Feeling the interdisciplinary love!

There’s often a lot of talk in organisations about “breaking down silos” and improving collaboration - and then very little happens... In part because very little focus is placed on the structural elements of organisational and job design that actually allow the transfer of ideas, knowledge and insight from one “tribe” to another.  One of the more interesting aspects of the Transform project has been that from the very beginning those structural elements were put in place. Various “Transform fellows” were effectively embedded within the Faculty teams responsible for building the on-line learning offerings.  The Business School have been lucky enough to have Jason Sternberg from Creative Industries aligned to our project.  


Speaking frankly, from the outset we did feel that we’d had a bit of a win (this of course is no reflection on the other fellows!) because of Jason’s strong social media background.  However as the last month has progressed it's obvious that Jason’s contribution to the team is far exceeding his “technical” skill.  In fact Jason’s official role written into our project plan is now “Ideas Man” & “Devils Advocate”.  Having someone sympathetic to your context and organisational environment, but external to your peculiar discipline has been incredibly valuable.  An appropriate question here and there, and example of what has been done elsewhere, a subtle but slight reframing of a problem, all in the context of the wider group discussion has produced a number of solutions to potential issues. Who knows... maybe eventually we can tempt Dr Sternberg over to the Business School!

Cheers, G.

Dr Glen Murphy 
Transformational Fellow 
Senior Lecturer and Subject Area Coordinator (HRM) 
School of Management
QUT Business School


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I couldn't agree with Glen more!  

Having the opportunity to be "undisciplined" and work with the Business School on its contribution to the Transform initiative has been a very liberating experience and its reassuring to hear that my input has been beneficial for the team.

To be honest, working in this cross-disciplinary environment is not that much of a stretch.  My home of Journalism, Media & Communication is definitely at the industry end of the Creative Industries (we even used to be part of the Business School!).  JM&C has also run double degrees with Business for years.

However, I think my "outsider" status has helped the team in a number of ways:

No one expects me to be a disciplinary expert

This frees me up to ask questions that could be considered naive and even stupid if they were asked by someone with insider knowledge.  Having to answer these questions means the Business crew have to explain, what is to them, common sense.  That process leads to greater clarity and insight for everyone involved.

I'm not brand loyal

I understand the need for whatever we produce to be consistent with the other high quality offerings that make up the QUT Business School brand.  However, having someone on the team who doesn't have to be brand loyal can allow the Grad Cert Business Managment to enhance the Business School's reputation in creative and unexpected ways.

Being interdisciplinary makes it easier to be ... interdisciplinary!

If the QUT Transform initiative is going to offer genuine flexibility, learners should be able to combine offerings in interesting ways that suit their needs.  It makes perfect sense for someone interested in business management to also be interested in social media management.  Why shouldn't an educational leader, or a scientist managing a team of 50 people, want to understand organisational behaviour?  Being able to float across the breadth of offerings being offered by QUT Transform and identify the places where learning experiences from Business can be dropped into other courses and vice versa, will strengthen the quality of every course.

Good teaching is good teaching

Everyone involved in the Grad Cert Business Management is committed to providing learners with the best experiences possible.  As a result, there has been an incredibly inspiring exchange of teaching ideas that transcend disciplinary boundaries.  I'm happy to say that some of my most effective teaching strategies have come from conversations with colleagues in nursing, science and education.  I'm now adding management to that list.  I hope the rest of the Business team are finding the teaching strategies from JM&C as useful as I find theirs.

I'm a focus group of one

I don't have a management background, but I know that my own professional development will require me to have one in the very near future.  Being someone who is genuinely interested in the learning materials I'm helping develop, both as a student and a teacher, gives me a unique perspective on how to balance content rigour, flexibility of delivery and concerns about how individual learning experiences might be turned into a qualification.  All of these are issues at the heart of the Transform experience.

Dr Jason Sternberg

Transformational Fellow

Senior Lecturer

Study Area Coordinator (Media & Communications)

Creative Industries Faculty

Developing modern learning experience

Purpose

The initiation phase of Transform (during 2013) is organized so that six selected 48 credit point ‘chunks’ of learning (one from each Faculty) are planned for online implementation from 2014. This means that learning experiences from each Faculty’s nominated Graduate Certificate award will be designed for learners to access through a range of digital interfaces.

Principles

Principles for the design of these online learning experiences are based on the successes afforded by our new physical learning environments and the principles that underpin our student success and real world learning initiatives at QUT.  Our intention is that these principles are translated to digital learning experiences aligned to QUT’s branding.  This mean that QUT’s online learning experiences will be designed to:

• be inquiry-based around real world challenges
• offer flexibility for learners
• allow for collaborative learning between peers (with varying degrees of synchronicity)
• allow for contact between learners and experts (with varying degrees of synchronicity)
• allow us to curate learning resources and experiences in meaningful and coherent ways
• enable learners to provide evidence of their learning
• provide appropriate guidance and support for learners

Support and Resources

In order to support the purpose of this initiation phase the QUT Transform Team (including twelve Transformational Learning and Teaching Fellows in collaboration with six Faculty-based course teams) will develop:

• an outward-facing online environment to engage learners wherever they are located at whatever times they may wish to take up learning; the platform will
• allow for learners to interact with each other and with QUT experts
• allow for the curation of resources and provide support to assist learners to achieve their learning aspirations
• incorporate a Portfolio to allow learners to gauge their readiness for new learning based on prior course and work-based experiences. It will also provide a place where learners can collate and provide evidence of their learning in ways which may assist them to gain an accredited awards further along their learning pathways
• include eCommerce solutions (including pricing structures for learning experiences)

Outcomes of initiation phase

Our hope is that, by the end of this year, each Faculty’s course team will produce, with the support of the Transform Team:      

• a plan for the equivalent of 48 credit points of learning experiences to be delivered online. The plan is likely to include:
• a map of proposed learning experiences with a synopsis of each experience outlined, and
• a version of the map that can be used to show learners how their learning could build to an accredited award (where one is offered).
• the detailed design and production of a number of learning experiences for offer from 2014,
• a framework to assist learners to provide evidence of their learning which would qualify them to seek credit towards an accredited award
• a schedule for the proposed roll-out of further learning experiences so that learners, once engaged, can continue in the field they have chosen.

How are we tracking?

We’re well underway.  Our course teams are adapting to thinking about the experiences we can offer to learners in new and different ways.  Course teams are getting their collective heads around who their learners could be and how we might best meet these learners’ aspirations in ways which remain true to QUT’s mission and values.  We are prototyping online ‘shopping-like’ platforms for offering learning experiences and we’re talking with colleagues across the University about pricing models, marketing, communication, IP, ways to support learners, means of achieving course learning outcomes through a new model of delivery and business solutions which are lean and easy on learners.

Our focus is on our learners, as it always will be.  Through this lens we hope that the knowledge, skills and expertise of QUT’s disciplines can be brought to many more learners than those students who are fortunate enough to live within daily travelling distance of one of our campuses.

Onward and upward!  Please be in touch if you have ideas and advice that will help QUT reach a whole new cohort of learners.

Sue Savage

Director, Learning and Teaching Transformation