Significant Literature and Small Group Discussions

 There are several things that I’ve learned from this class and from small group discussions. 

Like Anna, I’ve become used to certain forms of writing, logic processing, and development in all of the studies I read, and it has been enlightening to not just read an international series of articles, and studies,  . . . I’ve read several for the VR studies I’ve been doing, . . . But to also have to analyze these articles and compare and contrast them to more local or national studies. So, that was enlightening to say the least. 

In terms of the small group discussions, I’ve really enjoyed being able to interact with the same group of people for the entire class. So often in classes the group as switched up and mixed up each week. It’s been fun truly getting to know and understand my classmates and get to know their studies more intimately and more deeply. That alone has been one of the best features of our small group discussions. Sure it’s fun to facilitate and summarize, but to know from one week to the next how someone is going to write and react and see their growth and evolution and my own with each week has been worthwhile. 

Reference Article Summary Number 1

  I have to find two sample articles to help me write the qualitative article that I wrote about in this space a few days ago. The first one I found is this one:

A Qualitative Exploration of Shift Work and Employee Well-Being in the US Manufacturing Environment

Summary

This is a qualitative study of shift work in the US manufacturing industry using interviews and focuses groups across several large companies focusing on the National Institute of Occupation Safety and Health's framework of five domains for worker well-being.

The sample includes about 60 total interviews. The study uses the framework to provide their analysis, breaking the results of their interviews into the framework using: (a) workplace policies and climate, (b) physical environment and safety climate, (c) health status, (d) work evaluation and experience,  and (e) home, community, and safety which makes it easy to see how the authors determine their conclusions and analysis. McHugh et al. (2020) admit that a limitation of the study was that their "data collection instrument was not specifically designed to capture perspectives on shift work" (p. 305) however their coding, using both deductive and inductive codes based on new concepts provide confidence to the reader regarding their results.

Types of Data Analysis

The data analysis for this study was both deductive coding and inductive coding based on new concepts found during interviews. McHugh et al. (2020) state that "because the topic of shift work frequently emerged during the interviews and focus groups, we created an inductive code related to the effect of shift work on well-being" (p. 304). The authors also used thematic analysis based on the coding that they apply to help break the data into the framework. This is similar to the type of methodology I propose to use in my own study with qualitative interviews regarding the lived experiences of workers leading to coding for analysis and identifying themes.

Reporting of Findings

McHugh et al. (2020) report their findings broken down by the five dimensions framework that they apply: (a) workplace policies and climate, (b) physical environment and safety climate, (c) health status, (d) work evaluation and experience,  and (e) home, community, and safety. This framework is a good way to help understand and find themes within workers' lived experiences both for the author's work and also in the study I intend to make. They provide numerous quoted excepts from the interviews they conducted.

Scholarly Voice

The authors' voice when writing this article is formal and academic leaving the reader with the impression that they are experts within this field. The challenge I have however is that McHugh et al. (2020) admit their study was that their "data collection instrument was not specifically designed to capture perspectives on shift work" (p. 305) which seems to be a glaring error for a qualitative study on of shift work, but the work does serve to narrow the focus of the study and future studies.

Reference

McHugh, M., Farley, D., & Rivera, A. S. (2020). A qualitative exploration of shift work and employee well-being in the US manufacturing environment. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 62(4), 303–306. https://doi.org/10.1097/JOM.0000000000001823 

She's Not Saying Anything (at all)

I heard an instrumental the other day. It was an acoustical and instrumental version of A Great Big World's Say Something. The songwriters, Mike Campbell, Ian Axel, and Chad Vaccarino are obviously soulmates with me. They have had the same experience in life that I have, obviously. 

The lyrics aren't necessarily complex, but they are deep. They resonate with me. 

Live On Mars Not on Venus

A seminal work that I remember reading many many years ago was men are from Mars and women are from Venus. 

I think I read it in high school. It really helped me understand men versus women. One of the things I got out of it and I think it's a key factor within the book is that women like to express things while men likes to fix things. 

Men are fixers. Women are venters. 

One thing I’ve always struggled with is that just because a woman says something doesn’t mean she wants to do anything about it, or have anything done to fix it. They may actually like it the way it is, they just want to talk about it. Men have economies of time and effort and want to hear only about the things that need something done to them. 

Back to that friend of mine who said she missed me that I posted about the other day. She would vent about missing working or being together, and I would work to fix it. The thing was she didn’t want to “fix” it, she wanted instead just to vent about it, to talk about it. It took me awhile to realize she really only wanted to talk about it, not fix it. For me it became very frustrating.  

Why? If I miss something I fix it. If I miss working out at a gym, . . .I go sign up at a gym and workout at the gym again. If I miss having a friend in my life, . . . I go write that friend and have lunch with them. I reignite and engage in that friendship again. If I want to do something else for work . . . I don’t complain about the job, I go get a new job. 

All she wanted to do was vent. 

It's a tough communications challenge for humans isn't it? Eventually it just becomes whining doesn't it. I mean if you're gonna sit there and talk about how you want this and that and this other thing, over and over, but you do nothing to fix it, Doesn’t it just become whining? Complaining?  

I don't like complainers and whiners. Never have. I like people who go out and change things and make them happen. I think about Seal PT those were people that made shit happen. The ones who eventually couldn’t hack it. They left. The ones who stayed . . . they weren't complainers and whiners. I remember a private in my Ranger platooon was a huge complainer. A year later he was gone. He was proud he had become a Ranger, but being a Ranger means “staying” in the Rangers. It’s harder to “stay” in the Ranger Battalion than it is to “get” into the Ranger Battalion. Much harder. The bosses I’ve most like working with are those that made shit happen, not the ones who complained. I’ve had a few of those. The friends I like having in my life are those that change things. 

So, stop whining and complaining and missing. If you want to change your destiny go out and change it. Make it happen. Be from Mars, not from Venus. 

Lonesome Dove First Line

 The other day I wrote that Lonesome Dove is one of my favorite books (see HERE). Has to be. I even checked the tickmarks in the book . . . it says it was only 3 times. But I know it's more than that. I'm going with 5. 

WHEN AUGUSTUS CAME OUT on the porch the blue pigs were eating a rattlesnake—not a very big one. It had probably just been crawling around looking for shade when it ran into the pigs. They were having a fine tug-of-war with it, and its rattling days were over. The sow had it by the neck, and the shoat had the tail. 

First Line at the Mo

First line right now? It’s from a little novel I’m reading just for fun. Is it perfect? No. Is it okay? Sure. Does it make me want to read more. Sure. 

 I’ll read the rest, but it might not be for sake of the first line. It’s a good-ish one, but not the best ever. 

First Lines Second Time

 This will be my second time to start a first lines post. The first time was for the other blog (see HERE) and it was one of my favorite series. 

I read a blog post by Jay Nordlinger and all he did was talk about the importance of great first lines. I ho-hummed it. I think the totality of the work matters so much more than that first line. I've changed my mind. The first line, the first passage, the first paragraph, the first chapter, they're all critical. 

The Fallacy of Sunk Cost

There was a great episode of one of my favorite podcasts the other day . . . The Think Podcast (see HERE). It was all about quitting. When does quitting make sense? Does it ever? Grit over quit, right? No one likes a quitter? Well, Annie Duke (who I think has a PhD in cognitive linguistics, . . . . Or perhaps ABD Phd) has some really interesting insights about quitting. 

I think back to the things I have quit. I quit the Army. I was on a track to go to SF or Delta, and I realized that I didn’t like shooting. I was only going to try and go to these units to see if I could do it, not because I wanted to be there. Not really the best reason to join a unit. Could be that shooting 200 rounds a week every week for almost 4 years in teh Rangers got me tired of shooting, but who knows (I’ve added it up, when you realize it was a minimum of 200 rounds a week, I bet I shot over 50,000 rounds. That’s a lot of shooting. I remember when I got out of the Army, my brother was stunned by the muscles in my forearm that were activated when I pulled a trigger . . . Not anymore. I haven’t shot since).

Looking back I shouldn’t have quit. I think I would have enjoyed changing MOS’s from infantry to one closer to being a paramedic. I was already and EMT, squad medic, squad leader, stinger, scuba (almost), airborne, and Ranger qualified. That’s a lot to throw away. 

I also quit construction. But boy I don’t have any regrets there. I (kinda) quit PSC, twice, but both were for better positions. So, they weren’t really quitting. 

I’ve quite some relationships. And that’s where I found myself listening intently about her views on relationships and quitting. When does it make sense to quit a relationship and why we don’t quit it sooner.

One thing she mentioned that I fell victim to is the fallacy of sunk costs. We’ve already invested so much in the relationship, emotion, energy, interest, etc. that we don’t want to lose what we’ve already invested. What’s funny is that when you’re in that downward spiral, you don’t realize that you’ve already lost it. There’s no guarantee it’s coming back. In fact when you’re in that spiral, there’s almost a guarantee that it’s NOT coming back. 

Then there was something else she discussed. We want to see the outcome. The only way to see what could have been is to hang in there and see. The problem is that by hanging in there in the same situation, you’re creating the situation that you’re trying to escape from and see a better solution too. 

The better thing to do is walk away. 

I know I can think of several relationship I stayed in for way too long. YEARS too long. I look back at them and realize the time to exit was years and years before. The person I was in love with had changed so much that the person I was hoping she might become (again) wasn’t around anymore, and probably not coming back. 

One realization that should have been a glaring red flag was the realization that the person I though I loved, well . . . Had I met her as she was, instead of who I thought she could be, . . . Or who she used to be . . . If I had met that person she “was” at that moment,  . . . I never would have fallen for her. That person she was was not what I could ever love. 

That’s when I should have quit. Instead I got stuck in the fallacy of sunk costs and wanting to see what happened and wasting more time, effort and emotion. 

Maybe the term should be “everyone loves a quitter,” instead of “no one likes a quitter.”

Stuck in Childhood

I got a strange text from my mom the other night. She’s very controlling. I don’t like it. But there’s a lot to be said about control. 

I’ve written a lot before about how people deal with challenges in life. I follow one psychologist who talks about how all adult personality quirks can be pared down to some challenge in childhood. Sense of entitlement? Chalk that up to childhood wounding. Someone says “I love you” too? That’s a sure sign that they are emotionally immature and don’t have boundaries. Narcissism? That’s a ego centric emotionally immature person who never really moved beyond years 3 - 7 of childhood development. 

I look at the world through these lenses now and I think back to the girlfriend I had years and years ago. When I met her she had several turns of phrases about being unnoticeable . . . “Flying under the radar” . . . “Being the grey man” . . . “Pauses” . . . Is it any wonder that she ghosted me so often? I always saw ghosting as the weakest form of personal interaction. It’s a pathetic way to deal with people. To just stop talking to them. Makes me think about immaturity and not developing past 3 - 7 years old. 

 Now, thanks to this dust up with my mom, I’ve come to see it as a control feature. It may be a way of terminating a friendship, but it’s also a way of maintaining control. The person doing it may think their in control, but if you’re blowing up the relationship and the trust at the same time . . . What are they in control of actually?

Anyone who follows this blog knows I’m working on “self-authorship” as a part of my own adult development. As a self-authored individual I’ve come to realize that ghosting is not as big a deal as I once thought. Why should I care if that’s the way someone wants to deal with the world and those around them. I can’t change it. I can’t make them believe as I do. What’s the point of getting all razzed up about it? Let it be. See what happens. At most, hope that that person decides to grow beyond that phase of their ability to relate. 

Similarly, in terms of self authorship and control (which is really just a subset of the previous discussion), I don’t like to be “controlled.” I find it funny that my mother of all people, who keeps trying to do things to control me, doesn’t realize that her efforts have the opposite effect. The more control she tries to enforce the less she has. 

I wonder what childhood development stage that means I’m stuck at? What children’s age did I not progress beyond?

Funny ole world no?

No Regerts

On my run today I was thinking a lot about something someone said to me. She said she missed me. I said, “okay let’s call, or go to lunch, or write more.” Nope, she didn’t want any of that. She just wanted to miss me.

It reminded me a lot of what Sherbet my old friend said. She said she missed me. I've written about my manager, many times and how much fun I had working with her. The difference? Betsy was working to change things. She was actively trying to get back into my work life. The problem? I don’t need a recruiter. She’s an amazing recruiter, I just don’t need a recruiter in this job that I have. 

I loved working with Betsy, and I know why she misses working with me. She’s now in the position I used to have for her. I provided cover, I provided vision, I was her leader she would come to when she needed something then I would get out of her way and let her work. Now she does all of that. It’s a tough jump.

I was thinking of the aphorism, we regret the things we didn’t do more than the things we do. I followed this as a mantra for many years. It’s one of the reasons I did so much skydiving in high school. First I wanted to see if I could do it, to see if I could be a paratrooper. But I realized if I didn’t do it I would regret it. 

I used to live my life with no regrets. Not anymore. I look back on my life and there are many regrets. I think that’s why I liked the book The First 15 Lives of Harry August so much. It’s all about being able to go back and change things you may have done wrong. Eventually, could you live your live with no regrets what so ever? Is that possible?

Now I get to work with her son Cole (who I used to know as her daughter Callie). Not quite as much fun as working with Betsy, but I doubt anything could be. 

Priorities

I was thinking about priorities. There was a podcast wherein they discussed how much work there is out there to be done. Basically if you have a worker, we have the work for em. I think about my folks at work. They are overwhelmed with work. They have to prioritize. 

Then I also think about that gal who came to work a few weeks back, new on the job. By the middle of the morning she had her head down on the desk bored and exhausted. She looked up and said, “is there any room for advancement at this job?” All of my advancement, and the advancement I promote comes by way of more work. Her words should have been, “anything I can help with?” Overload yourself with work, and the advancement will come. 

Howard Roark Laughed

I've always liked Howard Roark more than I have John Galt in Atlas Shrugged. Part of it might be the first sentence… Don't we all wanna know why he laughed? Who the hell cares who John Galt is when you can try and find out why Howard is laughing. 

I'm done that one class so that means I have a little bit of time… I decided to read one of my favorite books… Last time it was Lonesome Dove this time it's the fountainhead

Howard Roark Laughed

I've always liked Howard Roark more than I have John Galt in Atlas Shrugged. Part of it might be the first sentence… Don't we all wanna know why he laughed? Who the hell cares who John Galt is when you can try and find out why Howard is laughing. 

I'm done that one class so that means I have a little bit of time… I decided to read one of my favorite books… Last time it was Lonesome Dove this time it's the fountainhead

HOWARD ROARK LAUGHED. He stood naked at the edge of a cliff. The lake lay far below him. A frozen explosion of granite burst in flight to the sky over motionless water. The water seemed immovable, the stone flowing. The stone had the stillness of one brief moment in battle when thrust meets thrust and the currents are held in a pause more dynamic than motion. The stone glowed, wet with sunrays.

What's amazing to me, is that now that I've learned more about self-authorship, I have seen that Howard is incredibly self-authored and the other characters are stuck in the socializing stage of development. 

Great book! Love every page!

More Ill Structured Problems

Andrew was discussing power and priviledge and made me think about zero sum game. I wrote above about “ill structured problems.”

In a previous class, we spent a lot of time talking about self-authorship, and the ability to see problems from several different perspectives, understand that no problem has one solution and can be seen from several different lenses, or even that there are “ill-structured” problems, problems with no binary or right and wrong answer. 

According to Jonassen (1997), "these problem types do not represent well-defined classifications, but rather represent a continuum from decontextualized problems with convergent solutions to very contextualized problems with multiple solutions" (p. 67). 

I think that this question you’ve posed falls clearly within this realm. Can equality ever truly be attained? As soon as one group that is dominant and has power and privilege is ousted or undermined, another group will then have that power and privilege and it will be used to create systems that try to keep that group in power. I do think there is movement in positive directions over time. 

Look through the years and decades and seeing that positive movement away from more repressive rules and strictures, but it’s a slow movement and it takes time unless we want wild swings. Ultimately I agree with you that it takes personal resolution and it starts with the individual. Ultimately if enough individual as make the commitment and positive change then it creates that positive movement for society. 

Reference

Jonassen, D. H. (1997). Instructional Design Models for Well-Structured and Ill-Structured Problem-Solving Learning Outcomes. Educational Technology Research and Development, 45(1), 65–94.

Two-Day Fun Run

Well I'm back on track with my fun running. August was much harder than I thought and that not many people put on fun runs in August in Houston.

 I need to remember that next year when I try this little challenge again and maybe coordinate my vacation out of state with a fun run in August. 

I'll It didn't help that I had a slight injury to deal with as well. But today and yesterday I got to hang out at your beach for this 10K fun run. Why two days? Well I showed up on the wrong day. All of the emails and the packet pick up seemed to indicate that the fun run would be Saturday morning. So I showed up Saturday morning and I immediately thought there weren't many people. Still, I looked around to the start tried to find it and eventually started getting the feeling that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 I ran into a couple of other runners who looked as confused as I did and we talk and realize that we were here on the wrong day. Man did we feel stupid. I would have felt worse if it hadn't been for the other runners being there and having made the same mistake.

But I ran today and it was a long hard slog but I'm glad I did it. UH is a fun place to run, even if it's two days in a row. I may have mentioned that I've lost about 40 lbs in the past half year or so. Actually, I'm at a weight that is close to what I was my senior year of high school, which is quite an accomplishment.  Apparently, losing that much weight only helps for the first 5K cause I really slowed down in that last mile. Still, that's a respectable pace if I say so myself. 

I knew it was going to be a hard one. All of my race day prep was centered on Saturday morning not Sunday. In fact my pre race dinner was steaks and beer while watching college football with friends on the patio instead of something light and heathy. All that considered I'm happy with my time!

So far this little challenge of doing a fun run a month sure has paid off. That only do I run faster and fun run but it sure is fun to run with so many people and just get lost in the sea of humanity. There had to be several thousand people at this race today and although that's not great for running it is fun to get lost in. I also love to watch people. So I'll just sit back and watch how people do different things. How they get ready for the race. How they warm-up. How they stretch how they strategize. For a student of human nature runs are fascinating. You can see who the introverts are and who the extroverts are. Additionally I've gotten to go to several places in Houston and outside of Houston which I never would've gone to if it hadn't been for this challenge so I'll told it sure has been fun and I look forward to more 

The only problem I see is that I post my race numbers with the time as well as the silly metals they give us at the end of the race on my study wall and I'm running out of room.

New Perspective on Clara's Hands

This is without a doubt my favorite book. I remember when it came out. It was on sale at the middle school book sale in St. John's Gym. My mother bought it there. I almost bought it myself but it was so big I was scared away. But, now, almost 40 years later, it's without a doubt my favorite book. 

The last few weeks have been perhaps the busiest I've had in a long long time. Work has been crazy both politically organizationally and in terms of volume… School has been crazy; I've got two classes going at the same time plus I'm writing my dissertation… Then there's just a general hoi polloi of having two children and a wife who works and travels… But I figured out why I have felt so busy and overwhelmed and it's primarily because I trusted Julie. About a month ago when I wasn't busy Julie recommended I read the Thornbirds instead of reading Lonesome Dove. So I read Thornbirds and it was as good as she said it might be. 

New Perspective on Clara's Hands

This is without a doubt my favorite book. I remember when it came out. It was on sale at the middle school book sale in St. John's Gym. My mother bought it there. I almost bought it myself but it was so big I was scared away. But, now, almost 40 years later, it's without a doubt my favorite book. 

The last few weeks have been perhaps the busiest I've had in a long long time. Work has been crazy both politically organizationally and in terms of volume… School has been crazy; I've got two classes going at the same time plus I'm writing my dissertation… Then there's just a general hoi polloi of having two children and a wife who works and travels… But I figured out why I have felt so busy and overwhelmed and it's primarily because I trusted Julie. About a month ago when I wasn't busy Julie recommended I read the Thornbirds instead of reading Lonesome Dove. So I read Thornbirds and it was as good as she said it might be. 

The problem was I already bought a Lonseome Dove and it was sitting there in my kindle library so when I finish Thornbird and my classes were just on the verge of starting I thought . . .  well why not knock out Lonesome Dove. As one of my colleagues at work said Lonesome Dove is huge. It can hardly be called a book that one just "knocks out" on a whim. Regardless, I'm going to finish it today. I'm that close to being done. But it has added to the overwhelming amount of work to my life . . . so worth it though.

What's really interesting to me is the perspective shift that happens when you read Lonesome Dove for the sixth time and as an almost 50 year old. I believe I read it four times in high school. Once each year. I even put little tick marks on my book so I could tell how many times I had read it. I read it once when I was in college again. And I feel certain I read it when I was in the military. It's been 20 years or so since I read it but now that I've reread it it is wild to see how different scenes resonate with me in different ways. 

For example, the July Johnson saga within the story never appealed to me. Now that I'm married and have to deal with some of the same things that July has to deal with it does appeal to me. I found it far more interesting. The same thing goes for the Clara storyline. When Gus gets up to see Clara and see how much she's changed . . . when I was younger that meant nothing to me. Now it does. There's actually one aspect that's incredibly poignant. McMurtry goes in to great lengths to describe Clara's hands. When I was younger Clara's hands meant nothing. Now I can see what he's trying to get at. BTW . . . that would be a great novel title by the way . . . Clara's Hands.

I think when I was younger the biggest dynamic that I focused on was the buddy partnership of Gus and Call . . . that's still there . . . don't get me wrong  . . . but it's just interesting to see how different parts of the story have resonated since. It's still an amazing book. I know that everyone thought the miniseries was terrific but the only reason the miniseries was great is that they were so true to the buck. 

The final aspect I'll focus on is that as long as it is it feels, the book, the end is quick and short. I appreciate that. I think I wrote here about Stephen King and how his endings go on and on and on. Not so Lonesome Dove. It's as if you're on a run to see the finish line and you start sprinting in that spread is fast and quick and in line with the rest of the race. I really appreciate that.

Easily my favorite book.

Experience and Education

I love my classmate's prompt this week that asks about which passages resonated with us from our reading. As I read I continually mark, highlight, underline and mark up our texts and so often I don’t get to go back and utilize that information, or at least not immediately. 

In this case, one quote which stood out from Dewey’s Experience and Education (1938), and a passage I marked is “Everything depends up the quality of the experience which is had. 

The quality of any experience has two aspects. There is an immediate aspect of agreeableness or disagreeableness, and there is its influence upon later experience” (p 27). 

I like this because of the idea that every experience is just another stepping stone to the next learning event and the next experience. Dewey’s Experiential Learning Cycle promotes this and shows how experience leads to judgment then building upon that to the next. 

As the passage above connotes, even a bad or disagreeable experience acts as a stepping stone and something to build on, it deosn’t have to be a successful or agreeable experience to be worthwhile and something to build on. 

Reference

Dewey, J. (1938).  Experience and Education.  Kappa Delta Pi’

Curriculum Design

Like my classmates, I think interaction and engagement in training so vital, and often missed. Often the learner is not taken into enough consideration during curriculum design. 

Or if they are taken into consideration, it is often misunderstood or misaligned between what we think we know about our learners and what we actually know about our learners. 

One example I have is that I would often hear that our learners who visit our organization overwhelmingly hate interaction in their CBT courses. So inevitably, we didn’t design that into the courses. 

HOWEVER, I asked my team to dig deeper and find out why. What we found is that the learner didn’t like interaction because they found it confusing or a too easy. Now we are trying to find ways to integrate interaction into our courses that are more rigorous and at the same time simple to utilize, not simple in terms of their learning outcomes. 

Hopefully when we survey our learners next we can see that they appreciate what we’ve done to make their courses more rigorous and more interactive. This is what I think should be done more often for learners, find out why aspects of training aren’t resonating, and redesign them not just get rid of them. This is what I think of when I think about designing the curriculum with our learners in mind and a learner-centered approach. 

Qualitative Article Contract

We were asked to provide a contract for our semester that outlines how we are going to meet our writing goals for the class. My goal is to write a qualitative article for publication. Others have a goal to write a chapter of their dissertation. This can't be my goal. My dissertation in quantitative in nature. I've already started writing and submitting it. How can I use that in a qualitative class?

So, I came up with several tools to help me outline and meet my writing goals. I came up with a chart, a form, and a bunch of sample questions. Is it overkill? Sure. Is it too much? I don't think so. It helps me keep things straight and it would be what I would expect if I was the professor of this class. 

Project Summary

I intend to write a scholarly article that is qualitative in nature and helps the industry I support better understand the nature of and expectations that our learners come to the industry with. 

For this project, I intend to draft findings from a case study for an article for a refereed journal. This article aims to understand the experiences of newly hired employees working at a contractor organization within the energy industry with a goal of understanding what aspects of their new positions might lead them to leave or abandon the job sooner than they might want. The contractors in the industry have a high turnover and this article will help us understand this phenomenon and perhaps lead to interventions that will alleviate it. To accomplish this, the article will focus on a phenomenological case study that is designed to better understand the essence of being a new employee in the energy industry and the lived experiences of the 10 participants in the study over the first three months of their being hired.

If there is the potential that the contractor organization cannot solicit a suitable number of volunteers, the backup plan will be to solicit volunteers from HASCs new hire training course. This course trains up to 200 newly hired employees in the industry every day. By soliciting from this course the study can still focus on aspects of contractor organizations' retention and turnover, but cannot be as focused on one organization. The benefits of this backup plan is that there is a greater number of potential participants to volunteer and I have a greater ability to control the aspect of soliciting volunteers.

The timeline I will propose and will turn in on Sep 4 as a part of our graded assignment is shown below. The volunteer acceptance form that I've created and sample questions are shown below as images. 

What's the problem? 

I'm looking at my classmates answers to the same question, and no joke, I see a few that are less than impressive, and another that says: 

    I want to improve my writing. 

Well, not exactly that, but more like:

1) To be able to consolidate research and be able to present it in a coherent flow

2) To get into the habit of writing a little daily

3) To sound academic, but not too much

Now, it could be said I take my assignments too far. But this is a PhD level class. This isn't even a Master's class, this is only other PhD students. I would expect a bit more than "get in the habit of writing daily" from a PhD student. But that's just me. 

Facilitaition

We discuss often at work the role of a facilitator over a trainer. We have 10 or more trainers in our organization, but only a handful of facilitators. Facilitation is tough. How do we ensure that the learners are learning what we intend, but allowing them to get to the learning point by themselves or as a group rather than be told. 

I think a lot about the adage, "show don't tell" when writing novels. Many first-time authors will just provide information and not allow the reader the richness of experiencing the story through expository details. Similarly, I'd much rather facilitate than train. 

Facilitation is similar to providing guideposts and handrails to the class. So, back to your question, we always allow the class to take the subjects wherever they want to go with them and when we see that they are struggling, taking too much time, or just way off course, we provide a prompt or a handrail to help guide them to the point we want them to come to. It's an art not a science. 

We have another course that provides the exact opposite experience. We are audited regularly to determine if we are saying the right thing at the right time in the right order, and if we go too far off script we are reprimanded by the governing authority. This class however is for very inexperienced learners. Our leadership classes where we facilitate rather than train is much more experienced learners. 

I doubt they'd appreciate being told rather than being provided the opportunity to learn themselves. I also think this allows the learner the chance to learn via their preferred learning preference. They can discuss, they can white board, they can use information from their smart phones, they can tell stories, whatever they most want to get the point across to their teams. 

This discussion reminds me of the discussion I had on behavior-based safety and the adult learning credo from Cafferella and Daffron (2013) "When I only hear, I forget. When I hear and see, I remember a little. When I hear and see, and ask questions and discuss with someone else, I begin to understand.  When I hear, see, question, discuss, and do, I acquire knowledge and skill.  When I teach someone, I master what I have learned." (p. 188). (see HERE).

So often I feel that when we facilitate we are helping the learners skip ahead to that last part of the credo. When they teach themselves and their groups they are mastering the content rather than just learning it. Long and short, guideposts and handrails are what we provide, and if we see them wander a bit we let them so we can determine if they find their way along naturally. 

References:

Caffarella, R. S., & Daffron, S. R. (2013). Planning Programs for Adult Learners; a Practical Guide. Jossey-Bass.

Do Leopards Ever Change Their Spots? What About Stripes on a Tiger?

We've heard the saying, a leopard never changes his spots . . . or is it a tiger can't change his stripes? Which is it? I guess, after my slight google search, it's leopard.

Why does this have anything to do with my life?

A Heady Love Affair

I'm reading a great book about the ambassador to Germany during Hitlers rise to power. One of the main stories that the author focuses on is the story of the ambassador's daughter, Martha. She was a bit of a romantic to put it lightly. She slept around a lot with a lot of men, even when she was married, and with many, many married men. She hopped around a lot. 

Still I see some of my life in her. There are moments when she writes that hit me right in the heart. 

Never Stop Learning

I can't wait to hear what the others in my class say and are doing to accomplish this same learner-centered approach. I can say that in my organization we have a series of classes to help our learners step up to become leaders. 

In our industry, we have many leaders and supervisors who are promoted not because of their skill or techniques at leading other workers, but because they show up on time consistently, or they complete projects well, or they've been onsite the longest. These are not markers of great leadership traits. 

We offer a foundational leadership experience that provides these new leaders with some fundamental techniques to allow them to build a leadership career path for themselves. In this class, which I teach or facilitate at times, I'm continually amazed by how little "teaching" or "telling" we do. Instead, we sit back and prompt the class with questions and allow the class to teach themselves through their experiences. 

Writing about teacher and student power, Estes (2004) writes about how limiting formal, traditional teaching can become constraining to the student and to their ability to think on their own, and how the teacher's experience and expectations confine the student, both in terms of their thinking and their learning. Estes also writes referring to Greenaway "that a future generation of facilitation should involve learners as facilitators of their own experiences" (p. 252). 

Their work led not just to learning gains during the formal training but also after the fact. Estes goes on to write about Priest and Lesperence's study, that they "discovered that a corporate group, which chose to self-facilitate by using funneling techniques taught during an experiential program back in the work place, resulted in continually higher gains in postcourse teamwork levels" (p. 252). Having read about this study, I wonder how often our facilitation has led our leaders to continue their education after the class is over. 

References

Estes, C. A. (2004). Promoting student-centered learning in experiential education. Journal of Experiential Education, 27(2), 141–160. https://doi.org/10.1177/105382590402700203

Creative Learners

The term "creative learners" immediately appealed to me when I saw it if only because I have been thinking lately about Kolb's Learning Cycle that moves learners through 1) concrete experience, 2) reflective observation, 3) abstract conceptualism, then 4) active experimentation. 

Last week I wrote about how I like that with this cycle the learner alternates around between activity and theory and allows for experimentation and learning through experience as well as building on prior knowledge. 

What I like about inspiring creative learners is that it has obvious foundations in building on that part of the learner cycle around abstract conceptualism. Infact McMullan and Cahoon (1979) find that there is a creative tension between two poles of the cycle when they write "the pull of these polar opposites produces what Kolb refers to as "creative tension." 

The creative person is able to coordinate these different modes of knowing. Moreover, the creative process may be described as a meaningful synthesis of problem-finding and problem-solving" (p. 454). This relationship is shown in the image below that is from McMullan and Cahoon (1979). 

This tension between abstract conceptualization and concrete experience that yields creative tension is where I believe the learner can flex their mental muscles and build on their prior knowledge and move further along in the learning process than they might otherwise have the chance to. 

References

McMullan, W. E., & Cahoon, A. (1979). Integrating abstract conceptualizing with experiential learning. Academy of Management Review, 4(3), 453. https://doi.org/10.2307/257203

Everyone is a Learner

Anna, our facilitator for class this week wrote about experience and wisdom and everyone a learner. Within this vein, I think about the post I wrote earlier on facilitation. 

Within our community, we have experienced operators and hands who have twenty or thirty years of knowledge about the refineries, plants, and worksites that they support. One thing we are missing is a course that can help these people become better trainers and help develop the next generation. 

For years trainers in my industry have been focused on the coming skills and technical training gap (Leonard et al., 2014 & Sammer, 2020) and the deficiencies that are coming to light in hiring for replacement using a labor pool with less technical and engineering know-how (Faw, 2012 & The Engineers Ring, 2019). 10 years ago this was something to expect, 5 years ago it was something we feared and we saw coming to light, and now we are living through it. 

Shade tree mechanics of the type that are now retiring are rare and a prized commodity for hiring organizations. What I believe we need is the ability to mentor and train using the workforce that is retiring, but so often these people don't have the skills necessary to properly train and mentor those that are replacing them. We promote what we can from our organization but there is a very real gap and part of filling that I believe is by tapping into the wisdom of the retiring workforce and empowering them to help train their replacements. 

One wonderful resource that is practicing this in real-time is Dad How Do I (see here (Links to an external site.)). A series developed by a concerned YouTuber who is interested in just helping people who have never been taught the basics of living, get a crash course in these subjects and using learning on demand, and video style of training. We are actually thinking of producing similar video snippets for our industry and utilizing the aqurired wisdom of our retreating older community.  

References

Faw, L. (2012, November 20). Does it matter if millennials don’t know how cars work? Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/larissafaw/2012/11/20/does-it-matter-if-millennials-dont-know-how-cars-work/?sh=7429fe044d58

Leonard, D., Swap, W., & Barton, G. (2014, December 2). What’s lost when experts retire. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2014/12/whats-lost-when-experts-retire

Sammer, J. (2020, February 19). Preparing for waves of retiring employees. SHRM. https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/benefits/pages/preparing-for-waves-of-retiring-employees.aspx

The Engineers Ring. (2019, April 17). Millennials lack key DIY skills. The Engineer’s Ring. https://www.theengineersring.com/young-people/millennials-lack-key-diy-skills/

Another Podcast

I had the opportunity to record another podcast (see HERE and then see HERE for a full list of these that I've done lately). 

This one I got to host the podcast. This was the first one that I had the opportunity to host. I've hosted three I think thus far. They haven't all been released. I look forward to more. 

Personally, I like being on the guesting end rather than on the hosting end. Why? I don't know. I just don't think I do as good a job hosting as I do guest. 

There's a damn video of this one. Ugh. I have a voice for podcasting, not for video! Only click the video link if you have a strong stomach (see HERE). 

BTW . . . We have worked on our audio quality since this last podcast. 

BBS and a Fatality

The other day I wrote about a fatality that an organization I worked at suffered. My classmate asked about that in terms of how it affected our safety and our culture. 

As I mentioned in my post, my organization suffered a fatality and we implemented the behavior-based safety system as a response to that accident. I think that accident was a transformative moment for our executive leadership as well as the workers in the field by extension.

The first of ten phases of transformative learning that Mezirow observed, according to Clark, Merriman, and Sandlin (2011) is a disorienting dilemma followed by a self-examination with feelings of fear, anger, guilt, and shame. The organization went through these first two phases and more to help inspire change in the organization. Despite that, it still included having a nine-person core team doing the training, and over 2 years of work to change the culture. 

Six years later, we merged with another organization equal in size that performed exactly the same type of work. After the merger, we tried to roll out the behavior-based safety system to the new organization. This rollout was not as smooth and twice as long. I think partly because there wasn't that transformative moment with a disorienting dilemma. 

From my perspective, as a part of the safety team, and the Director of Training, I was surprised by how long it took for the system to gain acceptance by the field technicians and managers. Secondly, I was glad that we bought and existing system, despite the high cost, because having a finished product to introduce to the field was far better than trying to create one ourselves or self-perform the rollout. 

From an adult learning perspective, if I was to go back now, armed with the information that our classes have given us, I think some of our marketing material, and training material would have been written from a vastly different perspective, one more geared toward a behvaiorist training approach. 

Reference

Clark, M. C., Merriam, S. B., Sandlin, J. A. (2011). The relationship between adult learning and development; Challenging normative assumptions. In Hoare, C. (Ed.), The oxford handbook of reciprocal adult development and learning (pp. 17 - 38). 

A Pragmatist

When reading Chapter 1 of our text for my new class Introduction: Philosophy of Adult Education, the first thing that caught my eye was the education school of thought or system of pragmatism.

Just the other day I was complimented by my wife when she told me I was too practical. She might have meant it as a slight, but being overly practical to me is more of a compliment and is similar to pragmatism. I like having things proven in clear and clean terms. I like the practical application of the techniques that I use. 

But of the theories expressed in the chapter, the two that made the most sense to me were Progressive Adult Education with the focus on the “relationship between education and society” (Elias & Merriam, 2005, p. 12), and Behaviorist Adult Education with its focus on “behavior modification, learning through reinforcement, and management by objectives” (Elias & Merriam, 2005, p. 13). 

The first is similar in many respects to pragmatism, but the second is interesting to me because of the work I was able to do in behavior-based safety with my old organization. Following a fatality of one of our workers, our leadership decided a drastic change in our safety focus was needed. That change came by way of a behavior-based safety system. 

Instead of a focus on numbers, and metrics, we changed to a system that changed the way our workers naturally behaved. It is intriguing now, 10 years later, to look back on the rollout of that system and see behaviorist adult philosophies woven throughout the content.  

Reference:

Elias, J. L., & Merriam, S. B. (2005). Philosophical foundations of adult education. Malabar, FL.

Different Styles

A few weeks back I wrote about how frustrating it is to work with some folks. I have these types at work, and we just do NOT see eye to eye and it gets VERY frustrating. I think I wrote how I’ll sure that these people get frustrated trying to work with me too. I move too fast. I’m a “pace setting” type of leader and very independent and practical. I come up with an idea and just do. It’s Sua Sponte Leadership (see more HERE). 

But today, as a part of my self-authorship journal, I wrote a long post about this frustration. Just the other day, I had an idea to do a quick study of how our learners change their mindset (or not) about some of our training. Two of my employees have proposed this and it’s a great idea. I’m already thinking about how to go about capturing and analyzing the data. 

Being a good sport, I decided to bring this up to other leaders at the organization. What started as a one to one quick discussion became a larger and longer conversation than I wanted. And when I mentioned my intent about the study, the response was “Sure, let’s get everyone together for a meeting to discuss.”

So, first, I have no intention of “getting everyone together” for a meeting. I don’t have time for that, and truthfully, I don’t really care about their input. If they want to perform a study, they can feel free. But this study is going forward without the input of a much larger group. There isn’t a big enough risk to need more input from a larger group. 

Secondly, it irritates me some times that I’m here making a decision, sua sponte, right? And this other leader needs to build consensus even for something as small as this. 

What’s this have to do with self-authorship? Well, I realized that this isn’t done on purpose. It’s natural for me to move forward out front and set the pace and go. If it fails, it’s not that big a risk. If it yields valuable information and data, then good job team! No need for more than a quick strike group and an idea. We have both. What’s the hold up. 

Regardless, that’s natural to me, but consensus building is natural for this other leader. I shouldn’t expect them to not build consensus. That’s what they do. They see the world through consensus in the same way I see the world through sua sponte. 

What’s the end result? Well, I’m moving forward. If they want a consensus and a meeting, well they better hurry, the pace is being set. But, in terms of self authorship it was nice to realize it’s not being done to be a jerk, nor to get in the way, nor even as spite or a power play. It’s just what this person does. It’s how they see the world. What did I expect? I knew this about them. Adapt, adjust, overcome and go set the pace.