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[ba-ohs-talk] Thinking about asynchronous IBIS (possibly longish, sorry)


Jack,    (01)

Sounds like the GBG could be an interesting paper for Jeff's work shop
on facilitating that is coming up in June.    (02)

Does GBG doing anything other than facilitate meetings?  Glad to hear
you are passing along your wit and wisdom to the next generation.    (03)

Rod    (04)

****************    (05)

Jack Park wrote:
> 
> At http://groups.yahoo.com/group/unrev-II/message/40
> I mentioned the idea of a Glass Bead Game.  Certainly not an original idea
> of mine; rather, it came from Hermann Hesse, and has been picked up in a
> lot of places (just google it to find out!).
> 
> Briefly, a GBG is one in which there is a BeadMaster -- a kind of
> facilitator.  As I understand the GBG, the BeadMaster has a lot of power
> over the direction of the game.  As I have watched Jeff Conklin
> facilitating IBIS discussions, I tend to believe that a facilitator is not
> in the act of exercising power over the direction of the discussion,
> except, perhaps, to try to keep it on track and seduce buy-in from the
> participants from time to time.  In contrast, a BeadMaster analyzes the
> "moves" offered by the participants, and decides on the next directions for
> the game.
> 
> I've been following the arguments that IBIS does not work well (fails?)
> when done in non-face-to-face, asynchronous activities.  Because I am
> interested in taking the IBIS formalism into classrooms situated in
> widely-different time zones, I am motivated to ponder this stated weakness.
> I am imagining three scenarios that try to describe the differences in
> possible approaches.
> 
> Situation A: asynch unfacilitated IBIS at a web site
>         A question is posed
>         Students post responses
>         Responses go straight to the web site
>         Students later respond to responses
>         continue
> 
> Situation B: asynch facilitated IBIS at a web site
>         A question is posed
>         Students post responses
>         Responses go to a hidden site for evaluation by facilitator(s)
>         Facilitators post responses that are, indeed, responsive
>         Students later respond to responses
>         continue
> 
> Situation C: asynch BeadMaster-facilitated IBIS at a web site
>         A question is posed
>         Students post responses
>         Responses go to a hidden site for evaluation by facilitator(s)
>         Facilitators summarize responses and post new question
>         Students later respond to new question
>         continue
> 
> Now, I'm looking for excuses to pursue Situation C.
> Thus far, I am able to generate the following positive responses:
>         This kind of "facilitation" allows facilitators (teachers in an education
> scenario) to track outcomes in the learning process
>         This kind of "facilitation" forces the discussion to stay on track
> and the following negative responses:
>         Requires a huge amount of work on the part of the facilitators
>         Provokes a potentially long response time, with consequent loss of
> pedagogic value in the process
> 
> Contrasting to Situation B, but in relation to C:
> positive:
>         Takes less effort on the part of the facilitators
>         Opportunity for quicker response time
> negative:
>         Less opportunity for track and evaluate progress and outcomes
>         May not achieve "convergence" in the direction of desired outcomes as
> quickly (if ever)
> 
> I've ignored Situation A, because it is the situation most capable of
> allowing for chaotic results and poor learning outcomes. Of course,
> Situation A is really a "quick and dirty" way to get things started, but at
> what cost?
> 
> At the meta-level, it seems that there is more to say about Situations B and C.
> In both cases, it's possible to archive and make available (at the end of
> the learning session) *all* responses, and all discussions taken between
> the facilitators.  Indeed, the facilitators (assuming a group of > 1
> teacher) could/should be operating in their own IBIS session, one that
> cycles the same question dealing with evaluation of the present round of
> learner responses.  I offer the conjecture that there is a huge amount of
> information in such archives from which entire learning activities centered
> on *critical thinking* can happen.
> 
> Returning to my comparison of Situations B and C, I remain interested in
> experimenting with Situation C, the combination of BeadMaster behaviors
> with the facilitation of IBIS-like discussions.  I base that bias on the
> notion that the tradeoff between response-cycle time and achievement of
> desired outcomes weighs (in my naive judgement) in favor of improving
> response time with experience making Situation C a desirable exercise.
> 
> A couple of EUROs on the table.
> What?
> 
> Jack    (06)