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LBST 499, Working Together Using
Information Technology: SYLLABUS |
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I. Descriptions
in IUP Catalog and Class Schedule
LBST 499 Senior
Synthesis (required
of all students)
Prerequisites: 73 or more semester hours earned
This course helps
students understand and handle complex intellectual and social issues from
multiple perspectives. A selection of topics is available each semester and
summer session. Students should schedule the course during the senior year, or
at least no earlier than the last half of the junior year. In order to broaden
their experiences, students are encouraged to enroll in synthesis sections
taught by instructors outside the students' major fields.
Section Title:
Working Together Using Information Technology
Professor: Dr. John A. Cross
Prerequisites: Computer Literacy.
When there is an
important decision to be made in an organization or an important task to be
done, a group is likely to be assigned to it. No one works completely
independently. This takes its toll in scheduling problems, communication costs
and errors, political conflict, and meetings that are inefficient or
counterproductive. Can technology help us work together? It offers promising
alternatives to phone calls and face-to-face meetings, but these alternatives
require difficult choices. We will experiment with group tasks using different
forms of information technology, evaluate the pros and cons of these group
processes, and seek guidelines for matching people, tasks, methods, and
technology.
II. Course
objectives
There are two
general goals of IUP's senior
synthesis course:
1)
To serve as a capstone to your Liberal
Studies requirements. The concept of Liberal Studies is to broaden your
education and awareness. IUP's response to this
challenge is to compel you to respond to complex
intellectual and social issues with an awareness of multiple perspectives.
2)
To develop your higher-level cognitive abilities and skills,
specifically in the areas of synthesis and evaluation. "Bloom's Taxonomy of
Educational Objectives in the Cognitive Domain" is an enduring statement
of the dominance of synthesis and evaluation in educational objectives.
In this section of
LBST 499, you may choose to include your life experiences and what you have
learned in your academic majors in what you synthesize from the knowledge and
skills you have developed to this point in your Liberal Studies. You will also
learn alternative ways to work together, particularly newer methods that
incorporate Information Technology (IT). In the process of synthesizing ways to
work together, you will have additional opportunities to practice synthesis as
you work together in groups. Specific things that we hope to accomplish in this
course include the following list.
1. Satisfy the
Liberal Studies requirement for a synthesis course. This includes developing
skill in generating new knowledge by combining facts from different disciplines
and in responding to the needs of a pluralistic society. In particular, this
course should be a "capstone" for your liberal studies experience at
IUP by compelling you to synthesize from what you have learned in courses that
satisfy liberal studies requirements.
2. Develop
knowledge and skill in cooperative work. This extends the concept of a
synthesis of liberal studies courses to a collaborative synthesis of the
diverse knowledge and skills of people who must work together synergistically
to accomplish something that is superior to what might be accomplished by
persons who work alone. This goal requires meaningful tasks, appropriate
methods, adequate technology, and insight into how people work together.
3. Evaluate alternative
modes of working together, particularly with the use of information technology
(IT). Among other things, this requires you to apply measurement skills and the
scientific method that is part of IUP's liberal
studies requirement. You must measure the quality and quantity of everything
that happens when people work together. You must also measure relevant
affective factors. All of these data must be recorded and analyzed.
4. Synthesize
effective ways of collaborating that meet both short-term work goals and
long-term social needs.
5. Build a lifelong
interest and awareness in the concerns of group interaction and the application
of conventional or innovative IT to address those concerns.
Note: The goal of
your LBST 499 requirement is more concerned with how you apply what you already
know to concerns related to working together than how much you learn about
information technology (IT). However, you may be more interested in learning
new things, especially about IT. My past experience in this class has been that
your limited knowledge of scientific method is a greater concern than your
varied levels of experience with computer software. The inclination for
university faculty is to focus more on collaborative work and the scientific
method than on enabling technology, but alumni often comment on the value of
both.
Prerequisites: I
will demand basic literacy in the English language and personal computing. I
insist on using word processing software for all your handins. You must use a spell-checker,
proofreading, and reviews by other people to remove ALL usage errors from your
handins. We will talk about the details of computing skills in the first part
of the course. You will write a lot, but much of your writing will be informal.
You are expected to have completed your liberal studies requirements before you
enroll in this course. You are also expected to have learned something from
them. By now your coursework in your IUP
major should have prepared you to contribute some specialized knowledge to your
synthesis section. In particular, you should have begun to develop an
understanding of the nature of work and the need for collaboration.
1. Introduction:
Syllabus; data sheet; the nature of synthesis and goals for the course;
definitions; videotapes; types of groups (social, work, community, cyberspace),
group dynamics; information technology for this course (PowerPoint, Web
browsers, Web publishing, email, file management, web browsing,
computer-mediated communication and collaboration).
2. Sample group
experiences: brainstorming (overhead/chalkboard vs. computer-supported);
document inspection (specialized method with no technology); collaborative
writing.
3. Conventional
patterns of group work: face-to-face meetings, group structures, task division,
efficiency analysis, synergy, use of a facilitator, alternative group
interaction styles.
4. Evaluating group
work: cost, benefit, data collection, synergy, group dynamics, and affective
factors.
5.
Computer-mediated group work: groupware features in Microsoft Office, email,
chat and Instant Messenger, the Web and the Net, publishing on the Web,
whiteboards, Web phone, theaded discussions, WebCT and distance learning, NetMeeting, an electronic
calendar, presentation software (PowerPoint), and videotapes on CSCW and
software inspection.
6. Ethnographic and
demographic issues; privacy issues; telecommuting; the Electronic Frontier
Foundation; readings.
7. Group projects
in groups of 3 or 4: Designing an activity in which you direct the group work
of your classmates; measuring and analyzing the results of your group's class
activity; documenting the outcomes of your group activity and reporting to the
class.
IV. Readings
In addition to
lecture notes, in-class activities, and your projects, this course MUST contain
guided readings, preferably from original sources. You should want and need
this part of the course for two reasons:
1) It gives you an opportunity
to "acquire facts," an aspect of your undergraduate education that
Bloom notes is easier to do and easier to place value on.
2) There is practical value to
research into the concerns and methods of collaboration that are causing our
knowledge about working together to evolve along with technology to support
collaboration.
Guided reading and
research is essential to your ability to synthesize ways to work together now
and in your future. You must not only read, you must read about
state-of-the-art theory and technology that applies to the situations you find yourself in. For these reasons, I will provide a
structured way to make readings part of the course.
V. Evaluation
Methods
I
will base your final grade on the points you earn. I assign grades on the basis
of 60-70-80-90% levels of achievement, or something slightly lower, plus my
professional best judgment for borderline cases. You will be able to check your
grades through access to my electronic gradebook. You
may appeal any grade in this course, but all appeals must be IN WRITING and ON
THE DAY GRADES ARE DISTRIBUTED. Any face-to-face, oral communications that you
attempt with me about your handin will probably not affect your grade. Note
that all exams and quizzes will be "open notes."
Terminating Activity: You are required to
complete an appropriate terminating activity. You are also required to complete
the required hours of instruction for a 3-credit course at IUP. For this
workshop, you will be given a “distance learning” activity at the last class
meeting. This will be similar to a take home exam, except that it will involve
participation in an online discussion. This activity will be due no later than
Wednesday following the last class meeting. If you do not complete this
terminating activity, your course grade will be reduced by one letter grade and
you will receive a zero for the terminating activity. The terminating activity
will be scored on a basis of 20 points, which may reduce you another letter
grade.
Notes on
Attendance and Participation: Any class absence jeopardizes your chance to benefit
from and contribute to this course. According to university policy, you are
responsible for all class activities, including quizzes, exams, and handouts.
The new Banner system collects data on your class attendance. In accordance
with official IUP policy, your grade for the course may be reduced for
excessive class absence.
I do not
grade solely on attendance. However, I cannot give you a good evaluation in
"Working Together" unless you make positive contributions to class
activities. You must prepare for class, attend class, be on time, work in a
timely manner (no deadline work styles), and be an active, helpful participant in our activities. My experience with attendance
in workshops has been that it is near 100%. You are getting an intense and
abbreviated form. Missing a class is not an option, except for an unforeseen
personal catastrophe.
During a regular
semester: I do not offer make-up opportunities for in-class
point-earning opportunities. You are not "entitled" to a certain
number of absences. When you miss class, you miss learning opportunities and
you cannot contribute to the collaborative work of the class. University
classes normally have a strong group component, but the need for attendance in
this course is critical because the quality and reliability of your
contributions will help or hinder the grades and learning of other students. The
good news: Because some absences are unavoidable, I have a policy of dropping
the lowest activity grade.
Academic
Conduct:
Any work that you receive any sort of credit or recognition for but is not entirely
yours must include an acknowledgment of what is not entirely yours and where it
came from. Using and acknowledging other people's thoughts and work in an
appropriate context is a basic principle of group work, so I encourage it. If
references are especially valuable or well done, I may award bonus points.
The work you
submit must be yours, with the exception of clearly stated references to the
source of anything that is not your original work or the work of your group. Standard rules for academic conduct
apply to any determination of "appropriate collaboration" in this
course. If you are in doubt about what is appropriate, you must ask and receive
a written and dated response or be liable for charges of academic misconduct. I
normally handle such questions through electronic mail.
Handins: Submit
documents that are suitable for a "student portfolio." That is, you
must document your work so that you have a complete, reusable record. Students
should keep thorough records of their work because they may be able to reuse it
later and because prospective employers may be interested in it.
For out-of-class
assignments, prepare a computer-printed document that includes a title page,
table of contents, and page numbers. Always do a spelling and grammar check for
any computer-readable document. ALWAYS proof-read your
writing.
Group Work: I will grade some of your
activities that involve group work. In group work, you have less independence
and more interdependence than students normally have. You may experience
conflict with team members, frustration when group participation is uneven,
social problems of not being placed with the people you would like to work with
or a feeling that no one wants you on in their group, a group where no one
leads, or a group where everyone tries to lead. One of the concerns of this
course is that you must articulate what works well when a group of people
attempt to cooperate on a task and what does not work well, then respond to the
situation constructively. A key concern is to be part of the solution, not part
of the problem.
Some project
reports will include a section on the contributions of each individual and an
analysis of the feelings of each group member about the group process. I will
establish groups in ways that I consider to be my best professional judgment of
what relates best to the goals of the course. My preference is to work with
"heterogeneous groups." That is, I like to mix sexes, international
students with western Pennsylvanians, computing techies with people who don't
like computer-based systems, and people from different majors.
In professional
group work, it is generally recognized that heterogeneous groups produce better
products with the likelihood of more conflict and frustration than with
homogeneous groups. In sports training there is a saying "No pain, no
gain." It is no more natural to force our bodies through a wall of pain
and exhaustion in long distance running than it is to force our psyches through
the experience of working with people we are not comfortable with or who might
threaten our job performance rating (our grade), but both can lead to human
accomplishments that would not happen without the pain. We will continue this
discussion in class.
Note that some of
your participation as a group member will be anonymous and/or ungraded. I expect that most of you are serious about your
education. Please make certain that you understand the goal and procedure for
our group activities, negotiate the details if necessary, then maintain your
focus and contribute to the education of your fellow students as you would have
them contribute to your education. In particular, be aware that when any of you
loses your focus on the learning goals of our group activities the entire group
can suffer and they will be annoyed.
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