Resource

Week 1

Connecting Informal and Formal Learning Experiences in the Age of Participatory Media 

Organizational Learning and Communities-of-Practice: Toward a Unified View of Working, Learning, and Innovation

A Framework for Market-Based  Organizational  Learning-  Linking Values Knowledge and Behavior

Week 2

Racism in American Education: A Model for Change.
Education, Opportunity, and Social Inequality: Changing Prospects in Western Society.
Lewin's 3-step Organizational Change Model
Change Management Model and The 7 Stages of Change

Week 3

How I Use Twitter In My Classroom
Best Practice of Audio-Video Setup on Adobe Connect 8
Leading Organizations in Times of Change

Week 4

IOM Checklis
iPads in schools - major infusion

Week 5
Week 5 Prezi
Is Yours A Learning Organisation?

Week 6
Stephen Heppell's Story
Organizational storytelling
Story Telling Theory and Practice
Week 6 Prezi
Prezi of storytelling
西蒙·斯涅克：伟大的领袖如何激励行动

Week 7




Week 8

Week Eight

Week Seven

HUANG Anni (Anne)

It looked like an normal night as usual. Every student in our school could not feel any difference. Suddenly the network was cut. We failed to connect the Internet. A terrible news was spread quickly by words while most students were complaining about the network problem. A freshman fell from the fifth floor of her dormitory by accident. Obviously, the authorities of school wanted to cover the thing as they worry about the impact of social media. The bad news would affect the good reputation that have been built for a long term. However, cutting the campus network was unable to stop the news flow outside because students could communicate with outsider by using their mobile phones. For a while, journalist crews arrived school and collect the information from faculties and students. The news emerged on newspaper in the next day. What was worse, those students who lived in the same building with deceased were too scared to live there. They moved out one after another. At the end of story, the building became a horrific place that no one dare to close to it.

In my opinion, to deal with this unexpected accident, the school should use strategies and the problem can be addressed appropriately. Scenario planning is of great importance through looking at the perspective of emergency action.

Implementing scenario planning

(1)Identify focal issue

-The main reason for causing such great panic is that the leadership tries hiding the truth, which makes the things go worse.

-The school do not provide emotional supporting for students.

(2)Search for driving

-The emergency system needs improvement.

(3)Find uncertainties

-Those kind of accident is rare happen.

-How to set up a system to deal with not only falling off building but other unexpected.

(4)Formulate scenario logic

 pre-prevention

-Increase the safety awareness about dormitory of students.

-The building superintendent should make inspection tour frequently.

-Prepare students facing with death.

 post-handling

-A prime official announcement should be published.

-Organize investigator to collect evidence and announce the processing.

-Arrange faculties or consultants to support students.

-Hold activities to morn the deceased and encourage students to attend.

(5)Strategic analysis 

Scenario planning is necessary for an organization. It plays an important role in facing to the future uncertainties. The strategy depends on not only the designed system but the  executive power. But even the best-laid plans can not apply to any unanticipated events. We need to master the spirit of imperturbability in front of change.

XIE Yuchen(CC)

Since my previous college is located beside QianJiang River, and the place is low-lying, flooding sometimes happened. In 2007, Hangzhou came across uninterrupted 3-day heavy raining. Our college was attacked by the flood, the highest water level reached approximately 1.0 meter, so either staff or student was trapped inside dormitory. When they felt hungry, they must be equipped the whole body to walk with difficulty towards supermarket to stock up on comestible. School also published that all the students must stay in school, in dormitory, additionally, all the class, the activities would suspended for 3 days or more. From that on, we all stayed in our dormitory and ate food insanely tooken from supermarket. We lived with friends and computers, looking forward to the day that we could freely and easily walking around. Finally, the whole college awoke and be back to normal life after five days. During the five days, we students were living overwhelmed that we didn’t know how school deal with the flood and what measure they had taken for our trapped life. Therefore if the school have scenario planning, maybe the situation will be better.

Implementing a scenario planning process

1. Identify focal issue
-Try to have lesson in dormitory through Internet.
-Provide both spiritual support and necessity support for students.
-Publish every strategy and measure that school is under taking.

2. Search for driving forces
-Making a detailed research and analysis on contextual environment and working environment.
-According to the research on environment, judge beneficial information that have influence on my organization and strengthen them.

3. Find uncertainties
-When the flood will happen.
-Whether teachers are available to take lessons.
-Food supply.
-When the Internet is not available.

4. Formulate scenario logic

1) Prevention
-Open cources to rise safety and self-protecting awareness about flood among students.
-Frequently practice abandon drill so students will be aware of the chaos of situation and avoid contingency.
-Create a learning platform online in advance as well as the necessity supply source.
-Organize a trained team to service and become security assurance to deal with emergency.

2) Period
-Guide students towards safety and calm them down.
-Update announcement to publish every stage of school.
-Open the accessable of online learning platform to have regular lessons.
-Keep necessity supply and mess hall available during the whole period.
-In case the Internet is not available, there is a group that can maintain it anytime.

5. Strategic analysis
During the prevention and the period, there are different strategy. In the process of prevention, it’s more focus on the structure of environment and security assurance, as well as all kinds of plannings in terms of assumptions. On the contrary, during the period, my organization need to pay more attention to students, their need and their emotion, their learning as well. It is a rich experience to improve ability for handling with emergency in school.


Jiani HU(Janey)


When I was an undergraduate student, the police of dormitory was very inhumanity and the quality of the internet in our dormitory was quite bad. Every student should live in the dormitory, unless the one whose home is in the same city or has house there. However, for freshmen, everybody should live in the dormitory. The electronic was offered in the decided period. We couldn't use electronic between 8:00 am to 5:00 pm and neither after 11:00 pm. It's very inconvenient for our study. And the speed of the internet is quite slow, and it was always broken. Since we should do some homework through the Internet and discuss with our group partner or other people, it make us angry when the internet can't work well.

Implementing scenario planning

(1)Identify focal issue

-The leaders of the university don't trust students, they want to control the students, not treat them as adults.

-The school do not provide emotional supporting for students.

(2)Search for driving

-The policy should be changed and the internet should be improved.

(3)Find uncertainties

-The bad speed and quality of internet happened normally but not every time.

(4)Formulate scenario logic

-Change the internet line in the dormitory.

-Check the electronic system of the dormitory .

Abby （Yao Ruyan）

For most people, it is a normal school day but not the same to students in my high school.

It is the second day for the classes resuming after a strong typhoon. The weather was really cool and comfortable，everyone thought it would be a normal school day. In the afternoon, suddenly the sky turned dark，the storm was like the cry of some god in pain, the rain was really heavy. After a while, there was a power outage. Whole school was in the dark within screeching. In a long period the school was all in dark until about one hour later, the power was restored.

For this kind of thing I think school needs some plan cause at that time I was in high school, we could handle this kind of things better. But for the younger students like those in primary school or junior school, they might really be panic in such situation.

Implementing a scenario planning process

1.Identify focal issue

A lecture or safety lesson should be opened to give basic knowledge for all the students.

2.Search for driving forces

We should offer a comparatively perfect system for emergency.

3.Find uncertainties

The kind of accidents are rare happen in life but they still exist. We should be aware of it.

4.Formulate scenario logic

We should help students to build a better self-protection thought.

Week Six Work -- Storytelling in the organization

Anne (HUANG Anni)

When I was a junior in SFL, I acted as a teaching assistant to manage the lower grade student's affairs. Once in a staff regular meeting, one of the teachers said that "traditional roll call that usually taken in person by teacher is a very fussy and tedious task. Because it is really difficult to increase student's participation. This morning I have a question for students to translate. Everyone just keeps silent after I show the question. I know most of them want to say something and even they have exact right answer. But they are afraid of speak up in front of other people. In total 10 minutes, the whole class just stays in a quiet situation. That feeling for me is pretty bad. Interaction between the teacher and the students become so difficult so that we have to draw up strategies to overcome it. I read some articles introducing Random Roll Call System, which has a random name picker for appointing one students to be a lucky one from the name list saved in Excel. This can be used to light the free atmosphere in classroom and offer fair opportunity for the individual as well."

The teacher shared us with her idea because she had identify the problem and was trying to figure out solution. It aroused other teachers consensus and they tend to embrace this new technology. The Random Roll Call System began to used in all over the SFL. Through training most teachers enabled to use it in their teaching. It is effective to gain student's attention and encourage them to think positively.


CC (XIE Yuchen)

As for the faculty of education in my former college, before they agree to design a system by faculty itself, teachers attended more than 3 meetings to decide. The tutor guaranteed that his student had talent in programming and the faculty was strong enough to design this system, on the other hand, school promised to give space and material assistance. At the beginning, half teachers hesitated, so the tutor gave a table of collected data to show the possibility of success in terms of economic condition.

Besides, he said a story about his student. “Ignore the excellent skills in programming, he is a lucubrator. Every question that I mentioned in class will be considered as a good learning chance for him, and then when he comes with some problems, he is willing to spend more time in depth thinking. Once there was a bug in my programming which was my teaching text, he went to me and asked for this mistake after 3 days. Finally I realized that he spent 3 days from judging this bug to modification.” Then other teachers agreed this plan and implement this plan with full of confidence. The storytelling is really helpful to acquire trust from others.


Abby（Yao Ruyan）

My story is the thing happened in my third year in ZJUT.

At that time, the faculty newly implemented a new ICT tool in teaching and learning. A part of the teachers were old and not good at the technical things and some young also did not want to use the new tool. One teacher from other major was very actively in promoting the new tool. After a period of observation, he offered a plan to the faculty about how to promote the new technology and a supported group should be formed. Since then, teachers were trained by some teachers who were good at using the tool.  And teachers were also asked to view other teachers' classes to observe how the class goes on with the new tool. After that they would hold a meeting to exchange ideas monthly. The new tool was fully used in the faculty and well supported the teaching.

Janey (HU Jiani)

My story is about my faculty in NJAU. The new leader-group's members introduced a ICT system for language learning in our faculty. However, some old teachers weren't used in using this system. They had some meetings themselves and list some disadvantage of the system, such as it was a waste of time to set up the system in the class period, students might focus on the funny media things but not the class content and so on. The leaders accepted their advises and decided to design series of training courses for the teachers, so they could use the system effectively.

After the training courses, teachers felt the benefit of the system, and adapt to use the system and thought it was really effective for the language learning.

This story told us cooperation is very important for an organization. The opinions from every part of the organization should be considered carefully.

Week Five Work in Class

Result from Abby (Yao Ruyan)

post by Anne(HUANG Anni)

CC(Xie Yuchen)

Janey(Hu Jiani)

Anne (HUANG Anni)

From the data presented, it is easily to determine how well the organizations functions. Three factors are taken to be concerned, they are supportive learning environment, concrete learning process and practices, leadership that reinforce learning. First, I will analyze the performance of my learning organization.

What are the advantages of SFL: 

1) Appreciation of differences 85.7%: Different ideas are welcomed in SFL where the staffs can point out problems and express his opinions.

2) Openness to new ideas 92.9%: The score means the creative new ideas are highly valued in SFL.

3) SFL is basically good at learning process and practices. As I have explained in previous sessions, the organization takes serious of development. Importantly, the managers actively response to change, that the staffs feel encouraged to come up with systematically schedule.

What are the disadvantages of SFL:

1) Psychological safety 77.1%: People in this unit can feel stress of competition. If you make a mistake or your measure is beyond schedule, others may feel uncomfortable.  

2) Time for reflection 77.1%: It is weak in this area because the SFL is eager to make difference.

Comparing performance of SFL against other three organizations:ZJUT(Abby's), FE(CC's) and FFL(Janey's), it reveals some useful information. We can find some areas SFL thought are strengthens are actually less robust than other organizations

a. FFL mentioned by Janey works very well in the area of appreciation of differences and time for reflection. However, this organization needs a breadth of perspective to open to new ideas.

b. For the learning process and practices, ZJUT organization mentioned by Abby is in a state of negative situation. ZJUT(CC) and FFL have obvious advantages in some areas. 

c. Analysis of leadership that reinforce learning clarifies that the manager in ZJUT(Abby) and SFL spend less time and resources to drive the innovation. On the other hand, ZJUT and FFL encourage creative and different views. 

Harvard Review Survery helps us to identify area where the organization is weak and need to improve. Assignment Task 1 asks what strategies does your organization (or an organization of your choice) have in place to encourage development, change and innovation. From the analysis we are able to suggest the organization which activities can be sustained, and which can be improved.

Abby （Yao Ruyan）

In my case, my faculty did not get high scores in all parts. But they did well in the following several parts: time for reflection,experimentation,education and training,information transfer. It shows that my faculty pays a lot of attentions on training, professional development, communication and reflecting on former educational work. But we did not so good at agreeing the disagrees and supporting new thoughts. I think it's the time for us to introspect about accepting new ideas and new thoughts.

Back to Anne's, her case all gets high scores and mainly in information transfer, information collection, education and training, openness to new ideas. It shows that Anne's case is good at collecting and transferring information and opening-minded to those new ideas and thoughts.But her case is same as mine in bad at learning processes composite.

Back to CC's, her case also gets pretty high scores at information collection, analysis, information  transfer and leadership that reenforces learning. It is also bad at learning processes composite and psychological safety.

Back to Janey's, her case gets high scores for experimentation, education and training, information transfer, appreciation of difference and leadership that reinforces learning, be relatively bad at learning processes composite, openness to new ideas and information collection.

Basically, those four cases are all good at collecting information and correspondingly bad at accepting new ideas and learning processes composite. I think it is a normal sense happened in Chinese schools and organizations which is what we can do to make them a better and organized organization.

Comparison from CC

Table of data comparison:

Scaled Scores	YAO Ruyan	XIE Yuchen	HUANG Anni	HU Jiani
Psychological Safety	57.1	65.7	77.1	80
Appreciation of Differences	46.4	85.7	85.7	96.4
Openness to New Ideas	50	85.7	92.9	78.6
Time for Reflection	74.3	65.7	77.1	88.6
LEARNING ENVIRONMENT COMPOSITE	57	75.7	83.2	85.9
Experimentation	71.4	75	89.3	100
Information Collection	69	100	97.6	78.6
Analysis	57.1	97.1	94.3	85.7
Education and Training	78.6	88.1	95.2	100
Information Transfer	73.2	94.6	98.2	100
LEARNING PROCESSES COMPOSITE	45.6	60.6	66.6	68.7
LEARDERSHIP THAT REINFORCES LEARNING	60	92.5	72.5	90

Compared with my members’ organizations, my organization is weak in “Time for Reflection” and “Psychological Safety”, but seems strong in “Information Collection”, “Analysis”, “Information Transfer” and “Leadership that reinforces learning”. My organization, the faculty of education in Zhejiang University of Technology, need to establish a more comfortable environment that makes staffs develop a sense of safety, a sense of home to publish ideas, even the different ideas, new ideas. Reflection is also significant to continue work and develop a sustainable change. So it is useful for my individual assignment.

Besides, Anni and Jiani’s organizations do well in “Experimentation”, “Education and Training” and “Information Transfer”. I think I learn a lot from their post and analysis. Maybe establishing a system that show important information and making access to information easier and more convenient is an important component.


Janey (HU Jiani)

According to the questionnaire, I wonder if I give my organization a too high comment… Redid the survey again, the outcome was almost as same as before, so I think it did have a high performance in this area.

After analyzing the data, it turns out that my organization is good in Appreciation of Differences, Experimentation, Education and Training, Information Transfer and LEADERSHIP THAT REINFORCES LEARNING. It is because of the new ICTE system we used in language teaching and learning, the leaders have devoted a lot to develop this system and tried their best to let the system work efficiently. My faculty has a good cooperation with the IT company, and they also designed series of training courses for teachers being used to the system as soon as possible.

However, there still some parts of performance need to be improve. The scores of LEARNING PRCESSES COMPOSITE, Openness to New Ides and Information Collection are lower than other factors. Students and teachers’ advises, suggestions and feelings should be taken more considered.

Compare to my group mates’ scaled scores, my organization’s scores are higher in some parts. Anne’s data and CC’s data don’t have a huge difference, Abby’s data is much lower, she and CC were in the same university but different faculties, I’m interested in why there are such big difference between different faculties in the same university.