Scalable & cost-effective facilitationof professional identity transformationin public employment services

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no. 619619

Prompting users to facilitatesupport needs in collaborative reflection

Oliver Blunk, Michael Prilla

Ruhr University of Bochum, Germany

{oliver.blunk, michael.prilla}@rub.de

www.employid.eu

Content

Reflection

Prompting to facilitate reflection

Prototype

Planned evaluation

Conclusion & Outlook

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Starting point

(Boud, Keogh, Walker 1985)

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Behavior

Ideas

Feelings

Returning to

experience

Attending to

feelings

Re-evaluating

experience

New perspectives

Change in

behavior

Readiness for

application

Commitment to

action

Experience(s)Reflective

processOutcomes

Critical / counterfactual

thinking

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Collaborative reflection & support needs

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Behavior

Ideas

Feelings

Returning to

experience

Attending to

feelings

Re-evaluating

experience

New

perspectives

Change in

behavior

Readiness for

application

Commitment to

action

Experience(s)Reflective

process Outcomes

Articulating, sharing

(similar) experience(s)

Articulating, sharing

insights / outcomesShared perspectives,

shared understanding

Coordinating and embedding

group processes of

reflection into work

Critical / counterfactual

thinking

Inference,

abstraction

Boud (1985)

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There is need for facilitation:• Asking questions

• Moderation

• Asking feedback

• Communication between people

Barriers to reflection:

• People getting stuck while reflecting

Facilitation needs and barriers

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Computer-supported reflective learning model

(Krogstie, Prilla, Pammer 2013)

Advantages:

• Reflection split up in stages

• Clear inputs and outputs for each stage

• Designers can specifically support various stages and inputs/outputs

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TalkReflect @ MIRROR

Previous studies & Current studies

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Our work at ECTEL 2015• ‘Reflection as a Plugin’ => Poster session on Wednesday

• Co-flection concept => Session 3B on Thursday

Codename Rotterdam @ EmployID

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• Factors benefiting reflection:• Arguing from experiences rather than giving plain advice

• Sharing emotions

• Asking questions

What does facilitation need to do? Insights from our previous studies

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• Personal definition: Prompts is an event containing a cue, which stimulates a behavior (but doesn’t enforce it) on a trigger based, random or periodic basis

• Different from notification or awareness mechanism

• Careful design required• Long prompts elicit long answers

• Long prompts elicit fewer answers

• Prompts are being used as a scaffold to support activities in individual and collaborative reflection

• Prompts as facilitators

• Context-specific

Prompts as a scaffold

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Prototype

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Concept –Goals and Examples

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Goal Example

G1: Document surprising experiences in daily work

What did surprise you in your daily work lately? Why?

G2: Set the objective What is it you want to know from your colleagues? Ask them a specific question!

G3: Involve others Who of your colleagues might help you in this? Mention him in your post to notify him or her (@username).

G4: Support individual reflection while sharing What has happened? Is there already something you learned from it?

G5: Elicit problem description Help your colleagues understand your problem: Try to describe what things you already tried to solve your issue!

G6: Get people to explicitly link to their experiences rather than giving plain advice

Suggestions are most helpful if they are based on your experience!

G7: Single Loop Learning What have you learned regarding this topic so far from this discussion?

G8: Double Loop Learning What have you learned so far on an abstract level?

G9: Check whether stage has been reached Do you have an idea from this discussion how to change your approach to the topic? If not, phrase a new question

G10: Plan application of reflection outcome How do you want to implement the suggestions of your colleagues?

G11: Check application of outcomes of a previous reflection cycle

Did your plan work? What are your experiences with the change? Tell your colleagues about it.

G12: Train people how reflection works best What happened in that situation? How do you think about it now? How do you plan to handle similar situation in future?

G13: Support people to feel safe in the environment

You can also use the post-anonymously button if you think that you are judged.Don’t only directly criticize your colleagues. Show them also what he/she did correctly.

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Reflection & Model

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G1: Document surprising experiences

in daily work

G3: Involve others

G6: Explicitly link to experiences rather than giving plain

advice

G10: Plan application of

reflection outcome

Example: What did surprise you in your daily work lately?

Why?

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Reflection & Model

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G1: Document surprising experiences

in daily work

G3: Involve others

G6: Explicitly link to experiences rather than giving plain

advice

G10: Plan application of

reflection outcome

Example: Who of your colleagues might help you in this? Mention him in your post to notify him or

her (@username)

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Reflection & Model

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G1: Document surprising experiences

in daily work

G3: Involve others

G6: Explicitly link to experiences rather than giving plain

advice

G10: Plan application of

reflection outcome

Example: Suggestions are most helpful if they are based on your experience!

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Reflection & Model

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G1: Document surprising experiences

in daily work

G3: Involve others

G6: Explicitly link to experiences rather than giving plain

advice

G10: Plan application of

reflection outcome

Example: How do you want to implement the suggestions of your colleagues?

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Leading Questions

• Do the prompts change the behavior of the participants?

• Does more reflection occur in the discussion threads?

• Which prompts help facilitating reflection the most?

• Are there any long-term learning effects following the display of prompts?

• Which binding character works best?

Evaluation setting

• Groups of 10-100 counsellors in public employment services

• Community of practice setting

• Experience exchanges between counsellors

Evaluation

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Possible extension of the concept

Sustaining Reflectivity

Linking to creativity support Setting goals individually…

…or as a group

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• Concept shown for specific facilitation for various aspects of (collaborative) reflection

• (First ideas on extensions)

• First study starting in October

• Open challenges:• How to detect discussion context to map goals?

• How to automatically detect phases of reflection?

• What criteria should be used to scale back prompts?

Conclusion & Outlook

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Thank you

Oliver Blunk

Ruhr-Universität Bochum

Universitätsstr. 150

44780 Bochum

Tel: +49-234-322045

Email: oliver.blunk@rub.de

http://www.imtm-iaw.rub.de

Dr. Michael Prilla

Ruhr-Universität Bochum

Universitätsstr. 150

44780 Bochum

Tel: +49-234-3227735

E-Mail: michael.prilla@rub.de

http://www.imtm-iaw.rub.de/

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