May/June, 2000
Volume 39 / Number 5
page 9
Developing
a Model for Ethical Dialogue and Decisionmaking
by Janet Roehl, Sheila Murphy, and Susan Burns
Few issues in recent decades have received more attention than that of ethics and the need for ethical decisionmaking within organizations and communities. Typically, the area of ethics is subsumed under the fields of law or religion. In addition, the prevailing pattern in organizations and communities is to dismiss difficult questions, based upon a dearth of preparation for addressing matters of ethical significance. A practical model for dialogue and decisionmaking in ethics is proposed and tested. Its purpose is to generate civil dialogue and ethical treatment of sensitive issues within a variety of settings. The article explores the reasons for the model, describes the model itself, and shares the findings and implications of a pilot test conducted with three groups of university students.
page 13
Establishing
a Productive Climate for Adult Learning in the Small Instructional Group
by Chih-yen Wang
Group dynamics psychologists and cooperative learning sociopsychologists have advocated small instructional groups as a teaching and learning method. The crucial factor that makes the small instructional group effective is a 'supportive' or ' productive' climate, which means a shared problem-solving attitude, feeling of acceptance, empathy toward other group members, and listening to the remarks of others. These following techniques are useful in establishing such group climate in small instructional groups: choosing the right group size (five to seven members), using the flexible physical arrangement in organizing groups and heterogeneous grouping, providing the effective group leadership by instructors and group leaders, clarifying group goals and group tasks, creating strong group norms and group cohesion power, and adopting efficient teaching activities by emphasizing collective group work rather than individual performances.
page 18
Choosing
Training Delivery Media
by Peter R. Hybert
Too often clients and instructional designers decide on delivery media based on either a gut reaction or by focusing too narrowly on only instructional considerations. Poor decisions often result when basic practical factors (such as hardware platform availability or ease of making revisions) are overlooked.
Like other design processes, training and development intervention design can be viewed at three different levels: system architecture design, training process design, and user interface design, At each level, different stakeholders and/or design criteria need to be considered in selecting media.
Effective media selection involves trade-offs between instructional effectiveness, business constraints and goals, and designer preference/experience. Using a three-level design model will help focus the decisionmaking and get the right stakeholders involved in the process. You'll improve customer satisfaction and training effectiveness. It will also enable your organization to establish/evolve standards and reduce cycle time.
page 26
The
Questioning Culture: Perpetual State of the Art
by Irving H. Buchen and Lincoln Rowley
Creating and sustaining a learning organization may have to be supplemented by creating and sustaining a questioning culture. Why questioning? Because that leads to lifelong learning, to doing things differently and innovatively, to making work interesting again by making inquiry a norm, to getting at root cause not just symptoms, and ultimately to engage the future in Q&A. Indeed, a questioning organization may in fact be the future incarnation of the learning organization.
page 31
Storyboarding
Multimedia Interactions
by Linda C. Martin
Many instructional designers in the workforce today are challenged to apply instructional design principles to multimedia-based training (MBT). We need a practical approach to designing good MBT. One of its biggest weaknesses is the lack of interaction. Interactions provide practice and feedback, are a main reason that the technology is used to help make the training interactive, and help retain the interest of adult learners. Some basic formats of interactions are true/false, multiple-choice, multiple multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, matching, click to stop, and simulation. The type of interaction used depends on the objective it supports and the depth of the objective. A basic format of a storyboard interaction includes information for customers, graphic artists, programmers, and production coordinators. Use existing preprogrammed interaction models when possible. There are considerations for using generic versus specific feedback: the type of course you are designing, the objectives, the time to complete development, and the budget.
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