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. 

Week Four Task

What PD happens in your workplace?
What strategies does your organisation have in place to encourage development, change and innovation?

Anne (HUANG Anni)
The organization concerns about professional development as a significant components of sustainable development, involving teachers competency, managers executive and also the support of other related communities. With the integrating of technology as I have mentioned in last session, the leaders in our faculty, the school of foreign language(SFL), think that it is important for staffs to learn what the technology can bring for us and how can we use it to improve students' motivation of English study.  Therefore, a lot of actions were taken:

1). They invite professionals to give lectures about the education overview and tendency of education. 

2). The teachers were required to join a series of training, workshops etc to strengthen their teaching experience.

3). To take advantages of technology, the staffs use Web 2.0 applications in their daily work.  

4). To cope with unexpected change, the detail schedule would be planed in advance and it is not keep unchanged, all staffs were welcome to point out problems and they would seek to address them together.

5). One of the major work by school of foreign language is to enhance students' motivation of learning English, hence, there are many activities were organized for example online discussion forum, English corner and so on. 

Generally, the staff would dislike the change of their behavior and routine as well. However, when they come to know and feel the advantages of innovation, results will inspire them to think more what problems existed now and how should we do to improve it. They think more critically and dig into deep approaches.

CC (XIE Yuchen)
“Professional development is all about making changes.”(Shirky, 2003) And the key institutional assets are people, inside and outside. So better using of these assets to help professional development is the core or the basic of making change in a institution.

1. With a sound management system(inside), the institution of college encourage people(staff, teachers, students) to make change, understand change, learn about change and adapt to change, even develop sustainable change. After getting the “energy” towards change, system will apply for the government help or corporation financial aid(outside) for building a better environment, which guarantees advanced technology and comfortable learning atmosphere.
2. Besides, the organization will provide a variety of training courses to help teacher not only learn new advanced skills but also develop brand-new insight into change.
3. After the change happens, organization will collect data that helpful to evaluate the effect of change. According to all kinds of research and interview, institution will make a completed assessment about change.

To conclusion, the Professional development needs help from: people, inside and outside. Additionally, professional group working, design, implement and assessment is definitely significant for sustainable change. Nevertheless, enabling teachers from accepting change, adapting change, understanding change to develop insight into change, even create a new change is the most difficult part. Consequently, PD is necessary for helping change happened in institution, embedded in each step of making change, moreover, help “change” happened among people.



Abby  (Yao Ruyan)
In the Faculty of Humanities in ZJUT, there are a series of work have been done to support development, change and innovation in professional development.

There is a national teaching training plan for using ICT in education every year. Our faculty offers financial support for the teachers who participant in the training to encourage teachers to get the training. This is a great opportunity for teachers to get to national level ICT implementation training and gain more technical skills to promote the changes in academy.

There is a professional institution in the Faculty of Information technology in education named Modern Educational Technology Research Institution, supporting the ICT implementing for the school and the faculty and doing professional research in the area of using ICT, designing educational software, etc.. This institution provides quality support for the whole school using modern technology software and ICT.

Seminars and academic forums are great resources for gaining more professional and advanced knowledge about ICT implementation.A seminar for universities in HK, Macao, and Zhejiang in campus and educational informationization was held in ZJUT in May,2012. Experts from HKU, CUHK, UM and Zhejiang got together to discuss the informationization in universities and shared ideas and information in technical problems in campus and educational informationization.The Second International Seminar for Smart Learning Environment was held in ZJUT in 2012 for the theme “form a smart learning environment and promote the implementation of ICT in education”. Experts from Canada, Beijing, Shanghai and Zhejiang gave reports and exchanged opinions on establish smart classrooms, reform for curriculum and teaching, ICT supporting for teachers, etc.. It helps a lot for exchanging ideas, sharing the successful cases in ICT implementation, acknowledging the advancing ICT development in education in foreign countries.

Janey  (Hu Jiani)
"PD is all about making changes.""We have to learn to embrace change in all forms and at all levels.""We have to take advantage of new opportunities.""We have to work and learn together in organisations that learn."(Shirky,2003)

In the organization I mentioned before ---- Faculty of Foreign Language has developed a innovative language learning system. My major is Japanese language and literature, so I was acquainted with the implement of this system in Japanese study. The leaders paid lot of attention on it and made series of strategy for implement.

1. develop series of training program for teachers, encourage teachers search and fine Web 2.0 tools which can support language teaching and learning.
2.develop cooperation with IT companies, invite them to follow this system.
3.do survey and get feedback from teachers and students termly
4.leaders and the company stuffs also take part in the online discussion forum in the system, they can experience the system as a user, know and get feeling directly.

At the beginning, some teachers objected to this kind of innovation, they preferred the traditional way of teaching and thought the ICT implementations were not that effective, students' attention might be focus on other things but not learning, and if there some problems on the system, especially in the class time, it might be waste of time. But after the training and a period of time for using the system, they said after being used to the system, everything become easier and more effective.

Week Three Task

1.What strategies does your organization have in place to encourage development, change and innovation?
2.Develop& articulate ideas for describing leading change in an organisation of your choice.
3.Reflection and response from Fullan's framework.

An Analysis From CC (XIE YUCHEN）
What strategies does your organization have in place to encourage development, change and innovation?

As for the fifth discipline: Systems thinking, mental models, mastery, teams, vision, my organization has all have those features, as I mentioned in last session activity.

Important roles in the innovation process include opinion leaders, change agents and change aides.

As far as I concerned, our school provides economic support and technique support to encourage development, change and innovation. When the senior want to make this system himself, he had been encountered many problems. However, our tutor gave him much help that he ask professor to guide him and help him solve problem, which I think is change agents and change aides.

Develop and articulate ideas for describing leading change in an organisation of your choice.

I want to use the framework of leadership: moral purpose, understanding change, relationship building, knowledge creation and sharing and coherence making. With high support rate and the same support from school, our tutor started to lead change in our system, although the foundation of system was made by his student, he gave student the topic and much economic support, technique support. Among this heavy work, he has moral purpose(making a system for faculty is a challenge); he understood the whole process of change, even all kinds of details; he has good relationship with professor and students, so that he successfully achieved the goal; he must be a leader in knowledge creation and sharing, he also reflected different bugs in terms of technique; besides, after the system used in our faculty, he still kept up all problems to coherence making.

What can we learn from this framework? What are the implications in our workplace?

1. Moral purpose

It means that we should not be involved in the vicious competition, and almost every time the leader must pay attention to the mutual benefit rather than personal interest. In our workplace, we must put moral in our heart to keep positive attitude.

2. Understanding change

Only when we understand change, can we do better and more efficient. In our workplace, it is critical to understand the change process and handle the whole development to do better in leadership.

3. Relationship building

In my opinion, good relationship lead to high efficient and good group work, which reflect great team work. Leader organizes a united team require a good relationship-building skill.

4. Knowledge creation and sharing

Equipped with knowledge, group will be stronger and stronger. Thus, knowledge creation and sharing becomes one of most important things for leader. Only when leader set an example for members, can others be more positive and moral to share information and devote to creation.

5. Coherence making

Coherence making is also vital for leadership development. It related to the above 4 components. In a word, these 5 components are close in relationship. It helps to remain the change.

Posted by Anne (HUANG Anni)

What is the implication from Fullan's framework
Looking into the case of managing change, we can identify that leadership plays an decisive role. Generally, a successful leadership contains features such as commitment, understanding change, widely horizon and so on. Principal as leader in school should be concern of the big picture and sustainable innovation. There are five components of Fullan's leadership framework: moral purpose, understanding change, relational building, knowledge creation and sharing and coherence making. 

Actually, I don't understand what moral purpose really means at beginning. After read the paper written by Fullan, I start to learn that moral purpose not just link to how leaders manage the faculties but also how they make difference in the social system. As everyone lives dependently and school as well, to create a sustaining innovation system we need to work together and try to close the gap between high level and low level. Embracing creative ideas doesn't mean that reformation can be put into action immediately. It is important for principal to understand the change process and how to driven the process. Fullan suggested six principles to help understanding. I find he puts much emphasis on step by step and clear as far as possible. Change is a long term process and will definitely overcome many difficulties, which require leaders to keep calm and perseverance to face the challenge and so as to encourage members. Relationship with others have great impact on the whole process ongoing. A good relationship can increase the process or the situation may get worse. Leaders should take advantages of emotion and devote into building a harmonious relationship, which can benefit the next stage. Once people share the same interest they would intend to share knowledge with each other. Different voice help leaders to rethink and make intelligent decision. Finally, the principals should be future-oriented person. Change is as lasting as a war, the difference is that almost people look forward a place where education can be innovative and sustainable.

Develop & articulate ideas for describing leading change in an organisation of your choice.
Technology has become an increasingly important component while a school thinking about encourage change. Most school in mainland China spend a lot of money to integrate technical equipment such as whiteboard, tablet, more desktops in library, studio and classroom. To meet the needs of network, since 2010, the students in our School have access to internet no matter when and where they need to search information as wired and wireless network covered the whole campus. Moreover, with the e-book become more and more popular, the students can borrow them from library. The purpose for doing this is that e-book were supposed to be more economic and convenient for students to take away and share knowledge with each other.  Besides, the innovation brings a change of relationship between teachers and students. Teachers would like to open their mind through hearing from students as some of them are really good at IT. The interaction happens not only on classroom but extended classroom. To sum up, first advantage of technology implementation is technology enriches the method of teaching and learning. Second, both staff and students encouraged to learn more and share knowledge. Thirdly, change always make people rethink and develop.

A Post from Abby (Yao Ruyan)

What strategies does your organization have in place to encourage development, change and innovation?

In the  organization I chose －Faculty of  Humanities in ZJUT, the main strategies supporting development, change and innovation are from three parts: policy ,technology and leading team. 

First one is policy: Policy is very important for organizational development, change and innovation. With the encouragement and guidance from policies,people can do all the changes in a really passionate mode. All technical, economic supports will appear only after the supportive policies are established. In my faculty, the dean and the management team announced several policies per year for promoting innovation and change.

Second one is technology: Technology is the significant impetus. With the a raising tide of technology, all the thoughts,plans about development change and innovation can be realized with the indispensable condition. The facilities in my faculty would be updated every few years in order to keep pace with the teaching plans, students' needs and the changes.

Last one is Leading team: All the innovations and changes are usually following the rules--top-down model. In order to lead a successful change, the top part should be aware of all the policies, spirit, processes and so on. A leading team can be the centre of the development, change and innovation and also can be the supervisor during the whole process. In our school, there is an organization named Modern Educational Technology Research Institution.Every faculty has a corresponding teacher in the institution who would be responsible for all the activities in the faculty.

Develop& articulate ideas for describing leading change in an organisation of your choice.

In Faculty of Humanities, there are usually four steps describing the leading change.
1.The dean and management team would make some policies for our own faculty after the national, school policies announced.
2.The responsible teacher from Modern Educational Technology Research Institution would give theoretic support and make specific plans with the teachers in faculty about carrying out the changes.
3.After a period of time for executing the plan, teachers and the responsible teacher would hold a meeting to exchange ideas and opinions about the plan and make a few changes in order to have a better outcome.
4.When the whole plan finishes, all teachers and students are encouraged to give their opinions about the whole process. And the leaders would collect the opinions and have a summary meeting.

Reflection and response from Fullan's framework.

In this frame work, there are five elements about leadership:moral purpose, understanding change, relationship building, knowledge creation and sharing, coherence making. I'd like to use these five elements to analyze the situation in my case.

1.Moral purpose:The real benefit should be emphasized more on mural part instead of just making the work better. When leaders are thinking of all the changes they should have the whole education and society in their plan.

2.Understanding change: Change just for change's sake is stupid and enervating. When we want to make a change, we want to do something innovative, we need to get the real idea of why we are changing. Only after leaders really understanding change, can change be a better change.

3.Relationship building: During the whole process of development, change and innovation, all work needs to be done by the co-work from all staffs. Build a relationship about cooperation, mutual aid is necessary and important.

4.Knowledge creation and sharing: "You have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas,then each of us will have two ideas." Sharing ideas and knowledge are helpful for stimulating new thoughts and encouraging innovations.

5.Coherence making:Development, change and innovation is a long last work. A period time of work can not be able to change the whole change. All the plan should be a step of the whole picture. 

Understanding of Janey (HU Jiani)

1.What strategies does your organization have in place to encourage development, change and innovation?
My faculty has set up a system for Japanese language learning as I mentioned in the last week assignment. The leader group of my faculty has devoted a lot for building this system. They want to let the language learning more effectively and we students can really use them in real life and work. The made some strategies to encourage development,change and innovation.
For teachers: a series of surveys are prepared for teachers, they can present their feeling of using this system on the online forum freely. These feedback will be considered seriously.
For students: there are online tests for students to check learning outcomes. Also, there are surveys for students.
For software company: my faculty encourage the company to develop the system, and will give them reward.

2.Develop& articulate ideas for describing leading change in an organisation of your choice.
The system I mentioned before was developed after changing the leaders. The new leaders are young, innovative and full of  passion people. Before, the idea of the leader would be considered seriously, but now, the leaders are good at listening the voice from teachers and students.
For the system, students, teachers,leaders and also the software company have responsibility to develop it, this idea works effectively.


3.What can we learn from this framework? What are the implications in our workplace?

1. Moral purpose

Just like my group mate CC said before,"It means that we should not be involved in the vicious competition, and almost every time the leader must pay attention to the mutual benefit rather than personal interest. In our workplace, we must put moral in our heart to keep positive attitude.
I think this factor is very important for the developing Mainland China. In my faculty, leaders really want to do some meaningful things for students learning, so they introduced this online learning system.

2. Understanding change

Time is changing, technology is also changing all the time. We should keep our mind with the speed of social development, find what is necessary, find what is meaningful, find what is good for future. 
In the case of my faculty, at first, some old teachers can't be used to this system very well , they said they prefer the traditional way in teaching.The faculty designed training courses for teachers to support them use this system. When these teachers realized the benefit of this system, they change their understanding. 

3. Relationship building

In my opinion, good relationship lead to good group work. Good cooperation is very important for a successful organization. 
In my case, leaders, teachers, students and software company have good relationship and work effectively together.
4. Knowledge creation and sharing

Knowledge is the power for developing. Sharing let people use resources more effectively. 
By using this system, teachers and students share learning resources in the online database, discuss and communicate on the forum.

5. Coherence making

Above four factors make a coherence outcome. These five factors influent each other, and close to each other.