!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
Streamline Training & Documentation
Streamline Training & Documentation
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
Working People of Holyoke III: The Decline of New England's Mills
Stagnant wages in Holyoke mills, enforced by the availability of low-wage workers in the southern states, contributed to pervasive disenchantment with mill work among young people in New England after World War II. William Hartford describes the situation in Working People of Holyoke: Class and Ethnicity in a Massachusetts Mill Town, 1850-1960: The crucial decade was the 1930s. As Marc Miller has written of Lowell [MA] during the depression, "a natural partner to high unemployment was exemplary school attendance." ... As late as 1950 in Holyoke, median school years completed was still only 9.9. But this was an increase of nearly a full school year since 1940, and there was every indication that this and related measures would continue to rise in the future.
{. . .]
... A number of parents simply stated that they wanted their children to be happy, to be able to do what they wished. However vaguely phrased, these statements tell us much about the meaning of social mobility in working-class America. What these parents most wanted for their children was that they have choices, choices that they as children did not have; and in the end, what their children chose to do was less important than that they be able to choose at all. As Madeleine Biehler [a Holyoke resident of French-Canadian extraction] said of her mother, "It was always do what I didn't do"
When the next generation began making these choices, textile employment ranked low on its list of career alternatives. ... This was the case not only in Holyoke, but throughout much of New England as well. From Adams, Massachusetts, Wauregan, Connecticut, West Warwick, Rhode Island, and Biddeford, Maine, came similar reports after World War II, all stating that young people were consciously avoiding textile work. The reasons for their decisions were perhaps best summarized in a 1950 study of the state textile industry by the Massachusetts House of Representatives:
It was represented to the Commission that because of beliefs such as that mill work entailed lack of opportunity, unpleasant surroundings, absence of progressive personnel and industrial relations policies, relatively low wages, and the uncertainty of regular employment, a stigma is attached to employment in the industry in the Northern States. These beliefs repel younger persons and children of textile workers, the normal replacement, and results in their turning to other forms of employment.
Don Vandergriff II: Developing Adaptive Leaders at West Point
A couple of earlierposts discussed John Boyd, who served as an Air Force officer from 1951 to 1975. Among his notable contributions to military thinking is the "OODA loop," aka the "Boyd Cycle," a decision-making process summarized in the graphic below.
Adapted from ""No 'Approved Solutions' in Asymmetric Warfare" (pdf), by Maj. Chad Foster. The Orientation phase is highlighted because the orientation process is emphasized in West Point's military science classes that use the Adaptive Leadership Methodology.
The OODA Loop is now embedded in military science courses taught to cadets at the US Military Academy at West Point. This is part of a broader framework designed to develop students' adaptive leadership skills.
As Maj. Chad Foster explains in a brief article (pdf) published in the August 2009 issue of West Point's Assembly magazine, Don Vandergriff's Adaptive Leadership Methodology (ALM) is now used in Academy military science classes in order to nurture "effective decision-making and adaptability through experiential learning."
The graphic below shows how ALM governs the flow of a class. The OODA Loop comes into play at the points where students need to reach decisions on how to handle scenarios the teacher presents.
The emphasis is on the Orientation phase of the OODA Loop
because this is when the cadet attempts to make sense out of the information at hand. The decision is important, but how the cadet arrived at it is just as important.
In concluding his article, Foster notes that implementing the Adaptive Leadership Methodology at West Point involved considerable effort, but that the results — in terms of student engagement and learning — have clearly made the effort worthwhile.
Don Vandergriff I: Teaching the Adaptive Leadership Methodology
Back in December, Donald Vandergriff, a retired US Army officer who now acts as a consultant on leadership development, wrote a post for his blog that gives a good idea of the type of training he recommends — and conducts — for members of the armed forces and civilian law enforcement organizations.
Vandergriff advocates leadership development training that emphasizes adaptability. As you can see from his blog post, Vandergriff is focused on adaptability because it is essential for being able to handle complex problem situations, especially when time is of the essence.
In brief, Vandergriff teaches the Adaptive Leadership Methodology as follows:
Experimentation comes first through the execution of Tactical Decision-Making Exercises (TDEs) [see below] followed by the officers briefing their decisions, plans or orders. After the officer explained him or herself and responded to criticism from their peers and me, the group executed an intense instructor-facilitated after-action review (AARs). The “teaching” was accomplished through AARs as the officers discovered for themselves the concepts and principles included in workshop’s outcomes.
Vandergriff explains how the TDEs are set up:
Each TDE consisted of a scenario summary and a map with graphics. I either handed out a printed copy of the scenario or issued it verbally to the officers, requiring them to listen closely and take notes. The TDEs were two types (1) immediate decision exercises that gave the officers only 30 seconds or a few minutes to make a decision and (2) planning exercises that are longer in duration and culminate in the briefing of orders. In either case, the officers were given limited time and limited information to make their decisions and to complete their plans. This induced stress and allowed them to discover for themselves that delaying decisions until one has “perfect intelligence” or to wait for “permission” is both unrealistic and ineffective.
Citing the work of Robert Bjork, a psychology professor at UCLA for support, Vandergriff reports that he has consistently found that long-term learning is greater if specific tasks are taught in the larger context of problem solving (as opposed to being taught in isolation as a series of lessons that take the form "in situation X, do the following").
On October 20 Henry Roediger, a psychology professor at Washington University, and Bridgid Finn, a post-doc at the Memory Lab that Roediger heads, published a short article at ScientificAmerican.com reporting on recent research that provides further evidence of the power of the testing effect, defined as "improved performance on a later retention test arising from an earlier test."1
Roediger and Finn outline the findings from two sets of experiments aimed at determining if testing people on material they have not studied boosts their recall of the material on a subsequent test even though the testees, understandably, get most of the answers on the initial test wrong.
The first set of experiments is described in a paper (pdf) by Nate Kornell, a psychology professor at Williams College, Matthew Hays, a post-doc at USC's Institute for Creative Technologies, and Robert Bjork, a psychology professor at UCLA.2. As the abstract explains:
Taking tests enhances learning. But what happens when one cannot answer a test question — does an unsuccessful retrieval attempt impede future learning or enhance it? The authors examined this question using materials that ensured that retrieval attempts would be unsuccessful. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants were asked fictional general-knowledge questions (e.g., “What peace treaty ended the Calumet War?”). In Experiments 3–6, participants were shown a cue word (e.g., whale) and were asked to guess a weak associate (e.g., mammal); the rare trials on which participants guessed the correct response were excluded from the analyses. In the test condition, participants attempted to answer the question before being shown the answer; in the read-only condition, the question and answer were presented together. Unsuccessful retrieval attempts enhanced learning with both types of materials. These results demonstrate that retrieval attempts enhance future learning; they also suggest that taking challenging tests — instead of avoiding errors — may be one key to effective learning.
In sum: the read-only condition emulates someone sitting down and reading a portion of a textbook. How much does the person remember? Not as much as if he/she had been quizzed in advance on the material, even if the answers he/she came up with were largely wrong.
A key point is that the unsuccessful retrieval attempts need to be followed by feedback providing the right answers in order for enhanced learning to occur.
Kornell, Hays, and Bjork (KHB) also found, as have previous researchers, that the benefit of testing increased as the delay between study and the final test of the material increased. The reason seems to be that testing is more effective at preventing forgetting than is a read-only/no-initial-test approach to learning.
KHB offer three conjectures concerning the reason for the testing effect:
Testing enhances deep processing (elaborated thinking about the material), which, in turn, enhances learning.
Retrieval strengthens retrieval routes from the question to the correct answer. And "it could be that exploring incorrect retrieval routes actually weakens, rather than strengthens, those routes."
"... information generated from memory during a retrieval attempt, even if it is incorrect, can serve to cue future recall attempts. In other words, incorrect information can serve as a mediator, connecting the question with the correct answer. ... unsucessful retrieval attempts are likely to produce related information that can serve to mediate recall of the correct answer." [reference omitted]
KHB close their paper with the advice that "educators and learners should introduce challenges into learning situations, including using tests as learning events, even if doing so increases initial error rates."
The second set of experiments is described in a paper (pdf) by Lindsey Richland, an education professor at the University of California, Irvine, Nate Kornell, and Liche Sean Kao, a graduate student in education at Irvine.3 As explained in the abstract:
Testing previously studied information enhances long-term memory, particularly when the information is successfully retrieved from memory. The authors examined the effect of unsuccessful retrieval attempts on learning. Participants in 5 experiments read an essay about vision. In the test condition, they were asked about embedded concepts before reading the passage; in the extended study condition, they were given a longer time to read the passage. To distinguish the effects of testing from attention direction, the authors emphasized the tested concepts in both conditions, using italics or bolded keywords or, in Experiment 5, by presenting the questions but not asking participants to answer them before reading the passage. Posttest performance was better in the test condition than in the extended study condition in all experiments — a pretesting effect — even though only items that were not successfully retrieved on the pretest were analyzed. The testing effect appears to be attributable, in part, to the role unsuccessful tests play in enhancing future learning.
What this research suggests is that if you have a chunk of time available in which students can get themselves "in gear" for a class session on a new topic, it's better to use the time for testing — even if the students give a lot of wrong answers — than to adopt a "study hall" approach of having the students spend the time reading about the topic.4
Richland, Kornell, and Kao emphasize the importance of following the pre-testing with instruction that provides answers to the tested questions. They go on to say that
... our data suggest that instruction following testing need not be individualized to learner errors. Rather, instruction that appropriately draws attention to key content may build on the previous cognitive acts performed when attempting to answer a test question. This implies that standardized tests, or other test situations where it is difficult to provide timely item-by-item feedback, could still provide learning benefits for successful and unsuccessful test takers, as long as those test takers are given an opportunity to learn the information on which they were previously tested.
For an overview of research relating to the testing effect, you can see a survey paper published by Henry Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke in 2006.5 In the paper Roediger and Karpicke argue:
The testing effect cannot be explained by additional exposure to the material. This suggests that retrieval processes engaged in during a test are responsible for enhancing learning. More specifically, elaboration of encoding [processing of sensory input into memory], more effortful or deeper encoding, and creation of different routes of access can account for the basic effect. ... The concept of transfer-appropriate processing is also congenial, albeit at a general level, to explaining the testing effect. [As explained earlier in the paper, "The idea behind transfer-appropriate processing is that performance on a test of memory benefits to the extent that the processes required to perform well on the test match encoding operations engaged during prior learning."]
They also note that the testing effect can be exploited with more complex learning than memorization — such as the learning required in college-level courses or at business firms — by adopting an approach of frequent assignments. In other words, "testing" should be interpreted broadly; it's not just multiple choice, true/false, and fill-in-the-blank testing of memory.
In closing, let's return to the Roediger/Finn article. The authors offer this practical advice, reflecting all the insight that has accumulated concerning the testing effect:
By challenging ourselves to retrieve or generate answers we can improve our recall. Keep that in mind next time you turn to Google for an answer, and give yourself a little more time to come up with the answer on your own.
Students might consider taking the questions in the back of the textbook chapter and try to answer them before reading the chapter. (If there are no questions, convert the section headings to questions. If the heading is Pavlovian Conditioning, ask yourself What is Pavlovian conditioning?). Then read the chapter and answer the questions while reading it. When the chapter is finished, go back to the questions and try answering them again. For any you miss, restudy that section of the chapter. Then wait a few days and try to answer the questions again (restudying when you need to). Keep this practice up on all the chapters you read before the exam and you will be have learned the material in a durable manner and be able to retrieve it long after you have left the course.
Of course, these are general-purpose strategies and work for any type of material, not just textbooks. And remember, even if you get the questions wrong as you self-test yourself during study, the process is still useful, indeed much more useful than just studying. [emphasis added]
The key take-away from all of the testing effect research is that testing is useful not only for assessment but also as a tool to promote learning.
__________ 1 Mark McDaniel, Henry Roediger, and Kathleen McDermott, "Generalizing Test-Enhanced Learning from the Laboratory to the Classroom," Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, Vol. 14, No. 2 (2007), pp. 200-206.
2 Nate Kornell, Matthew Hays,and Robert Bjork, "Unsuccessful Retrieval Attempts Enhance Subsequent Learning," Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, Vol. 35, No. 4 (2009), pp. 989-998.
3 Lindsey Richland, Nate Kornell, and Liche Kao, "The Pre-testing Effect: Do Unsuccessful Retrieval Attempts Enhance Larning?" Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, Vol. 15, No. 3 (2009), pp. 243-257.
4 It should be noted that Richland, Korness, and Kao did not find that their pretesting slowed the rate of forgetting.
5 Henry Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke, "The Power of Testing Memory: Basic Research and Implications for Educational Practice," Perspectives on Psychological Science, Vol. 1, No. 3 (2006), pp. 181-210.
At his Memory Lab, Roediger oversees the Test-Enhanced Learning in the Classroom (TELC) project, which is based on these four principles: "(1) Testing enhances learning (better than repeated studying), and students should be tested frequently; (2) Production tests (short answer or essay tests) produce better retention at delays than do recognition tests (multiple choice, true/false); (3) Multiple tests are better than single tests in enhancing learning; and (4) Immediate feedback improves the effect of testing, especially for facts missed on the tests."
Thanks to the Greater Good blog, I have been alerted to a study that suggests people can learn to be more emotionally intelligent.
The study was conducted by four Belgian researchers — Delphine Nelis, Jordi Quoidbach, Moïra Mikolajczak, and Michel Hansenne. Nelis, Quoidbach, and Hansenne are at the University of Liège; Mikolajczak is at the Université Catholique de Louvain.1
The construct of emotional intelligence (EI) refers to the individual differences in the perception, processing, regulation, and utilization of emotional information. As these differences have been shown to have a significant impact on important life outcomes (e.g., mental and physical health, work performance and social relationships), this study investigated, using a controlled experimental design, whether it is possible to increase EI. Participants of the experimental group received a brief empirically-derived EI training (four group training sessions of two hours and a half) while control participants continued to live normally. Results showed a significant increase in emotion identification and emotion management abilities in the training group. Follow-up measures after 6 months revealed that these changes were persistent. No significant change was observed in the control group. These findings suggest that EI can be improved ...
Because the text of the study is not available for free online, you might want to turn for additional detail to the description of the research Timothy A. Pychyl, a psychology professor at Carleton University, provides at www.PsychologyToday.com:
The EI training intervention consisted of 4 sessions of 2.5 hours each over 4 weeks with participants divided into two smaller groups (10 and 9 participants, respectively). The training was based on Mayer and Salovey's model of EI,[2] with an emphasis on: 1) perception, appraisal and expression of emotion; 2) emotional facilitation of thinking; 3) understanding and analyzing emotions; 4) reflective regulation of emotion. During the program, particular emphasis was placed on techniques to enhance emotional regulation and emotional understanding. These sessions were based on short lectures, role plays, discussions and readings. Participants also completed a daily dairy of emotional experience that they analyzed in light of the theory explained in class as part of their learning.
The moral for corporate trainers is that well-designed coaching and training in the interpersonal skills that reflect emotional intelligence can equip people to do a better job of communicating with each other and managing conflict — assuming training participants are willing to learn.
(I will be on the lookout for further information on the exact nature of the training the Belgian researchers used in their experiment. I am also interested in anything I can find about their thoughts concerning how to improve the specifics of their training in light of their experience with their initial group of subjects.)
__________ 1 Delphine Nelis, Jordi Quoidbach, Moïra Mikolajczak, and Michel Hansenne, "Increasing Emotional Intelligence: (How) is it possible?" Personality and Individual Differences, Vol. 47, No. 1 (July 2009), pp. 36-41.
2 John D. Mayer and Peter Salovey, "What is Emotional Intelligence?" (pdf) in Peter Salovey and David J. Sluyter (eds.), Emotional Development and Emotional Intelligence: Educational Implications (Basic Books, 1997), pp. 3-31.
Back in June I wrote a post about David Kennedy's approach to deterring criminal offenders, who had not yet perpetrated violent crimes, from continuing their illegal activities. Now, thanks to a book review, also dating from June, I've become aware of an approach to reducing recidivism among jailed offenders that seems to be attracting increasing attention in the US after being used successfully in San Francisco since 1997.1
Schwartz is a program administrator in the San Francisco Sheriff's Department who co-founded the department's Resolve to Stop the Violence Project (RSVP), along with Assistant Sheriff Michael Marcum and Captain Rebecca Benoit.
Participants in the RSVP Expressive Arts program learn about replacing the macho image of superiority that contributed to their violent behavior, with a more humane view of the male role in society. The theater program also helps participants learn ways of expressing their feelings and needs in a nonviolent manner. (sunnyschwartz.com)
RSVP is a version of what has come to be known as restorative justice, which is most simply defined as:
all approaches to crime that attempt to do justice by repairing the harm crime causes.2
RSVP's founders made a point of designing the program based on input from an advisory committee made up of representatives of a broad cross-section of law enforcement and community stakeholders, including crime victims. The program was the 2004 recipient of the Innovations in American Government Award, presented by the Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
You can get a quick overview of RSVP in the 3:08 video below.
A longer account of the program is offered in the 28:23 video below, which ran on PBS in 2005 as part of the Visionaries series hosted by Sam Waterston.
Among those interviewed are Sunny Schwartz; Michael Hennessey, Sheriff of San Francisco; Ronald Rosado, a Deputy Sheriff working in the dormitory where the RSVP program is based; George Jurand, RSVP Program Coordinator and Manager; Sheryl Corke, Principal of Five Keys Charter School (see below); Teresa Camajani, a history teacher at Five Keys; Delia Ginorio, Survivor Restoration Coordinator; and Jean O'Hara, a former Victim Impact Coordinator, who lost her daughter, son-in-law, and grandson to murder.
There is also footage of unnamed inmates participating in RSVP discussions, including a victim impact presentation by Jean O'Hara.
Using data from a two-year period beginning nine months prior to the inception of RSVP, and continuing for fifteen months after its launch, James Gilligan, then a visiting professor of psychiatry, criminology, and public policy and practice at the University of Pennsylvania, and Bandy Lee. a clinical professor of law and psychiatry at Yale, evaluated the program's effects on inmate behavior. Their hypothesis:
... the dormitory in which violence-prevention skills are taught through RSVP would create a cultural environment that would generate fewer violent incidents than the dormitory without such a programme, [which] turned out to be the case.3
The effect on the frequency with which ex-offenders were re-arrested for violent crimes was also positive: Among jail inmates who took part for a full sixteen weeks, the reduction was over 80% for the first year after release, compared to a control group of non-participants.4
Gilligan and Lee argue that
The seeds of a change in [the in-jail] culture can be seen in some of the principles that characterized the in-house version of RSVP: (1) redefining the male-role image of superiority; (2) holding oneself accountable rather than minimizing or blaming; (3) offering peer-directed guidance and having avenues for promotion; (4) verbalizing rather than acting out: (5) expressing emotions as needs; and (6) offering intimacy rather than offence. ... Finding violence to be not only an ineffectual but counterproductive means of gaining respect in [the] new culture, the inmates would quickly search for other means, which facilitated their compliance and adaptation.
I was particularly interested in the nature of the integrated pre- and post-release services provided to inmates to assist in their transition back into the community, services which bear a not surprising resemblance to those offered in various programs around the country directed at populations with employability barriers.5
The services include:
Core RSVP curriculum designed to change attitudes, beliefs and behaviors — includes male role re-education (using the Manalive curriculum), victim impact presentations, drug and alcohol recovery, theater, and release planning (further details below).6
A propos of the victim impact presentations, Gilligan and Lee comment that "we have been astonished by ... how little awareness most of these men had had as to how much power they had to hurt others, until they listened to ... victims describe their own reactions to being victimized by others." 7
Community meetings — held weekly in the RSVP dormitory to allow participants to discuss day-to-day issues they are coping with.
Loss of Innocence class — participants can explore and address trauma and victimization they experienced in childhood.
Fatherhood curriculum — a twelve-week program in which participants "discuss the father's role in a child's life, the importance of providing children with a consistent and supportive environment, and issues children face as they grow up in a single parent's home."
Young Adult class — inmates twenty-eight and under address their violence, drug dependency, and recidivism problems.
Creative writing — participants contribute to the dormitory's newsletter, with the aim of strengthening writing skills and exercising creativity.
Transfer planning — produces an exit plan spelling out the steps and tools the inmate will continue to employ in order to maintain a life free of violence and substance abuse.
The transfer planning includes plans for restoration of victims and the community. For details of RSVP's services for crime victims and survivors, see here. For services to communities, see here.
Post-release programs — designed to assist ex-offenders in maintaining behavior changes learned in the in-jail program. Include the Post-Release Education Program (PREP), which continues, at least for the first year, participation in Manalive discussion groups and weekly facilitated support groups. PREP also includes a Life Skills program with three components, the first dealing with job readiness, exploration of career opportunities, and apprenticeship programs; the second involving resume preparation and practice employment interviews; and the third covering tracking of ex-offenders' progress and ongoing support with work-related issues. Participants get counseling and support in such areass as substance abuse avoidance and parenting.
Internship Program — for select participants, a four- to six-month training program that prepares them for employment as peer counselors in the jail or at human services agencies.
Community advocacy programs — ex-offenders can give back to the community in such ways as leading Manalive groups, performing in theater programs for the public, counseling youth groups, and engaging in victim restitution programs.
I'll wrap up with a summary comment from Sunny Schwartz, et al. that indicates why emulation of RSVP elsewhere is important:
As an affirmative crime prevention tool that actively engages inmates, RSVP has been successful in giving participants, collaborators, and the community a greater understanding of the nature and dynamics of violence, including the spectrum of abusive behavior, the importance of gender-role training, the significance of learned behavior, the methods for unlearning violence, and the criminal implications and consequences of violence.8
__________ 1 Helen Epstein, "America's Prisons: Is There Hope?" The New York Review of Books, Vol. 56, No. 10 (June 11, 2009).
As an example of the spread of the RSVP program, see this report by Kate Stone Lombardi in the July 6, 2008 edition of the New York Times, which describes the introduction of the RSVP approach to Westchester County.
2Restorative Juvenile Justice: Repairing the Harm of Youth Crime, Bazemore and Walgrave (eds.) (Criminal Justice Press, 1999).
3 James Gilligan and Bandy Lee, "The Resolve to Stop the Violence Project: Transforming an In-house Culture of Violence through a Jail-Based Programme," Journal of Public Health Vol. 27, No. 2 (June 2005b), pp. 149-155.
4 James Gilligan and Bandy Lee, "The Resolve to Stop the Violence Project: Reducing Violence in the Community through a Jail-Based Initiative," Journal of Public Health, Vol 27, No. 2 (June 2005a), pp. 143-148.
5 Some of these programs have been the subject of previous posts. See here, here, here, and here.
6Sunny Schwartz, Michael Hennessey, and Leslie Levitas, "Designing: Not Business as Usual," American Jails, Jan-Feb 2005, pp. 10.
Perceived Expertise, Expressed Certainty, and Persuasiveness
A recent paper by graduate student Uma R. Karmarkar and professor of marketing Zakary L. Tormala of the Stanford Graduate School of Business looks at an aspect of being persuasive to consumers that in all likelihood has broader applicability.1
Karmarkar and Tormala investigate the effect on persuasiveness of whether someone making a subjective recommendation (e.g., concerning a restaurant) expresses certainty or, alternatively, a degree of uncertainty about the recommendation.
The research indicates that the effect of expressing certainty/uncertainty on persuasiveness when subjective judgments are involved and when the argument presented is strong depends on whether the recommendation comes from a perceived expert or a perceived nonexpert. Specifically,
... low[-]expertise sources violate expectancies, simulate involvement, and promote persuasion when they express certainty, whereas high[-]expertise sources violate expectancies, simulate involvement, and promote persuasion when they express uncertainty.
Karmarkar and Tormala reached their conclusion by analyzing the results of three experiments:
An initial test of the incongruity hypothesis, i.e., the hypothesis that an expert who expresses uncertainty, or a non-expert who expresses certainty, will intrigue message receivers and thereby make them more susceptible to persuasion. The results supported this hypothesis.
An investigation of the effect of the message deliverer's certainty on persuasion. Karmarkar and Tormala tested the hypotheses that (1) violation of expectations concerning the relation of expertise and certainty increases the message receiver's involvement (attention to and interest in the message), and (2) increased receiver involvement increases the persuasiveness of the message (assuming it includes strong arguments). The results supported these hypotheses.
An investigation of the impact of varying argument quality. Karmarkar and Tormala tested the hypotheses that (1) increasing receiver involvement by establishing incongruity between the deliver's expertise and certainty has more of an impact on persuasiveness for strong arguments than for weak arguments, and (2) strong arguments produce higher "thought favorability" (e.g., favorable ideas about a restaurant under review), which, in turn, produce more persuasion (in the form of favorable attitudes toward, and interest in, the restaurant). The results supported these hypotheses.
Note that incongruity between expertise and certainty, by increasing receiver involvement, will tend to undermine persuasion if the arguments in the message are weak. At best, there will likely be no effect on the receiver's attitudes and intentions.
Karmarkar and Tormala conclude their paper by pointing out the tactics that their results suggest people should consider when delivering messages involving subjective judgments:
"... individuals lacking in established expertise can augment their persuasive impact when they have strong arguments by strategically incorporating expressions of high certainty into their message."
"... when experts have strong arguments on their side, they will be more influential if they express uncertainty rather than certainty about their opinion or recommendation."
My own thought is that this research has likely applicability for messaging outside the consumer context. For instance, in facilitating classroom training, it is probably advisable not to adopt too strong a tone of certainty when discussing subjective recommendations. Indeed, good facilitators know that leaving space for participants to explore issues about which the facilitator has a point of view (not the same thing as utter certainty) increases participant engagement and promotes learning.
Note: You can read the Stanford business school's summary of Karmarkar and Tormala's research here.
__________ 1 Uma R. Karmarkar and Zakary L. Tormala, "Believe Me, I Have No Idea What I’m Talking About: The Effects of Source Certainty on Consumer Involvement and Persuasion," Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 36, No. 6 (April 2010); published online October 6, 2009.
The Harvard Business School Version of Participant-Centered Learning
Harvard Business School has made a collection of video and text materials available that elucidate the school's approach to helping students develop skills and powers of judgment that business managers need in order to be effective. This resource was produced in 2004, drawing on sessions of a colloquium on participant-centered learning that the business school continues to offer every year.
There are three sections to the resource:
"A Case Study Teacher in Action" The teacher in question is David Garvin.
– A 34-minute video clip making the case for participant-centered learning, along with eight shorter clips (all less than three minutes) dealing with such topics as two-way learning, advice for first-time teachers, and qualities of effective teachers.
– Fourteen short clips (the longest is just over four minutes) offering advice on how the teacher and students should prepare for classes that use the participant-centered learning approach.
– A nine-minute clip on the challenges of implementing participant-centered learning, along with six short clips (all less than four minutes) offering further advice on how to adopt and support the technique. There is also a compilation of challenges a school faces in introducing participant-centered learning, and a collection of comments about their own experiences in transitioning to participant-centered learning that members of the colloquium offered.
The fabled course on "Justice" (aka Moral Reasoning 22) that Michael Sandel has been teaching at Harvard since 1980 is now available in a video version that you can access online or on PBS. Harvard and WBGH Boston co-produced the series of twelve hour-long episodes.1
Each episode is divided into two half-hour segments, as summarized in the listing below. Please note that the brief descriptions I give here the barest sketches of the content. Fuller synopses are provided at the "Justice" website. The dates in the listing let you know when a particular episode becomes available online. The first two episodes are already available, and a new episode will be added each Sunday through November 29.
The Twelve Episodes of "Justice"
9/13 The Moral Side of Murder Would you kill one person if you knew doing so would save five other people?
The Case for Cannibalism Is the principle of utilitarianism right? Should we always do what ever will produce "the greatest good for the greatest number"?
9/20 Putting a Price Tag on Life Is it possible to put a price on a person's life? If so, how exactly do you do it? Do you follow the principle of utilitarianism? some other principle?
How to Measure Pleasure Is John Stuart Mill right that utilitarianism is compatible with protection of individual rights?
9/27 Free to Choose What are the arguments for and against libertarianism?
Who Owns Me? Is progressive taxation defensible?
10/4 This Land is My Land How valid is John Locke's view that all people have inalienable rights to life, liberty, and property?
Consenting Adults Is Locke right that tax laws passed by a majority, but not by 100% of the people in a society, are legitimate?
10/11 Hired Guns Should a nation's army be formed via conscription, or on a volunteer basis?
Motherhood for Sale Is surrogate motherhood OK?
10/18 Mind Your Motive Is Kant right that a good act has moral worth only if it is done for the right reason, namely out of a recognition of duty?
The Supreme Principle of Morality Is Kant's concept of the categorical imperative sound? (The categorical imperative directs us to "identify the principle expressed in [an] action, and then ask whether that principle could ever become a universal law that every other human being could act on.")
10/25 A Lesson in Lying When, if ever, is lying OK? When is being misleading equivalent to lying?
A Deal is a Deal Is John Rawls right that we can derive fair principles only if we do so by imagining ourselves behind a "veil of ignorance" that prevents us from knowing our own personal socio-economic position?
11/1 What's a Fair Start? Is Rawls right that the only fair distribution of income, wealth, and opportunities is one that is equal for all members of society?
What Do We Deserve? A recap that compares libertarianism, the meritocratic principle, and John Rawls's views concerning the distribution of income, wealth, and life opportunities.
11/8 Arguing Affirmative Action What are the pros and cons of affirmative action?
What's the Purpose? Is Aristotle right that "justice is a matter of fitting a person's virtues with an appropriate role"?
11/15 The Good Citizen Is Aristotle right that "those citizens who contribute most to the purpose of the community are the ones who should be most rewarded?" What is the purpose of any given community?
Freedom vs. Fit Does Aristotle give too little consideration to individual rights?
11/22The Claims of Community Do people have obligations to their community, above and beyond obligations to humanity in general?
Where Our Loyalty Lies Can obligations of loyalty to a community or country outweigh universal duties?
11/29 Debating Same Sex Marriage How do you decide if same sex marriage is OK?
The Good Life "Is it necessary to reason about the good life in order to decide what rights people have and what is just? If so, how is it possible to argue about the nature of the good life?"
Accompanying Materials
The video for each episode is accompanied by a number of collateral resources:
Synopses of the two segments
A public discussion circle (forum)
A particular justice or fairness issue on which you can vote Yes or No
A quiz to help you review
A short list of related readings
Two discussion guides, one at the beginner level, the other advanced
Teaser questions for the next episode
If you'd like to watch a trailer for the "Justice" course, with beautiful footage shot in Harvard's Sanders Theater, you can go here.
As a final note, if you're interested in knowing more about Sandel's book to accompany the course, Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?", published this month, you can read about it here.
__________ 1 As explained in an article in the September 26, 2009 edition of the New York Times, the video footage of class sessions comes from 2005 and 2006.
For the story of how one company sought in a practical way to assess the success of a learning program, you can read the write-up available at corporatetraining.ie, an Irish education and training portal.
The company in question, identified in the narrative as "M Ltd.," is a manufacturing concern with 20 employees. M Ltd. undertook a leadership training program that combined classroom sessions with one-on-one coaching. The individuals trained were a production manager, a supervisor and a senior employee.
In assessing the impact of the training, M Ltd. considered outcomes at Kirkpatrick's Level Two — amount of content learned — and Level Three — amount of on-the-job application.
Level 2 — At an evaluation meeting, the training participants presented "individual 30-minute summaries of key ideas or skills acquired during training." The presentations were interactive, in the sense that the firm's general manager, who was the key audience member, asked the employees questions while they were speaking. (E.g., What was the most important skill you learned? What are the most common conflict-resolution styles that you see us using here at M Ltd.? How do you use the four basic communication styles with the people you supervise?)
Level 3 — "The employees reported that the training had enhanced their ability to communicate and listen. Evidence of improved communication at work was noticed in less time spent by the manager and the employees in locating materials, messages and equipment. Better communication also improved message flow and reduced lost time. For example, after training [the general manager] instituted 30-minute overlap meetings between day- and night-shift supervisors. Previously, shift overlap lasted no more than five minutes, which resulted in confusing or missed communication. With increased overlap, day- and night-shift problems related to scheduling, machine operation and personnel issues were minimised resulting in shortened lines of communication and a smoother turnover of work shifts.
"Other evidence that some classroom learning was being applied to workplace situations was the institution of Monday morning meetings among the general manager, the production manager, the supervisor and the senior employee to review issues and anticipate problems for the upcoming week. Prior to training, these meetings were sporadic and did not always include all key personnel."
The narrative closes with recommendations for enhancements to the training and for improving the Level 2 evaluation meeting. The most important of the latter recommendations was to explicitly assess what the one-on-one coaching contributed to the learning process.
The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis has published a six-lesson curriculum (pdf) on the Great Depression that is geared to high school students, but is suitable for anyone interested in brushing up on the era.
The curriculum begins with an overview essay, which is followed by six lessons (which are designed to stand alone, so a teacher delivering the curriculum can freely choose which lessons to cover):
Measuring the Great Depression — "This lesson introduces tools — such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the unemployment rate and the Consumer Price Index (CPI) — that are used to measure the economy’s health, through an analysis of simple bar charts and graphs. Developing an understanding of these concepts is critical to understanding the magnitude of the economic problems that took place during the Great Depression."
What Do People Say? — "There are many suggested causes for the Great Depression. It is important for students to understand that occurrences such as the stock market crash — and other events that affected particular sectors of the economy — were important, but not significant enough to cause the Great Depression. By reading fictitious letters that reflect actual problems and people’s concerns during the Great Depression, students begin to identify with the people of that era and to uncover the problems that people experienced during the Great Depression."
What Really Caused the Great Depression? — "Through participation in two simulations, students determine that bank panics and a shrinking money supply were the primary causes of the Great Depression. Through an additional activity, they see how the many other factors they have discussed, such as problems in the agricultural sector and the stock market crash, exacerbated the situation."
Dealing with the Great Depression — "Students learn about programs initiated through the New Deal. By comparing and categorizing New Deal programs, they recognize that the value of most of these programs was their effects on the confidence that U.S. citizens had in the economy. Students also identify the impact that these programs had on the role of the U.S. government in the economy."
Turn Your Radio On — "Students use excerpts from Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 'fireside chats' to identify his plans for restoring the economy. They determine that using available technology to communicate was important to FDR’s effort to restore consumer confidence."
Could It Happen Again? — "Students learn about the roles and functions of the Federal Reserve System. Through a simulation, they learn how the Fed manages the money supply through open market operations. They identify what central bankers have learned about implementing monetary policy as a result of the Great Depression. Furthermore, they recognize the steps the central bank has taken to respond effectively to financial crises since that time."
To test your learning, you can take a 33-question test provided in the appendix. (You might want to try the test before you start working through the lessons, and then again after you've finished.)
There is also a glossary, a bibliography, a list of resources (e.g., newsreels, photos, books, websites), and an evalution form that teachers can use to provide feedback concerning their experience with the curriculum.
Xavier de Souza Briggs on "Getting Things Implemented"
If you want a compact, rich introduction to the issues organizations must manage in order to devise and implement strategies that produce valuable outcomes, you will be well-served by working through the materials Xavier de Souza Briggs put together for a week-long course he delivered this January, just before taking a two-year leave from his MIT faculty appointment in urban studies and planning, to become Associate Director for General Government Programs at the US Office of Management and Budget.
Creating public value, and The craft of political management (negotiation and coalition building)
Basic questions that need to be addressed: "What is worth implementing [What produces value?] and why? How does one go from concept to capacity and then 'production'? ... How to get things done responsibly and ethically when decisions cannot simply be imposed, downward and in a straightforward way, in a hierarchy?" Briggs emphasizes, "We want to be able to distinguish strong ideas, weakly implemented from bad ideas. These distinctions are often not easy to make — but are hugely important for the support we can build for good ideas."
Developing and changing organizational strategy
Here Briggs is talking about devising the means for accomplishing the organization's agreed mission. "The overall [strategic] challenge (and opportunity) is a powerful alignment: Lining up the value-creating idea with what the environment will support and what the organization (or team or alliance) is actually capable of producing." A key lesson: "There's no substitute for organized capacity, beyond any charismatic, smart, or otherwise talented individual."
Strategic collaboration (partnerships and alliances), and Performance management
Some key lessons about collaboration: "Effective collaboration often demands that implementers play a wide variety of roles well (strategic, operational, mobilization-focused, etc.)." "Collaboratives evolve through stages, navigated jointly: agreeing on a problem, developing strategy, implementing ('co-producing' change)." "Collaboratives can have wider ripple effects (political participation, policy reform, etc.)."
The key lesson about performance management: "Systems of performance measures and rules and incentives coupled with them ('management') should align with broader strategies."
Core elements of operating capacity: organizational structure (e.g., by function, by customer segment), operational processes (mapped so as to highlight, e.g., bottlenecks), human resources
Key lessons: Organizational restructuring "invites resistance, requires political capital, proof of concept, supportive coalitions, etc." "Strategic human resource management addresses flows ([employee] entry, development, exit) and targets (motivation, reward, performance)."
Thinking like an implementer, and Leadership (especially, leading change)
A key lesson: An effective implementer recognizes implementation issues (e.g., lack of funding, lack of operating capacity, opportunities for delivering more value, etc.) and develops skill in generating strategic options for addressing the issues.
Some core leadership concepts: exercising leadership vs. exercising authority; technical challenges (well-defined problems with known solutions) vs. adaptive challenges (fuzzy problems, unknown solutions); leadership styles; the need for a repertoire of various elements of emotional intelligence. Exercising leadership "is particularly important for motivating adaptation and risk taking, and thus deep change, in how implementation systems work."
Please note that the above outline greatly condenses and simplifies what Briggs teaches. To get a fuller account of the principles he espouses, you can download pdf files of his lecture notes and study questions here. Briggs's materials are a model of accessibility and practical expertise, structured in a way that requires students to think about the assigned readings (including a number of case studies) in critical fashion.
Each section of the course (generally, two sections per session) ends with a summary of take-away lessons. For example the first lesson from the first session is that "having a goal is not the same as having a clear, actionable value proposition." A related lesson is that "Effective implementers must often help to define ends (value propositions), not just political or operational means."
The course concluded with a take-home exam which, in keeping with the rest of Briggs's materials, places the emphasis squarely on critical thinking and intelligent application of the concepts covered in the class ("value creation, political management, organizational strategy, collaboration, performance management, organizational design and process redesign, human resource management"). Briggs emphasizes quality, not quantity, in students' responses to the seven "word problems" he sets, as you can see by reading through his instructions for the exam and the sample solutions he provides (pdf files).
Yesterday's post touted a model for rural economic development that includes peer learning as one of its basic principles.1
A prime example of what this principle looks like in action can be found at the training facility that Practical Action, a non-governmental organization headquartered in the UK, set up in the town of Sicuani in the Peruvian Andes about 90 miles south of Cusco.
A Kamayoq (agricultural extension agent) assisting with guinea pig husbandry (Practical Action)
The basic concept is to train farmers to deliver agricultural extension services to fellow farmers back in their home villages. These peer extension agents are called "Kamayoqs," the Quechua (Incan) name of people in olden times who were skilled in reading the weather and using their forecasting and other agricultural expertise to advise farmers on such things as when to plant their crops.
In line with another of the principles of the "new development paradigm," the interchanges between Kamayoqs and their farming peers are intended to be two-way, i.e., there is a concerted effort to identify best practices in horticulture and animal husbandry, whether from existing standout performers or from experimenting to see what works best. Learning by doing is central to this Kamayoq-facilitated approach to raising poor farmers' standard of living.
The Kamayoqs live in Andean communities above 3500 meters (11,500 feet), communities barely served by the extension staff of Peru's Ministry of Agriculture. The initial Kamayoq training at the Sicuani school occupies one day a week over an eight-month period. The topics covered include irrigation, Andean crops, horticulture, livestock, forestry, and agro-industry and marketing. Continuing education is also provided.
As explained in a 2006 article (pdf) about the Kamayoq program,
Throughout their training, the Kamayoq establish contact with technical experts from the private and public sectors and with other farmers, a useful network which they can tap into when they need information and technical advice once they finish their training. This "social capital" is recognised by many as one of the greatest benefits of the whole course.
The success of the Kamayoq program is seen in the willingness of farmers to pay for the Kamayoqs' services; the addition of marketable crops (e.g., carrots and onions) to traditional subsistence crops (maize, potatoes, and beans); higher farmer income, some of which goes for additional education for children; improved disease prevention and treatment for farm animals; and more sustainable use of natural resources.
An important qualitative impact of the Kamayoq program is increased self-confidence among farmers, an attitude adjustment that motivates innovation. Willingness to innovate is essential for continuing to raise living standards in the face of the changes that are occurring in the farmers' physical and socioeconomic environment.
__________ 1 Practical Action's methodology draws on the work of Paulo Freire, a Brazilian educator who devoted himself to developing pedagogy for the underclass. You can read more about Freire's work by visiting the website of the Paulo Freire Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Another site (in beta) offering university course videos has come to my attention: www.academicearth.org, founded by Richard Ludlow. You can watch lectures delivered by professors at Berkeley, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale. The offerings are organized into seventeen subjects:
Astronomy Biology Chemistry Computer Science Economics Engineering English Entrepreneurship History Law Mathematics Medicine Philosophy Physics Political Science Psychology Religion
You can also search for lectures by any combination of keyword, user rating, university, and subject.
Many of the lectures can be downloaded in QuickTime format.
As a follow-on both to yesterday's post concerning Will Thalheimer's work on use of questions in classroom training, and to an earlier post dealing with Harvard prof Eric Mazur's techniques for helping his students truly learn the physics concepts covered in his classes, I'd like to call attention to "ConcepTests," introduced by Mazur some years ago and now used at a number of institutions, generally in science and math courses.1
... developed a method, Peer Instruction, which involves students in their own learning during lecture and focuses their attention on underlying concepts. Lectures are interspersed with conceptual questions, called ConcepTests, designed to expose common difficulties in understanding the material. The students are given one to two minutes to think about the question and formulate their own answers; they then spend two to three minutes discussing their answers in groups of three to four, attempting to reach consensus on the correct answer. This process forces the students to think through the arguments being developed, and enables them (as well as the instructor) to assess their understanding of the concepts even before they leave the classroom.
You can listen to Mazur and some of his students discuss this teaching approach in the video below.
In a business setting, even if the subject of classroom training is not so technical as organic chemistry or calculus, using ConcepTests can be a helpful tool for ensuring participants truly grasp central concepts and retain what they learn in class. Training participants have to process information for themselves — articulate the concepts in their own words, and connect the information they're learning to other ideas and to realistic work situations.
At www.audienceresponselearning.com, you can get a helpful summary of the wide variety of questions that can be incorporated into training sessions in which participants are equipped with wireless audience response keypads.
The website is the handiwork of Will Thalheimer, a PhD researcher and practitioner who makes it his business to publicize research-based recommendations for training design and implementation, a subject close to my heart.
Thalheimer's audience response site also exhaustively lists the benefits of using questions in a training session.
For a more complete compilation of knowledge concerning effective audience response questioning strategies, you can download Thalheimer's 124-page report on the subject.
Finally, you can read an illuminating interview with Thalheimer here. (The article on misuse of interactivity that Thalheimer mentions in the interview is here.)
As someone who is watching Microsoft's SharePoint software being customized to meet the needs of a particular business, I can't help wondering whether what I'm seeing represents the most effective approach.
ManageSmarter.com recently published a case study of SharePoint implementation at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) which is exemplary in providing quite specific tips not so much for the customization itself, as for designing and developing the accompanying user training, a subject in which I am just as interested.
As Sarah Boehle explains in her brief article, UT-Battelle, the company that manages and operates ORNL, developed its Sharepoint training curriculum "in conjunction with a company-wide initiative to transfer most of the organization's intranet resources to SharePoint servers." The aim of the training "was to teach those new to SharePoint how to use the system, and to show more advanced users how to better capitalize on its many features and functions."1
The tips UT-Battelle offers are:
Begin by analyzing how users really use the system, so you are training on all tasks that are relevant, and only on such tasks.
Use a hands-on format. Admittedly, one would have thought this would go without saying, but UT-Battelle initially used a seminar format, which, not surprisingly, did not meet the training's learning objectives.
Pay attention to the details. I was particularly struck by the decision "to develop a full-color, step-by-step participant manual that details every task in minute detail, complete with illustrating screen shots." The manual guides the users during the training and then serves as a day-to-day reference. For me, the point is that just about every user will regularly consult a well-designed and maintained manual, contrary to the position that some take who argue that manuals sit on the shelf gathering dust.
Keep the training and documentation up-to-date. Among other things, this means keeping tabs on the natural evolution in how users use the software. As Scott Taylor, a UT-Battelle instructional designer explains, "every time I field a new user question, or demo a new feature in class, I always make sure that we add the new task and information to the manual and cover it in the next class."
Once the SharePoint implementation I'm watching is complete, I will use the above tips as a guide for creating accompanying documentation and, as needed, for developing training.
__________ 1 You can get more detail concerning the overhaul of IT at ORNL, which is the larger context in which development of the training described here occurred, from a slide presentation put together last year by Scott Studham, UT-Battelle's CIO.
The Crew Advancement Program (CAP), was launched in January 2007 as a way of providing a career path for deckhands to advance to mate (officer) positions without having to take time off from their current jobs in order to get the necessary training. The expectation is that this approach will improve crew retention at a time when the maritime industry is having trouble finding skilled personnel in adequate numbers.
CAP covers the skills mariners need in order to qualify for a US Coast Guard 500 or 1600 Gross Ton Mates License. Students' classwork and practical training (simulation and at-sea) is scheduled around their regular responsibilities.
In the two-year program "designed for the mariner who has been actively sailing and has the famililiarization and knowledge of what it takes to be a competent deck-hand," the first year is devoted to nautical science, shiphandling, navigation, navigational law and communication, and cargo handling and stowage.
At the end of the first year, students take an aptitude test which determines whether they continue into the second year. The second year covers meteorology, further modules on ship handling and navigation, fire fighting, emergency medical care, and ship construction, stability and trim.
By adding 30 credits of general education courses during CAP, a student can also earn an associates degree from American Military University.
The December 2008 issue of Maritime Reporter contains an interview with Kelly Curtin, Program Dirctor in the Nautical Science Division of GMATS. Curtin explains:
Employee/Company loyalty is something which needs a strong foundation. By companies offering paid training to their employees they are working to build a foundation of trust and invesment in one another.
Curtin also comments on lessons he and his GMATS colleagues have learned so far concerning how best to structure CAP:
We plan to incorporate a placement/entrance examination for us to better determine the level of math and reading skills the students have. Also, at the very beginning of the next program we will have [a] one-week seminar focusing on study skills, class preparation, and [a] basic math refresher. Finally, we incorporated review classes in between the courses to keep the students current and on track for their exam preparation.
Further details about CAP and similar programs are available here (current as of early 2007).
In a couple of previous posts — one dealing with Monique Dembele, a native health worker in Mali, and the other discussing the Barefoot College, which began in India and has since spread to other countries — I've looked at how training can be geared to the needs of people in impoverished areas of the world.
Now the National Geographic has published an article in their December 2008 issue that offers another compelling example of how effective training can equip members of a rural community to deliver valuable services to fellow residents.
The Comprehensive Rural Health Project (CRHP), or Jamkhed (the name of the city east of Mumbai where the organization is based), has been providing training to village health workers (VHWs) since 1970. The training enables the VHWs to deliver effective basic health services and to teach such health-promoting practices as good nutrition, breast-feeding, hygiene, and oral rehydration. According to Raj Arole, CRHP's founder and director,
A village health worker ... can take care of 80 percent of the village's health problems, because most are related to nutrition and to the environment. Infant mortality is actually three things: chronic starvation, diarrhea, and respiratory infections. For all three, you do not need doctors.
Interestingly, one of the key aspects of the training for the VHWs, many of whom are coimpletely illiterate when they begin, is boosting their self-confidence.
The VHWs are supported by visits from a mobile team that includes a nurse, paramedic, social worker, and sometimes a doctor. The visits are initially weekly and then are scaled back as the VHW's expertise builds. At the moment, the mobile team actively visits 45 of the 120 villages where CRHP currently works. (In the thirty-eight years since its founding, CRHP has provided training to VHWs in 300 villages.) Patients requiring more complex care than the VHW can provide are referred to the hospital in Jamkhed.
CRHP's VHW training is ongoing — there is a Tuesday-Wednesday weekly session at the CRHP compound. At these sessions VHWs can "discuss problems in their village, review what they learned the previous week and tackle a new subject, such as heart disease." Back in their villages, the VHWs train villagers to diagnose and solve common problems on their own.
The Jamkhed Institute in Community Health and Population, established in 1992, aims to embed enhancement of rural healthcare delivery in a broader context of rural development. Thus, the Institute's offerings address not only health topics, but also agriculture, micro-credit and loans, income-generating programs, government schemes, and watershed management.
The Distinguishing Features of Nonprofit Organizations
Cate Doty's article on "Training to Lead Nonprofits," which appeared in the November 11, 2008 edition of the New York Times, provides a summary of the activities that distinguish nonprofit organizations from for-profit enterprises. These activities are:
Fund-raising
Community engagement
Meeting ethical standards and legal requirements specific to non-profits
Volunteer management
Concomitantly, it is these activities that require focused attention when training individuals to fill leadership roles at nonprofits. The Lodestar Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Innovation at Arizona State University, founded in 1999, has identified five areas that their experience and research indicate are essential for nonprofit managers to study:
Governance — the legal responsibilities of boards of directors and how boards operate.
Financial management — the basic accounting and audit requirements for nonprofits. Subtopics include stewardship of the organization's assets, assurance of adequate resources, development and approval of an annual budget, current and year-to-date financial reports, and assurance that the organization is prepared for the annual audit functions.
Program knowledge — how to develop programming and evaluate its effectiveness.
Resource development — how to develop donor relationships that lead to effective fund-raising; foundation and corporate fund-raising.
Nonprofit law and ethics — what specific laws to know and how to understand and make decisions that are ethical and sound.
More detailed specs (pdf) for graduate and undergraduate degree programs have been developed by Nonprofit Academic Centers Council. (See yesterday's post for links to some resources that can help in developing training for people who are already at nonprofit organizations or who want to prepare for a career in the nonprofit sector.)
