasting change – the kind change agents aspire to – must occur during the whirlwind, the authors’ term for the daily press of work centered on keeping the organization operational. The 4DX model addresses how to make change occur as the whirlwind continues. Although 4DX comes from the business world, it has been used successfully by academic organizations (see the 4DX website for examples).

The first discipline of 4DX is an easy one for change agents: focus on the wildly important, meaning the one strategic goal that matters more than all the others. In 4DX lingo, the Wildly Important Goal (WIG) is the outcome that everyone has bought into. Professionals driven to accomplish the hard work of change know where they are and where they want to be, what 4DX frames as “from X to Y by when” when defining the WIG. With a solid WIG in place, the second discipline – act on lead measures – is where the work of change agents really begins.

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Academic Change, leadership, Philosophy

What’s Wrong with the Status Quo?

by macheditorLeave a Comment on What’s Wrong with the Status Quo?

An oft-heard claim is that compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe. I disagree. With apologies to the physicists, in my opinion, the most powerful force in the universe is inertia. The tendency to stay on course, regardless of the direction or pace (even if zero), provides comfort and protection. Defenders of the status quo say “Don’t fix what isn’t broken” or “We’re already great!”. Those sentiments reinforce systems and their convoluted and capricious rules, conservative procedures, and complaisant improvement processes.

So, beyond that indictment, what’s wrong with the status quo?

The status quo has winners and losers that have been winners and losers for a long time. Often there’s no logical or defensible reason why certain people should be winners and others losers. It just is, and that situation is one that we shouldn’t accept. I contend that we should seek change that creates more winners and fewer losers. This change will almost necessary make former winners feel like losers even if they aren’t really losing, but that’s OK. Change-competent leaders find strategies to celebrate new winners and affirm previous winners.

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