The effects of facilitation on punctuated equilibrium in e-collaboration projects

Information technology has transformed the “heartland” of education around the world. Classrooms are global, students international, but traditional methods and their adjacent challenges persist or are exacerbated in online schoolhouses. There is reason to believe that team performance of online students completing team projects can be significantly improved by the active participation of a facilitator. What could explain such improvement? Given the communication barriers that learners can experience using e-learning technologies, the skill of a teacher at facilitating an understanding of e-collaboration and the prescient need to facilitate collaborative skills at all times is essential to a successful educational result. There may also be generational learning style issues to consider. One practical, proven tool is progress reporting. This paper reviews the literature and reflects on author experiences in the online education of Management students at universities in the United States and Australia to draw theoretical connections with communication, leadership, and punctuated equilibrium relevant to contemporary educational practice. The implications of effective facilitation of student teams for Management education and management of student performance are explored.

The pragmatics of text facilitation : the study of academic English of native and non-native writers

In this paper I describe the discursive strategies related to the writer–reader textual reciprocity. I focus on one way of achieving such reciprocity -- the employment by the writer of facilitative schematic structures and metalanguage where one text segment signposts information conveyed in the segment that follows. I refer to these facilitative schematic structures as "organising relational schemata". I see organising relations as the most explicit components of the rhetorical structure of texts: they illuminate the main message and aid the reader's cognitive processes in the orientation of how information is conveyed by text.
This paper discusses the way the choices of organising relations and associated metalanguage by the writers in different cultures and different discourse communities contribute to the communicative homeostasis in the world of text. It shows how the influence of a native culture and intellectual style together with the forces operating within the writer's international disciplinary community interact in the authorial guidance in the scholarly prose.
I introduce and exemplify three types of organising relational structures: Advance Organisers, Introducers and Enumerators. I trace the utilisation of these three types of relations in sociology research papers written in English and produced in "Anglo" and Polish academic discourse comunities by native English speaking and native Polish speaking scholars. The relational typology adopted is based on a study by Golebiowski (2002), which proposed a theoretical framework for the examination of discoursal structure of research papers, referred to as FARS – Framework for the Analysis of the Rhetorical Structure of Texts. FARS entails a relational taxonomy which displays a pattern of rhetorical relations utilised by the writer to achieve textual coherence.
I describe intertextual differences in the frequency of occurrence of organising relations, their degree of explicitness and their positioning in the hierarchical structure of texts. Differences in the mode of employment of textual organisers suggest that the rhetorical structure of English research prose produced by non-native speakers cannot escape being shaped by the characteristics and conventions of the authors’ first language. They are also attributed to cultural norms and conventions as well as educational systems prevailing within the discourse communities which constitute the social contexts of texts.

Inhibition and facilitation in schizotypy

Participants scoring high and low on a schizotypy scale (n = 18 in each group) switched between naming words and naming colors in a Stroop task in congruent, neutral, and incongruent conditions. The findings were that, while being slower and less accurate overall than low schizotypes, the high schizotypy group did not display disproportionately greater Stroop inhibition or facilitation, suggesting intact selective attention. However, the high schizotypy group suffered disproportionately larger switching costs. The results provide evidence for similarities between schizotypy and schizophrenia, specifically that the problem in schizotypy is to do with switching rather than selecting attention, because of a difficulty either in selecting task-relevant information or in inhibiting inappropriate response alternatives.

Evaluation of a large group method in an educational Institution : the World café versus Large Group facilitation.

This article reports on the use of a large group method, theWorld Café, compared to large group facilitation in an educational institutional setting in Oman. Change is central to many educational institutions as they aspire to ensure quality procedures and processes are implemented and maintained. One of the difficulties of introducing change within this context is the number of stakeholders involved, as well as the inherent hierarchical nature of these settings. Large group methods (LGM) are one such intervention for change that seeks to involve a maximum number of stakeholders and minimise hierarchies, while at the same time encouraging participation and creating engagement. To evaluate LGM within this setting, the study compared two different workshop techniques: one workshop was run using the LGM theWorld Café, while the other was conducted using large group facilitation (LGF). Results indicated that theWorld Café was superior to LGF in terms of increases in participant knowledge and understanding. Participants who took part in the LGM were also significantly more likely to indicate that the technique was beneficial to their learning, compared to those who took part in the LGF. Qualitative data in the form of comments also provide support for LGM. Further research is needed to assess the applicability of the findings in educational settings in other countries. Moreover, more stringent research is required to assess over time, changes in behaviours occurring following LGM, to provide further evidence as to their value in facilitating change in institutional settings.

Measuring the performance of a regional cluster in innovation facilitation

Regional industry clusters have been promoted for several years as effective mechanisms to assist firms become more innovative and more competitive. But do they really achieve this goal, and more importantly, just how should an assessment of cluster performance in supporting and facilitating innovation within its members, be undertaken? In this paper we report on a study of a regional IT cluster in Western Sydney, Australia, develop some criteria for assessing the innovation facilitation performance of industry clusters, and discuss the cluster in relation to these criteria. We suggest that engagement with a cluster may enhance the innovation capacity of a firm, and the type of required innovation support varies significantly with the maturity and absorptive capacity of individual firms.

Desistance and attitudes towards sex offenders : facilitation or hindrance?

In an ideal world, there would be a seamless relationship between interventions that focus on risk factors causally associated with sexual reoffending and the subsequent release of, and ongoing support for, offenders into the community. However, emotionally fueled and uninformed public responses to news of released sex offenders, and the legislation such responses have inspired, severely hinder this process. Our aims in this paper are to review findings of research on community attitudes about sex offenders within a desistance framework. More specifically, we provide a synthesis of the current research literature on attitudes towards sex offenders. Second, we consider in more detail those studies that include community member samples. Third, we review interventions aimed at promoting attitude change amongst professionals working with sex offenders and finally formulate some recommendations for promoting positive attitude change amongst the general public.

Developing teacher competencies through videos for facilitation of mathematical modelling in Singapore primary schools

Mathematical modelling tasks which are situated in real-world contexts encourage students to draw connections between school-based mathematics and the real-world, enhancing their engagement in learning. Such tasks often require varied interpretations of the real-world problem context resulting in multiple pathways of solutions. Although mathematical modelling has been introduced in the Singapore mathematics curriculum since 2007, its incorporation in schools has been limited. One reason for this could be that teachers are challenged by how best to facilitate for rich student mathematisation processes during such tasks. This chapter reports how a multi-tiered teaching experiment using design research methodology was conducted to build teachers’ capacity in designing, facilitating, and evaluating student mathematisation during mathematical modelling tasks with an intact class of Primary 5 students (aged 10-11). The use of videos was critical because grounded images helped capture the dynamics and complexity of authentic classroom interactions. This chapter highlights how video recordings of teacher-student interactions during a modelling task were harnessed during design methodology cycles, particularly during the Retrospective Analysis phase, to activate critical moments of learning for the teacher towards developing her competencies in facilitating students’ mathematisation processes.

A transcultural dance: enriching work-based learning facilitation

In this chapter you will learn:
• To question what it might mean to be an ‘international student’, and position students as bringing a vibrant array of different perspectives which can be rich learning assets.
• A pedagogic model of facilitation that moves towards mutual adaptivity in learning contexts where both you and your learners learn new ways of thinking and acting as well as different professional practices across cultures.
• Strategies for learner adaptivity including integrating diverse examples and cases, connecting to and validating diverse experiences and prior knowledge, accommodating diverse needs, and reciprocating learning about different ways of thinking, acting and feeling across cultures.
• Strategies to enable and sustain a learning environment for work-based learning study success.

Building virtual learning communities

This chapter introduces the concept of virtual learning communities and discusses and further enhances the theory and definitions presented in related literature. A model comprising four criteria essential to virtual learning communities is presented and discussed in detail. Theory and case studies relating to the impact of virtual learning communities on distance education and students from diverse cultural groups are also examined. In addition, this chapter investigates the enabling technologies and facilitation that is required to build virtual learning communities. Other case studies are used to illustrate the process of building virtual learning communities. Emerging technologies such as wikis and video lectures are also analysed to determine the effects they have on building and sustaining effective virtual learning communities.