Transcript Linking the Real World to the Classroom Theme: Work

Linking the Real World to
the Classroom
Theme: Work-integrated and service-learning
for cultural competence
Practice Example
Presented by
Corina Raduescu
Business School, Business Information Systems
Discipline
[email protected]
Corina Raduescu, The University of Sydney
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Agenda
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Background
Cultural Competence
Challenges in Business Information Systems (BIS) Education
Design Thinking: The Driving Framework
Teaching and Learning Strategies
Insights
Conclusion
Future Direction
Corina Raduescu, The University of Sydney
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1. Background
INFS3070 Business Analysis in Practice
– First time offered in 2013.
– Enhancing the employability skills
and graduate attributes essential to
successful complex business problems
solving through effective business
requirements analysis.
– Focus on:
– hard skills - tools, techniques, methodologies used by business analysts
– soft skills - communication, facilitation, negotiation, diversity, and creativity
– Heavy practical emphasis with hands-on exercises on real case
scenarios and co-delivery with industry partners.
Corina Raduescu, The University of Sydney
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2. Cultural Competence
“ … a set of congruent behaviours, attitudes and policies that
come together in a system, agency or among professionals and
enables that system, agency, or those professionals to work
effectively in cross-cultural situations.”
Operationally defined, cultural competence is:
“ … the integration and transformation of knowledge about
individuals and groups of people into specific standards, policies,
practices, and attitudes used in appropriate cultural settings to
increase the quality of services, thereby producing better outcomes.”
Centre for Cultural Competence, Australia
www.ccca.com.au
Corina Raduescu, The University of Sydney
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A Learning Journey Towards the Real World
1.
2.
3.
4.
Awareness of one’s cultural views:
understand diversity-related values and
beliefs in order to recognise barriers
and opportunities for learning and
development.
Attitude: realise how values and beliefs
impact cross-cultural effectiveness by
becoming open to different views and
opinions; positive attitude.
Knowledge of different cultural practices
and views: know how culture impacts
problem solving in cross-cultural
interactions.
Skills: ability to effectively experience
or manage cultural differences; crosscultural communication and problem
solving skills.
http://wehearyou.acecqa.gov.au/2014/07/10/what-does-it-mean-to-be-culturally-competent/
Corina Raduescu, The University of Sydney
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3. Challenges … and Opportunities in BIS Education
– Accommodating diverse groups of multicultural learners in Business
School
– Equipping graduates with the necessary skillset to perform with
competence in global, multicultural, and fast changing technological
environments.
– The nature of the future workforce and business response to on-going
change present us as educators with particular challenges:
– Existing ‘struggles’ to find “appropriately skilled talent” in a rapidly
changing global economy (PwC 2015).
– Data, digital technologies and innovation are widely recognised as key
drivers in creating a competitive and sustainable economy (CEDA 2015;
PwC 2015).
– Australia is “only average in its competency and capacity to innovate”
(OECD report cf PwC 2015, 13).
– Building a strong innovation ecosystem requires business leaders and
educators to work together and co-design programs that will not only
develop strong technology skills, but also “boundary-crossing” skills (e.g.,
leadership, problem-solving, communication, cultural competence, design
thinking, critical thinking, analytical, curiosity and imagination) (CEDA 2014;
PwC 2015).
Corina Raduescu, The University of Sydney
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4. Design Thinking: The Driving Framework
Image source: http://www.designthinkingforeducators.com/design-thinking/
Corina Raduescu, The University of Sydney
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4. Design Thinking (Brown 2008)
“A human centric prototype-driven process for solving
problems and innovation.”
Becoming
aware
Leveraging attitudes
and knowledge
Corina Raduescu, The University of Sydney
Applying knowledge
and skills
Image source: http://dschool.stanford.edu/dgift/
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5. Teaching & Learning Strategies
Our aim was to expose students to cultural and diversity
sensitivity by continuously engaging them
in problem solving activities that required them to:
1. understand and leverage the strengths and
weaknesses rooted in both their domain specific
knowledge and backgrounds;
2. to actively embrace and apply those skills.
Corina Raduescu, The University of Sydney
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Teaching & Learning Strategies (1)
Lectures and Guest Speakers
– We created an environment where the practice continuously
challenged the theory by co-delivering with industry partners
to expose students to both perspectives
– We introduced topics that challenged students to think outside
the box and dealt with uncertainty
– We invited guest speakers from diverse backgrounds and
multinational organisations to explain how culture and diversity
are cultivated and essential to successful organisations and
workplace
– CEO/ Founder of an app development organisation, Change managers,
former students currently working as Business analysts, software
developers (Atlassian), IBM Technical Manager, Yammer/ Microsoft
Customer Experience Manager
Corina Raduescu, The University of Sydney
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Teaching & Learning Strategies (2)
Role Play & Case-based Exercises
– We asked students to continuously engage in brainstorming,
interviewing, workshops followed by briefing sessions for
solving problems while playing different roles
– We set up exercises to undertake same small project using
different project management approaches (e.g., waterfall,
agile, mixed) to experiment the differences and reflect/
compare the result with the theoretical expectations (we had
surprises!)
– We asked students to use agile methods that welcome change
and collaborative technologies (i.e., Confluence, Yammer) in
their projects
Corina Raduescu, The University of Sydney
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Exercises Example
– In groups of 5-6 students, think for a minute, then share with
your group the one word that you would use to describe the
effectiveness of your communication. Then select one word that
best describes your group communication practices.
– Create a set of values for each group to measure the group
view of success by comparing their group values to their own
standards and expectations.
–
–
–
–
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Brainstorm success values and reflect on them
Read what other groups have written
Identify common values/ reflection
Learn about those you don’t understand
Score the values that are the most important for your team up to 5
points
– Discuss the commonalities and the success values with highest votes
Corina Raduescu, The University of Sydney
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Teaching & Learning Strategies (3)
Field Trips
– We took students in a tour of CBA Darling Quarter premises to raise
awareness of the future workplace and the innovation process in
leading organisations
Exploration
– We delivered classes in various venues in both Darlington and CBD
campuses to raise students’ ability to adapt to new contexts
– We continuously challenged students to think outside the box and
enhance group creativity by organising design thinking sessions to
elicit future technologies requirements in order to embrace ideation
and diversity
http://rippleffectgroup.com/2014/04/17/design-led-business-analysis-inpractice-at-the-university-of-sydney-business-school/
Corina Raduescu, The University of Sydney
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Teaching & Learning Strategies (4)
Paper and Opinion Discussions
– We sought to discuss and critique papers and opinion pieces that
challenge the status quo, focus on diversity, change, adaptability, and
boundary crossing skills in projects
–
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–
–
–
–
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Shore (2008), “Systematic biases and culture in project failures”
Snowden et. al. (2007), “A Leaders Framework for Decision Making”
Kahneman (2011), “Think Fast and Slow”
Raduescu and Marjanovic (2011), “Towards Educating Boundary Spanning
Professionals across BPM and BI Domains”
McAfee (2009), “Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools for Your
Organization's Toughest Challenges”
Brown (2008), “Design Thinking”
Pink (2005), “A Whole New Mind”
Hinchcliffe and Kim (2012), “Social Business by Design”
Change management: “Influencer Self-Assessment”
The Case for Social Business: Industry papers and opinions, e.g., Deloitte
Corina Raduescu, The University of Sydney
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Teaching & Learning Strategies (5)
Assessment
– We set up a real case scenario brought in by the industry partner
– Project Brief
– Business Requirements Document
– Solution Prototype
– We exposed students to uncertainty by presenting them with the
consequences of the current problems; they had to explore what the real
problems are as opposed to be given the problems from start
– We tried to move away from a structured to an uncertain environment
– We created tasks for student collaboration and exposure to diversity:
– conducting interviews, focus groups, and brainstorming with industry partners (we
developed “Fact sheets” as answers if the right question was asked)
– writing project briefs, documenting business requirements (we created templates)
– designing prototypes
– incorporating the on-going feedback
– We asked students to pitch their final prototypes to senior industry partners
in a boardroom setting facing unexpected questions at times
Corina Raduescu, The University of Sydney
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Corina Raduescu, The University of Sydney
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Teaching & Learning Strategies (6)
Reflective Journal
– We asked students to select and reflect on various topics of
interest form the readings or from the guest speakers by:
– Explaining how the chosen topic relates to the Business Analyst (BA)
profession and Business Analysis tasks (e.g., analyse the relevance and
value of the topic to the requirements process, project delivery, change
management, implementation plan, etc.);
– Discussing how did the topic change their way of thinking and ways in
which they can incorporate ideas from the topic into their group
assignments;
– Discussing what lessons have they learnt from the readings that are
useful for their future career skills and work practices (e.g., good
practices, challenges, avoiding pitfalls, etc.).
Corina Raduescu, The University of Sydney
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6. Insights (1): Awareness & Positive Attitudes
1. Questioning opinions
– Through discussions and reflections of readings, students have
become open to accepting other opinions and see this as an
advantage to their group work.
– They realised the “cult-like adoration of leaders” is a practice in
their university projects, when students with good result are
unquestioned by other group members.
– Therefore they accepted that in projects that address complex
problems and require creative solutions, they would greatly benefit
from collective thinking and diversity of ideas and perspectives.
Corina Raduescu, The University of Sydney
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Insights (2): Awareness & Positive Attitudes
2. Accepting and integrating diverse values
– Students have displayed positive attitudes towards the importance of
communication and social interaction.
– They have suggested that in the future they will approach the group
work differently than the past; in past they worked individualistically
with some intermittent discussion followed by submitting separate
sections.
– Now they argue they will endeavour to approach group work more
professionally and allow discussion to constitute a larger part of their
work and efforts, to help solidify a group mentality.
– They will investment trust in their group members and view projects
as a social process (Sauer and Reich, p.188).
Corina Raduescu, The University of Sydney
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Insights (3): Knowledge and Skills
3. Integrating diverse knowledge and skills
– Students expressed that following in class work and readings, they discussed
everything together to build up each others’ ideas, despite conflicting views
at times.
– They worked towards creating a comfortable environment for sharing
opinions; and based on this approach, as a stakeholder group, they were
happy with their final assignment solutions.
– Students referred to Snowden’s notion of “entrained thinking” as an inhibitor
to good decision making; “once you have a solution in mind it is a challenge
to deviate.” They saw the value of this concept and how it can be applied to
solving problems.
– In an example in class, students were told to think of a solution with the
vague requirement “4 wheels and a motor”. Then they were shown an image
of the solution, a lawnmower. This highlighted how vague requirements can
be interpreted differently. The facilitator asked students to stop thinking
about the lawnmower solution to show how entrained thinking can result in
incorrect solutions.
Corina Raduescu, The University of Sydney
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Insights (4): Knowledge and Skills
4. Understanding and integrating diverse skills
– Students engaged more and more in practicing real collaboration in
their projects. For example, one student noted that their thinking
beforehand was that if there is an excellent leader in a group, it is
possible to come up with the best outcome.
– That view has changed as the student read some of the materials and
now the student believed that all the members of the group should
have skills and qualities such as leadership and communication.
– As a consequence of this process, the student admitted that for future
group project, they were going through, they shared these thoughts
with our group members so they practises on these skills and qualities
to make the most efficient decision making and deliver beneficial
value.
– They have also acknowledged the value of collaboration and work
alongside individuals from other disciplines.
Corina Raduescu, The University of Sydney
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Insights (5): Knowledge and Skills
5. Integrating autonomy and collaboration
– Throughout the entire UoS we have worked towards developing a sense of
proactivity, need of change in order to become agile in future work.
– One concept we emphasised was “responsive organisations” and the frameworks
and tools used to achieve this. As a result, students acknowledged that on a smaller
scale within their own group, they were behaving as a responsive organisation. For
each stage of the project, they would decide as a team what direction to take, then
assign sections of work for each group member.
– In this way, they allowed autonomy for members to complete the task using the
method they preferred. They took responsibility for their own work, but at the same
time they collaborated using google documents so all team members could
contribute and give feedback to any section that was completed by any team
member. This collaborative document encouraged transparency, they communicated
freely and worked like a network rather than working on separate sections in
several word documents.
– As a result of these experiences students now understand how becoming a
responsive organisation is beneficial not only to the organisation’s productivity but
also for the employees’ engagement and happiness with the work that they are
conducting.
Corina Raduescu, The University of Sydney
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Insights (6): Knowledge and Skills
6. Experimentation through formal-informal working mechanisms
We attempted to encourage students curiosity and experimentation.
– Currently, one issue we face is that Business Analysts do not seek significant
innovation but focusing on the best alternative out of a few solutions.
– Students found that they did exactly the same in their group assignment.
Instead of thinking of new ways to tackle the issue on hand they looked at
the best alternative out of the products available in the market. They
learned that by incorporating experimentation, it could allow for new
solutions to be created through exploration of constraints and by posing
questions in ways that have not been done previously.
– Students found that particular to their group experience was the informality
of the group meetings. Students believed the overall dynamic of the group
is also a significant factor to the success of the project. The fact that the
group dynamic had very high energy and engagement during group
meetings was reflected in their higher quality work.
Corina Raduescu, The University of Sydney
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Insights (7): USE Results 2013-2014
Strongly Agree & Agree %
90.00%
84.40%
85.00%
80.00%
86.10%
87.50%
84.40%
81.25%
77.80%
77.80%
75%
75.00%
75%
75%
70.00%
The teaching in this I found the knowledge The assessment in this
The feedback I
Overall, I am satisfied
unit helped me to and skills I gained in unit allowed me to received on my work with the quality of this
learn effectively.
this unit relevant.
demonstrate what I
helped to further
Unit.
had learned.
advance my learning.
2013
2014
Response rate:
• 92% in 2013, N=39
• 80% in 2014, N=42
Corina Raduescu, The University of Sydney
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7. Conclusion: What Have We Achieved?
– Designed a learning environment to increase students’ exposure
and awareness of accepting and embracing diversity
– Facilitated learning experiences for students to become open
to diverse values, beliefs, and opinions
– Designed learning activities for students to practice problem
solving and develop better working patterns in diverse
environments through cross-cultural interactions
– Received positive insights on students’ learning outcomes and
experiences
– Observed an increase in the quality of student work outcomes
– We had six students who have been offered job opportunities
by the industry partners
Corina Raduescu, The University of Sydney
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8. Future Direction
– I welcome ideas/ suggestions on future direction
– Develop an Evaluation plan to validate and verify the
claims in 2016 – methods, techniques?
– Conference -> Journal paper
– Open to collaboration/ cross faculty studies
– …
Corina Raduescu, The University of Sydney
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Thank You!
References can be provided by request
[email protected]
Corina Raduescu, The University of Sydney
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