Baking Bread? Designing for Slackers
Welcome to an episode of ISD-Guy. When we last caught up with our intrepid designer he was trekking through the Mudumalai forest. Luckily, he stopped by our office, so we didn't have to renew our passport.
ISD-Guy, a learned colleague writes:
My Learning 2.0-type class isn't getting the results needed. I read the traffic logs and see that only a few in our class visit the linked resources, no one offers any blog postings, let alone responses, during our synchronous sessions, the same people participate in the chat pods, and collaborative projects are done by the usual gunghoers while the rest of the team members merrily collect their continuing education credit. I've tried discussing the issues, talking to their bosses, as well as other teaching-tactics to no avail. Help!!!
Lost in Virtual Space
***
Dear LVS,
You've got a case of the social loafers, and I'm not talking about bread makers. You are now finding out that if you build it, they won't necessarily come. Another way to put it is "you can't lead a horse to water."
Set up your Way Back machine and visit the good ol' Journal of Personality and Psychology in 1979, look for a great research paper called Many Hands Make Light the Work: The Causes and Consequences of Social Loafing by Bibb Latenae, Kipling Williams, and Stephen Harkins.
LVS, basically, this means that if you have a group, some of the people will slack off. There are design variables you can tinker with to decrease loafing. The amount of structure in a social learning context is under debate, but it's always a good idea to pay attention to human behavior and look for tendencies. It's good practice to focus on the fruits of performance (products) on the job, but when it comes to learning put a magnifying glass on individual performance--design it in! For that matter, isn't it good management to do this on the job, too? Design the group project with defined roles and responsibilities (the group's required project output is usually not as defined; the group decides on the specifics).
Click here for the reference and detail. We'll try and discuss this in more detail and provide a wiki link when it's up.
ISD-Guy, a learned colleague writes:
My Learning 2.0-type class isn't getting the results needed. I read the traffic logs and see that only a few in our class visit the linked resources, no one offers any blog postings, let alone responses, during our synchronous sessions, the same people participate in the chat pods, and collaborative projects are done by the usual gunghoers while the rest of the team members merrily collect their continuing education credit. I've tried discussing the issues, talking to their bosses, as well as other teaching-tactics to no avail. Help!!!
Lost in Virtual Space
***
Dear LVS,
You've got a case of the social loafers, and I'm not talking about bread makers. You are now finding out that if you build it, they won't necessarily come. Another way to put it is "you can't lead a horse to water."
Set up your Way Back machine and visit the good ol' Journal of Personality and Psychology in 1979, look for a great research paper called Many Hands Make Light the Work: The Causes and Consequences of Social Loafing by Bibb Latenae, Kipling Williams, and Stephen Harkins.
LVS, basically, this means that if you have a group, some of the people will slack off. There are design variables you can tinker with to decrease loafing. The amount of structure in a social learning context is under debate, but it's always a good idea to pay attention to human behavior and look for tendencies. It's good practice to focus on the fruits of performance (products) on the job, but when it comes to learning put a magnifying glass on individual performance--design it in! For that matter, isn't it good management to do this on the job, too? Design the group project with defined roles and responsibilities (the group's required project output is usually not as defined; the group decides on the specifics).
Click here for the reference and detail. We'll try and discuss this in more detail and provide a wiki link when it's up.
posted by Mark at 2:25 PM
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