Transcript Staff Appreciation: Appreciative Enquiry at the University

Using Appreciative Enquiry to
Enhance Learning & Teaching across
a University
University of Gloucestershire
31 October 2007
Dr Andrew Comrie
Director, Centre for Learning Development
How we got started with
Appreciative Enquiry
• Led a team to the Change Academy in
2006
• Focus on how to embed the QES to ‘drive
continuous improvement of the student
experience of learning and teaching’
• We decided to proceed by using
Appreciative Enquiry (AE)
Orientations of AE
• ‘The task of leadership is to create an
alignment of strengths…making a
system’s weaknesses irrelevant’ (Peter
Drucker)
• ‘A leader is anyone who wants to make a
difference at this time’ (Meg Whitley)
• ‘The best way to predict the future is to
create it’ (Peter Drucker)
Opening Enquiry
Three Questions for Reflection
1. A “peak moment” in your
organisational life?
• Share the story: the most memorable parts
of the initiative, including challenges and
innovations.
• Reflect on what made this successful
• You…what were your 3 best qualities, or
experienced strengths?
2. When Do People in Your
Organisation Feel Most Engaged
and Passionate?
A.
B.
•
Your observations and experiences of your institution
When do people feel most passionate and connected at the
University of Gloucestershire?
Can you share an example of: “a hot team”; great innovation; high
engagement and performance?
Your Organisation’s Signature Strengths (continuity
question): assuming the university will change in the future, what
are those best qualities,signature strengths, and managerial
assets, etc -that you would want to keep or build upon, even as
UoG moves into a new and changing future?
Can you give an example of those strengths in action?
3. Images of the Future
(Your Organisation in 2012)
• We wake up - it is 2012 - what do you see
that is new, different, changed, better?
• I will be most proud of _________ in 2012
when…?
What is Appreciative Enquiry?
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Organisational Development – 1980s
David Cooperrider PhD – Cleveland Clinic
Conventional diagnosis ‘What’s wrong?’
Struck by positive co-operation,
innovation, egalitarian governance
• Supervisor – Suresh Srivastva notes his
excitement and suggests change in focus
• ‘What makes it work so effectively?’
Key principles of AE
• The organisation is created in
our interactions
• The unconditionally positive
question – ‘what gives life?’
• Anticipatory reality –
organisations change in the
direction they enquire
• Change is emergent
• The future is not what it used
to be
Deficit Theory of Change
• Identify problem
• Conduct root cause
analysis
• Brainstorm
and analyse
possibilities
• Action plans
Metaphor: organisations
are problems to be solved
most schools, companies
families and organisations
function on an unwritten
rule…
“Let’s fix what’s wrong and
let the strengths take care
of themselves”
--Gallop Poll
Unintended Consequences
of Chronic Deficit Discourse
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Fragmentation
Few New Images of Possibility
Sisyphus Syndrome – Exhaustion
“The Experts Must Know”: Increases in
Hierarchy
• Spirals in Deficit Language…Burning Issues
Lose Their Power to Motivate and Inspire
• Breakdown in Relations/Closed Door
Meetings/Fear
Deficit
Management
(deficit based change)
• Identify problem
• Conduct Root Cause
analysis
• Brainstorm solutions &
analyse
• Develop treatment – action
plans or interventions
Machine Metaphor:
Organisations are “broken
mechanisms to be fixed”
Appreciative Enquiry
(strength-base innovation)
•Appreciate “Best of what is”
•Imagine “What might be”
•Design “What should be”
•Create “What will be”
Mystery Metaphor:
Alive, emergent capacity
“webs of infinite strengths”
Ap-pre-ci-ate,v.,
1. Valuing…
- The act of recognising the best in people and
the world around us;
- Affirming past and present strengths,
successes, and potentials;
- To perceive those things that give life (health,
vitality, and excellence) to living systems.
2. To increase in value, e.g. the economy has
appreciated in value.
- Synonyms: valuing, prizing, esteeming,
and honouring.
En-quire, v.,
1. The act of exploration and discovery.
2. To ask questions; to be open to seeing
new potentials and possibilities.
- Synonyms: discovery, search, study
and systematic exploration.
The AE 4-D model of Positive
Change
Discover (positive)
•The best of what is good now
through stakeholder
engagement and exploration
of the “best” experiences and
hopes of the future
Deliver (Capacity)
•Innovate what “should be”
•Ensure achievement and
deliverables
•Sustain, learn, adjust
Affirmative Focus
•Putting what you want most
at the centre of the process
•“Begin with the end in mind”
(Cove)
•Expectations shape
performance
Design
•What the ideal should be
•Address the organisational
implications
•Develop key strategies,
structures and processes
Dream
•Envision what might be
possible
•Develop provocative
proposition and establish
principles
•An ideal future based on the
very best of the present
1 Appreciating the positive
inherent generative potential
in the present
2. Requires intentional re-framing:
The classic choice:
“glass is half empty or half full”
3. Affirmative
topic choice
Building and analysing
what we want instead of what we don’t want
Topic Choice is a Process of
Framing & Re-Framing
Exercise:
reflect on existing “problem” or “opportunity”
How might it usefully be RE-FRAMED?
Example problem: “cutting the student attrition rate”
to a study of the factors that motivate “high level student persistence
through to degree completion”
Characteristics of Good Topics:
- something we want
-provides a lens to discover strengths & positive deviations from the norm
-an opportunity focused energising frame for discovery
-uses creative combinations of key words
Appreciative Enquiry at Surrey
• Training sessions for staff & students
• Interviews conducted by 23 staff & 19
students
• 94 staff interviewed (random sample)
• 89 students interviewed
• Overall – 117 staff and 108 students
involved (Total N = 225)
Protocol
• Asks about good experiences of learning
and teaching
• What people valued about these
• 3 wishes that would ensure that learning
and teaching would always reach this high
point
• Sum up in an image, metaphor, sentence
• Key themes extracted
Themes from staff interviews
• Interactive lessons – “It’s all about interaction…
about getting students to DO things… There is joint
problem solving, this gets the lecturer much closer to the
class.”
• Relevance – “Real cases rather than theoretical” “I
worked hard to get the most up to date examples.”
• Enthusiastic and capable students – “The
students’ interest was a real motivator” “This module was
… designed to get students enthusiastic” “It makes a
difference if the students are engaged from an early
stage”
Themes from staff interviews (cont.)
• Sense of achievement – “Seeing students
become independent learners validates the effort and
time I put in. Recognising that having good research and
teaching is possible” “A positive cycle, students
motivating tutor, tutor motivating students”
• Personal relationship/ enthusiasm – “This
relationship probably helped sustain the commitment of
students because they felt I cared about them as
individuals” “I was approachable and accessible”
• Feedback – “Because of the well designed,
managed and structured assessment, students receive
feedback which is timely, rapid and useful” “Valued
feedback from the students”
Results summary from student interviews
Students appreciate:
Enthusiastic staff – who want to be teaching.
Well organised lectures – notes online.
Learning principles for use outside the lecture.
Group tutorials – ‘made learning interactive and
fun’.
Peer support ‘the students made a community’.
Feedback – ‘you know where to pick up on in
future.’
Comparison of Themes
Staff themes
Student themes
1. Interactive lessons
1. Enthusiastic staff
2. Relevance
2. Well organised lessons
3. Enthusiastic students
3. Relevance
4. Sense of achievement
4. Interactive lessons
5. Relationship/Enthusiasm
5. Peer involvement
6. Feedback
6. Feedback
Open Space Approach
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Involve staff & students in large venue
Brief review of themes from AE
How do we take these forward?
Open Space Technology Format (Harrison
Owen)
• Highly participative event that is participant
led
• One Law and Four principles
The Four Principles
• Whoever comes are the right people.
• Whatever happens is the only thing that
could have.
• Whenever it starts is the right time.
• When it is over, it is over.
The Law of Two Feet
Whenever you are neither
learning from a discussion nor
contributing to it, move on.
Open Space Event
• 21 Sessions were offered in 3 slots
• Topics included: ‘Fostering learning for its
own sake beyond passing assessments’,
‘Caring for students’, ‘How can we
empower students to develop into
independent learners?’, ‘New frontiers in
curriculum design’, ‘Learning for
employability’.
Taking it forward
• New Faculty structure – identifying cases
of good practice for further AE within each
faculty
• Seeking to develop ‘Cross-Faculty
Learning Community Programme’ (Cox)
• Evolving a guide to principles of learning
and teaching that inform our practice.
Some References
Cooperrider, D. & Whitney, D. (1999) Appreciative
Enquiry. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehlet.
Cox, & L. Richlin (Eds.), Building faculty learning
communities (pp. 5-23). New Directions for
Teaching and Learning: No. 97, San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass.
Owen, H. A brief User’s Guide to Open Space
Technology available at http://hoimage.com/Brief%20User's%20Guide.htm