September Stories: VU #1

Forming, Norming, Storming, Performing?

Contact: Chris Jackson (Leadership and Small Business, Victoria University)
Tel: 9919 7902
Email: chris.jackson@vu.edu.au

Looking at the header of this template you’d think that this Good News Story should be about eLearning Opportunities.

Well have I got news for you.

The Learn Scope Project has turned out to be an important part of the development of a cohesive team spirit within the department. The department has only been in existence for a short time following a restructure and amalgamation of two former independent departments and is still located in two separate buildings in two separate suburbs.

The departmental team has been following the classic forming, norming, storming and performing process. I would personally estimate that we are on the verge of slipping over into the performing stage. However, with every major change we tend to slip backwards and forwards through the separate stages. There is a great deal of fear of the unknown involved in making lasting changes within any organisation.

Who would have thought that a project such as this would be a vehicle for team development?

The department has a varied mandate in teaching ranging from Traineeships in Retail Studies, Certificate and Diploma Courses in Retail Management, to Industry based Certificate and Diploma Courses in Business (Frontline Management) to Educational Leadership Courses in association with the Chair Academy of the United States. All conducted using various innovative delivery models, at present excluding Elearning modules.

The opportunity to participate in several eLearning development activities (thanks to OTTEs financial assistance) has been seen as an opportunity to extend our teaching boundaries, however our diverse needs have been creating some tension in the development of a new mindset that incorporates eLearning as a delivery strategy.

Having organised WebCT Training to be undertaken by selected staff members, which included both teaching and administration staff, it was with some trepidation that we all turned up at the appointed time and, thanks to our facilitator (Antony Marsh of Victoria University’s Quality Teaching and Innovation team) we started to look at eLearning in a different light.

Surprise, surprise we started to talk about teaching and learning strategies, even our normally reticent administration staff entered into the conversation and gave valuable feedback on their experiences as eLearning students. After the session we stayed back and started looking at how we could incorporate eLearning into our current offering.

More surprises, we actually came with a basic philosophy on how we should structure our eLearning offering, which we will present to our facilitator next session.

Oh, and we all went for coffee together afterwards and guess what the other members of the department have exactly the same problems as we do. While we’re not best friends, we have developed a mutual professional respect for each other and this bodes well for the future of the project.