Critique, Spring 2013

Research Findings / Alexis Kraus

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Paper by Paula Hillman:

How can we foster creativity, individualism, and the imaginative spirit across the lifespan, and at the same time find ways to contribute to self- satisfaction, society and culture?

How can we find ways to foster creativity, use imaginative thinking, maintain our individuality, and at the same time contribute to self-satisfaction, society and culture? What can we do to enhance and promote that development from a lifespan perspective?

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"The future of work" - collaborative tools for business cohorts

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" Motivation

Motivation in employees allows them to sustain effort in a particular direction for some period of time. Naturally, management wants motivated employees. But, motivated by what and to what end? Psychological theory often attempts to explain motivation through evaluating people's needs. In Maslows' theory, for instance, needs are ordered from those of basic survival to metaphysical fulfillment. The lowest unmet need, according to theory, is the one driving an individual's behavior. Meshing the motivations of employees with a company's needs can help leaders achieve goals.

Reciprocity

Social exchange theory refers to cooperative, reciprocal behavior that emerges when a person is the recipient of some benefit. A relationship begins when a benefactor bestows something upon another and the recipient, in turn, returns the favor by becoming the benefactor. As the exchange of benefits continues, the relationship grows, built on a sense of mutual obligation and an implied contract. In terms of organizational behavior, social exchange theories predict that those in leadership roles can garner employee backing for company agendas if those employees are treated favorably. If an organization breaks its contract by not keeping benefits up, employees may feel released from their contract with the employer at the cost of loyalty and effort on the company's behalf.

Positivity

The advent of the 21st century saw the development of a new way of approaching organizational behavior. Instead of trying to eliminate the negative, current psychological theory looks at accentuating the positive. This new study falls under the positive psychology movement. Phrases such as "positive organizational behavior" or "positive organizational psychology" are used when positive psychology is applied to organizational behavior. Applied that way, it looks at the positive psychological capital of an organization -- in other words, this new theoretical approach emphasizes what's right and figures out where it comes from so an organization can propagate more of the same. Confidence, hope, resiliency and optimism -- these are the important positive psychological traits that lay behind constructive activity and organizational behavior. This capital can belong to individuals, groups, leaders and to the organization itself.

Group Belonging

Social identity theory refers to the identity a person feels as a member of a group. A sense of group belonging can be a powerful force in an organization because people tend to favor others who are of their group as an extension of self. This can be damaging if the social identity is, for instance, based on race or gender. On the other hand, social identity can create a sense of camaraderie among members of a work team and give it a competitive edge. "

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Design, development, and production are expensive. Impact is untested. The school market is choked.

Yet, demand for change is coming from all sides. Parents want solutions. Teachers seek alternatives. And, students – well, anything that inspires and motivates them in the new digital reality is a good thing.

We’re here to move the proverbial ball down the field.

Our team is committed to the development and distribution of games informed by research in the learning sciences, creative design, and technical development. From electrostatics to Shakespeare, our work spans a vast range of subject areas.

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The designers should provide ways for people to engage with each other as well as instruments to communicate, be creative, share insights and envision their own ideas. The co-design activities can support different levels of participation, from situation in which the external figures are involved just in specific moments to situations in which they take part to the entire process, building up the service together with the designers. 

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Using role play at every stage of the design process has been a vital tool for IDEO in working with clients and users. With the dual properties of bringing participants into the moment and making shared activities physical rather than just mental, role playing techniques make the process more experiential and creatively generative. Role playing is complimentary to traditional design techniques providing additional team dynamics and insights that bring the process and designs to another level. This paper describes how we have used role-playing in our design process and how it can be integrated into any HCI project.

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Most youth robotics programs emphasize technical content; they are designed to teach the definitions and capabilities of components, such as sensors and actuators, and programming in the context of developing science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) knowledge. As an alternative, we are developing youth robotics programs with a different perspective and agenda. Through design and art, our goal is to work with youth to explore the novel views of the urban environment that robotics provide, and reveal and question possible future relations between people, technology, and the city. Our youth robotics programs emphasize creative, critical, and above all, speculative approaches to understanding and engaging with robotics.

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Organizational psychology has long concerned itself with how to design work so that people will enjoy it and want to keep doing it. Traditionally the thinking has been that employers should appeal to workers’ more obvious forms of self-interest: financial incentives, yes, but also work that is inherently interesting or offers the possibility for career advancement.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/magazine/is-giving-the-secret-to-getting-ahead.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

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 Roots & Rhythms is a cultural arts and music education program that aims to increase community building by providing a percussion program to area children and youth. By utilizing language, culture, arts, and performance to develop a strong sense of self-worth, the program fosters a positive group dynamic in a safe, high-energy environment.

  Children and youth in the Roots & Rhythms programs learn the importance of working cooperatively in a group, and also the importance of clear leadership within an ensemble. Participants learn that doing anything well takes hard work, and are held accountable for their behavior and actions. They also learn how to conduct and present themselves publicly; develop stage presence; learn how to be respectful audience members; and how to offer constructive criticism.

  A vital component of the program is the opportunity to make, as well as play, a variety of percussion instruments. Students learn that the ability to make music should never be limited by economics, and they also learn to view found objects (recyclables and construction debris) as natural resources for instrument making and building.

  All aspects of the program are supported through the use of multi-media to present music and performances from Africa, Cuba, and Brazil. Youth compare and contrast those cultures to their own, engage in critical listening of world music, and develop awareness of the larger global community.

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Paul Elliman suggested I look at Summerhill as a percept of experiential learning.  

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Jigsaw is a strategy that emphasizes cooperative learning by providing students an opportunity to actively help each other build comprehension. Use this technique to assign students to reading groups composed of varying skill levels. Each group member is responsible for becoming an "expert" on one section of the assigned material and then "teaching" it to the other members of the team.

http://www.adlit.org/strategies/22371/

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Motivation and Engagement

Enhancing Students’ Engagement by Increasing Teachers’ Autonomy Support:

Johnmarshall Reeve, Hyungshim Jang, Dan Carrell, Soohyun Jeon,  and Jon Barch

"We found that teachers who participated in an informational session on how to support students’ autonomy and who engaged themselves in independent study on the study-specific website were able to teach and motivate their students in more autonomy-supportive ways. We also found that the more teachers used autonomy-supportive instructional behaviors, the more engagement their students showed. This positive effect of autonomy support on students’ en- gagement was found in four separate tests of Hypothesis 2 (for two groups of teachers and for two different measures of engagement). When taken as a whole, we found that veteran high school teachers can become more autonomy support- ive and, to the extent that they are able to do so, their students show greater engagement."

http://selfdeterminationtheory.org/SDT/documents/2004_Reeveetal_MOEM.pdf

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Great quote - "When intrinsic motivation is replaced by a reward, creativity can be crushed."

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Ed Deci on SDT. 

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"On Friday afternoon, at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter hosted a panel titled “Learn. Build. Create.: Connected Learning Over the Next Four Years.” The panel featured a diverse group of panelists including Special Assistant to the President for Education Policy Roberto Rodriguez, MacArthur Foundation Director of Education for U.S. Programs Constance Yowell, and musician and philanthropist John Legend. The group engaged in a discussion on the importance of community-centered, connected learning. The discussion focused on public-private partnerships with a goal to advance STEM education, including EA and GlassLab’s collaborative effort on SimCityEDU."