{"id":267,"date":"2021-02-14T23:24:15","date_gmt":"2021-02-15T07:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0154\/?p=267"},"modified":"2021-02-14T23:25:28","modified_gmt":"2021-02-15T07:25:28","slug":"managing-change-for-learning-in-digital-environments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0154\/managing-change-for-learning-in-digital-environments\/","title":{"rendered":"Managing Change for Learning in Digital Environments"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 In March 2020 a Youth Services department, where I worked at the time, switched to working from home. <\/span><\/span><\/span>90% of my job had nothing to do with education, I was a Youth Counsellor. I was also helping run a Life Skills program as a facilitator for a group of teenagers. Its purpose was to educate youth <\/span><\/span><\/span>that was struggling with <\/span><\/span><\/span>transitioning to adulthood. <\/span><\/span><\/span>We were covering a variety of topics, from mental health and job search to budgeting and filing taxes. <\/span><\/span><\/span>All of t<\/span><\/span><\/span>he <\/span><\/span><\/span>educational<\/span><\/span><\/span> materials existed on paper only. <\/span><\/span><\/span>One week we were meeting in person, then the next week we started meeting through Zoom. Nothing else has changed. In June I left the company. Last week, I received a call from my former manager <\/span><\/span><\/span>who asked me if I am interested in helping to create an online curriculum for a Life Skills program. She remembered that I was studying instructional design and thought we might be <\/span><\/span><\/span>useful to each other. I am not sure what lessons I can take away about introducing rapid change. <\/span><\/span><\/span>All I have is questions, such as why now? <\/span><\/span><\/span>What, using the term from Lewin\u2019s model of change, led to this unfreeze? <\/span><\/span><\/span>Was there a reassessment of \u201cwhether the organization has the human, financial, material, and informational resources necessary to implement the change well?\u201d(Weiner, 2009, p.\u00a04<\/span>)<\/span><\/span><\/span> Regardless of which change management method is being used by the leadership, it is clearly on step 1 at the moment.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>
\nAs I have never been an agent of change in a digital learning environment, I don’t have my own approach yet. Although while reading about the various model of changes, I noticed that some of them, such as the ERA (evaluation, re-evaluation, and action) method, are customer-oriented and others, such as Lean Thinking, are more organization-oriented. It seems to be an important distinction because in non-profit organizations changes are rarely driven by customers. It might just be my cynical view based on experience but non-profits have no incentive to adapt to customers’ needs when customers don’t pay for services. Changes are usually attached to new funding and either come from newly introduced government policies or from newly written grant proposals that aim to capitalize on a fresh approach to an old problem.
\nMost change methods seem to require a leadership role to execute them. Since it is unlikely that I will be given any authority, I wonder how useful it is to develop my own approach before I learn about how limited the resources are, what the timeline of this project is, how much influence will I have and so on.
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 What role does leadership play in managing change?
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>While Antwi & Kale suggest that “there are clear limitations to managerial action in making change”(2014, p. 8), they do play a role of a “Change Implementer” as defined by Kanter’s \u201cBig Three\u201d Model of Organizational Change (2003).
\nBiech (2007) provides a great list of responsibilities for the leader
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Develops the vision\r\nProvides input to the business case (probably irrelevant in non-profit )<\/strong>\r\nEstablishes a sense of urgency (good for the organization, not always good for the team)<\/strong>\r\nShows credible and unwavering commitment\r\nDisplays endorsement in actions and words\r\nResponds to emerging issues\r\nDirects the change implementation team\r\nCommunicates the vision constantly\r\nSupports actions addressing reactions\r\nApproves metrics\r\nHolds others accountable to attain metrics\r\nDelivers implementation plan\r\nHolds others accountable to implement\r\nSupports practices to institutionalize change\r\nImplements rewards and consequences \r\n(if i assume an unpaid role, what consequences can i suffer?)<\/strong>\r\nStays the course\r\nRemoves barriers in the system (i love this one the most)\r\n\r\n<\/strong><\/pre>\n
References<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Antwi,\u00a0M., & Kale,\u00a0M. (2014).\u00a0Change management in healthcare: Literature review<\/em>.\u00a0https:\/\/smith.queensu.ca\/centres\/monieson\/knowledge_articles\/files\/Change%20Management%20in%20Healthcare%20-%20Lit%20Review%20-%20AP%20FINAL.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n
Biech,\u00a0E. (2007).\u00a0Thriving through change: A leader’s practical guide to change mastery<\/em>. American Society for Training and Development.\u00a0https:\/\/royalroads.skillport.com\/skillportfe\/assetSummaryPage.action?assetid=RW$1544:_ss_book:22651<\/a><\/p>\n
Kanter,\u00a0R.\u00a0M. (2003).\u00a0Challenge of organizational change: How companies experience it and leaders guide it<\/em>. Simon & Schuster.<\/p>\n
Weiner,\u00a0B.\u00a0J. (2009). A theory of organizational readiness for change.\u00a0Implementation Science<\/em>,\u00a04<\/em>(1).\u00a0https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1186\/1748-5908-4-67<\/a><\/p>\n
\r\n\r\n<\/strong><\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 In March 2020 a Youth Services department, where I worked at the time, switched to working from home. 90% of my job had nothing to do with education, I was a Youth Counsellor. I was also helping run a Life Skills program as a facilitator for a group of teenagers. Its purpose… Continue reading Managing Change for Learning in Digital Environments<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":171,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lrnt525"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0154\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0154\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0154\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0154\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/171"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0154\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0154\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":270,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0154\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267\/revisions\/270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0154\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0154\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0154\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}