MNGT160 - Leadership on a large module
Unique challenges
Given the size and scale of the module, there were bound to be challenges. The module in question cuts across the faculty as the audience in question are nearly all first year management school majors: this equates to well over 1200 students on one module, which is something innovative and different to what we had done prior.
First, a bit about the module itself: MNGT160 Future Global Leaders: Sustainability Across Business. The faculty I work for has 6 diverse academic departments that each bring their own unique perspectives, and I wanted these diverse perspectives to be reflected both the description and practice of the module in order to ensure stakeholders (the departments and their staff) would buy into the idea of the changes I was offering for the module. I won't go into the details of the changes, but below are the educational aims:
The module will use the lens of sustainability and the UN Sustainable Development Goals to develop students' academic, personal and professional dimensions, and their understanding of different aspects of sustainability and leadership to encourage their involvement with student life and prepare them for future careers.
Students will engage with global issues within the overarching context of sustainability and sub-topics of resilience, diversity and geopolitics with a view to linking these ideas with what can be achieved at a local level in practice.
Throughout this module, students will use the lens of their own specific subject area(s) as a looking glass through which to examine and apply what they learn per sustainability and leadership.
Given that no one of our departments explicitly teaches about either sustainability or leadership in the first year (these topics come later), it made sense to cover these topics and sub-topics of resilience, diversity and geopolitics especially in light of the environmental, sociopolitical and economic upheaval of the last couple of years related to the issues raised by Brexit and new figures such as the environmental activist Greta Thunberg who are passionate about the evermore important issue of climate change and sustainability generally.
In this regard, this module would get all students (and staff) thinking about these topics in broad terms and through the perspective of each subject's lens in order get students to consider critically the issues and draw connections between their own subjects and the overarching and underpinning topics. My own goal was to get students inspired, thinking and questioning the issues... which is what university is all about!
This process, was at times, a tricky process to manage but equally rewarding in terms of what was experienced and learned along the way.
Practical day-to-day challenges
The day-to-day issues were perhaps some of the most frequently occurring issues that created little barriers, hurdles and obstacles for general progress on getting the module off the ground whether we're talking about module development, curriculum design and approval or agreeing actions and general courses of action.
One of the most frequent issues that came up was time and scheduling. Time is precious - for everyone - and everyone has their own availability, teaching and/or research load and pre-arranged commitments whether relating to time off, family, health and so on, especially in the time between August and October prior to the start of an academic year in England when academic and teaching staff may have other commitments that might include undertaking research and research related activities, planning ahead for the academic year or taking annual leave prior to the start of the new academic year and autumn term.
For me, what this means in practical terms for the initial meetings is that I was not always able to get everyone into a single room in order to discuss the general course of action for the module's development. I remember that at the initial meeting, not everyone was able to attend due to various commitments. Despite this, the first meeting was productive and we laid groundwork for development - there was a contagious sense of positivity and things were looking GOOD!
And then came the second meeting...
Apart from a couple of colleagues, the rest of the faces were 'new' in that they hadn't attended the first meeting, and so, in effect, this meant that we had to recap what went on in the first meeting in order to get everyone up to speed. However, this presented itself with an opportunity.
The learning from this was: yes, we can plan ahead and take notes and share these notes, though colleagues may not have time or a chance to read through these notes. That said, if a significant contingent to a subsequent meeting is new, a short recap can get everyone on the same page and win over potentially influential and/or powerful colleagues who may be doubtful of the direction and/or content of the programme in question. A recap may seem like time lost - but rather, on reflection, this is time well-spent getting everyone on the same page so that a project can proceed with a clear sense of direction that has received input from all colleagues.
From this process and experience, I feel that I've learned that when leading on a large, collaborative project, there is an increased likelihood that not all colleagues may be able to attend meetings all of the time, the best plans intended and/or planned must be flexible, and ensuring everyone is on the same page is more important than simply moving on to the next meeting or set of actions.
Hearing people out pays off
When collaborating with a large number of people, sometimes we have to just stop, be silent and allow others to voice their concerns, opinions and views. Though it may seem obvious to some, this process might feel (read this as definitely will feel) a little uncomfortable for the uninitiated leader especially if you're having to deal with one or more heads of departments whom you haven't yet won over!
When a colleague has a concern, hear them out and remain calm no matter what the message is, especially when leading a module or new project is something that you're new at.
It pays off to take the time demonstrate effective listening by hearing them out with an open mind, be 'in the moment' while listening, take note of their concerns and ideas and see how their ideas can complement and/or improve what is already on the table. What is more is that the colleagues who are providing some of the constructive criticisms might be deeply in support of your ideas and what you are trying to achieve - but - they are trying to push you to see a different perspective in order to improve your offering.
Although their initial message may sound direct, patience may well pay off, which in turn leads to new/different perspectives gained, colleagues feeling that their views are being heard and listened to and trust both built and gained.
MNGT160 - making a massive, online module happen
Although I have taught on courses, designed modules and developed modules from scratch, nothing had quite prepared me for leading a module, let alone one that is almost entirely online - whose creators consist of dozen or more staff from across the Management School, whose facilitators include 4 graduate teaching assistants, one administrator and myself and whose audience is over 1200 first year undergraduate students!
That said, leading such a module is something that I have found equally both incredibly challenging and rewarding as an educator working in the field of higher education within the context of a large management school.
Through reflecting upon my experiences and development of learning from failures and successes, the areas that I aim to cover in a series of posts will touch upon the following (in no particular order):
understanding leadership on a large module
the people factor
curriculum development and design
innovation in curriculum
digital and information literacies and development of related abilities and skills - of students and staff
Before embarking upon this mini-journey, I offer some thanks to Cathy S and Casey C passing on the leadership baton. I also offer thanks for the collaboration to the array of colleagues (Karine R, Nichapa P, Alex S, Ahmad T, Huan Y, Sylvia D, Lucia C, Matthew H, Chris S, Emma W, Hina K, Mahnaz A, Casey C, Jeffrey U, Geraint J, Steve K, Maurizio Z, Debbie D, Josi F, Elena L, Robyn R, Guglielmo L, Arpit R, Chloe V, Chris F, Emma J, Mark D and Rachel D among many others) that have made this module possible, and by allowing it to take on a unique format that students appear to find engaging, thought-provoking and worthwhile.
Digital, information and media literacies, and the development of related abilities and skills of students and staff
An image of two mics, a desk and chair representing a recording studio. Source: Unsplash
I have been able to gain a wealth of understanding of the varying levels of digital, information and media literacies among the students and staff through my role of leading on the module and seeing the module launch. What I seek to write about here relates to the digital and information literacies of both groups of stakeholders from my own interactions and observations.
Part of MNGT160 is particularly innovative in that we are doing the following. To allay doubt, in our use of 'innovative' I'm talking about breaking with tradition within our own context rather than creating the next best thing since sliced bread...
we have created a podcast mini-series, of sorts, as the central medium for the content; all episodes are transcribed as standard, and hyperlinks to further relevant texts and media are added in to make the transcripts be a bit more engaging, insightful and useful as a potential resource for those who might want to read along as they listen and/or read the transcript generally;
the module radically departs from traditional modes of delivery such as having solely face-to-face sessions and using Moodle as a static repository of resources;
this module is run entirely online via Microsoft Teams and, to a lesser extent, OneNote is used to collect and collate further references, articles and other supplementary content;
there are a few face-to-face events that directly tie in with the overarching topics and sub-topics.
The inspiration for doing the podcasts came from colleagues agreeing to try out podcasting as the main content vehicle and my own listening to Sophie Bailey's #EdtechPodcast and a presentation by Nellie El Enany on using podcasts in the classroom at ELTME2019.
Media literacies
Media literacy is an umbrella to consider other literacies, including news literacy, visual literacy, information literacy, technology and platform literacy, and data literacy.
Media Literacy and Politics of Identity - Resources for Educators. https://criticalmediaproject.org/media-literacies/
The first point I'll touch on has to with the idea of using podcasts as a central medium. Initially, my colleagues and myself all felt this would be a particularly innovative, flexible and different way for students to engage with the different topics and subtopics of the module.
The benefits in terms of flexibility for students seemed numerous and too attractive to pass up: students could listen to the episodes of the podcast anytime, anywhere, whether this was while on the bus, in the gym, while cooking and/or while reading or studying. In contrast to a recorded video lecture, a podcast seemed to make more sense for this particular module.
Generally, we felt fairly confident in using this as the medium for the module. However, as further conversations were had, I quickly came to understand a few things:
not everyone listens to podcasts;
not everyone knows what a podcast is and/or entails;
not everyone listens to 'talk radio' such as BBC Radio 4 in the UK or NPR in the US;
not everyone can imagine what a podcast is if they don't listen to the radio, let alone talk radio!!
What I was perhaps struck by most was that some colleagues had difficulty imagining what a podcast might entail, whether we're talking about a podcast itself as a concept, or in another case, actually sitting down to record a podcast. This general lack of media literacy in itself created a few issues, one which relates directly to how the time of colleagues are allocated via the workload.
However, this also presented unique opportunities for learning, staff development and creating a positive impact upon colleagues who had not previously engaged with and/or used podcasts or podcasting previously.
A practical issue: workloading
In terms of workload and the infamous 'workload model', the idea of preparing for a podcast nearly became a bigger issue than it was. Most podcasts are either informal talks about a topic or more or fully-informed chats, debates and/or discussions about a topic.
However, from what I observed, part of the lack of understanding more generally of what a podcast often is and can be did lead to some colleagues believing that they would have to spend hours and hours preparing for a podcast. Some colleagues initially thought preparing for a podcast would be similar to how a lecturer might spend time writing up a lecture and/or creating or repurposing slides, all of which can take a significant amount of time if the topic to be covered is new and/or fresh.
Such lengthy preparation might also be merited if we planned for the podcasts to be a debate rather than a discussion in which colleagues are talking about a question from their own subject lens perspective. If we were planning on a talk where we wanted to 'catch people out', then sure, preparation is key! However, in the cast of our own podcast series for MNGT160, I wanted people to do a bit of preparing (1 hour or so maximum) and come to the recording studio to sit down and have a collegial, informed chat about the topic in question.
Butterflies & speaking to mic
Recording podcasts, like recording video or taking a photograph of someone, is likely to generate a certain level of nervousness even with colleagues who may have daily student-facing roles whether these are administrative or teaching focused. It's easy to assume that those who are confident in their daily roles will be confident speaking for a podcast. Nope, this isn't always the case!
That said, I found the easiest way to manage the nerves of speakers, for the most part, was by getting people to meet for about 15-20 minutes, chat about what we'd generally aim to chat about and briefly sketch out tentative talking points for each episode, bearing in mind that we could be flexible as long as we focused on the general question for each episode and spoke no more than the allotted amount of time.
Another way that I found that worked particularly well for both myself as a new podcast/radio host and for other colleagues was to get in touch with the press office on campus. One colleague, Paul T, had extensive prior experience as a journalist and so was particularly helpful in coaching and mentoring colleagues and myself in terms of how to speak in a radio-type setting, what to do and how to approach things generally. Our digital media engineer, Martin T, was also particularly helpful from the recording, technical and design side of getting a podcast up and running. Sure, we could have recorded the videos with a mobile phone, but we wanted to get things right the first time around.
On reflection...
From a leader's perspective, I perhaps should I have predicted this lack of understanding of the notion of podcasts, podcasting and talk radio generally. I was very enthusiastic and wrongly assumed that people generally listen to spoken word radio shows, if not podcasts.
But then again, going back to my earlier point, not everyone understood the concept of a podcast and they instead immediately relied upon what they did know: teaching and lecturing which are very different (!) from spoken word for a radio show or a podcast.
Going forward, when podcasts are going to be the main content vehicle, I'll take the time to do a bit of fishing of my colleagues to see whether they listen to the radio or podcasts, and if not explain what a podcast is and share one of the podcast episodes we've since created. Even if 3-4 colleagues out of the 7 know what a podcast is, it's best to spend time making sure the other 3-4 are fully aware so that they can be more relaxed when taking part.
Yes, of course, I could have shared a currently running podcast with a colleagues, though the issue would have been 1) choosing the 'right' podcast and 2) ensuring that everyone had a list (even briefly) to a few moments of the podcast - something that I can request, but not demand and 3) potentially setting unintended expectations per quality, length and so on!
The key takeaways
Doing a podcast
Whereas a lecture is designed to tell a story or impart information, often presented by one person from start to finish with relatively fixed starting and end points within a specified timeframe, a podcast should be a dialogue, a conversation between the speakers present. This is something that one can prepare for but one cannot entirely script a podcast episode else it might end up sounding unnatural. There is some preparation on the part of the host and speakers.
However, the good news for anyone wanting to try out podcasting for learning, teaching and development is that the time involved is far less than the amount of preparation that goes into a traditional face-to-face lecture that may consist of writing up a script, creating/modifying a series of slides and rehearsing a lecture. While a basic level of pre-recording preparation required can consist of bullet points and a brief meeting either face-to-face or a couple of email exchanges to lay the groundwork for a good, fruitful conversation, as I noted above, it is not necessary to plan out the entire episode of an informed conversation.
Media literacies