Designing Collaborative E-Learning For Results

By Glen Mohr and Julia M. Nault

Because we can communicate by email and over the Web, we no longer need to meet face to face. The more connected we are, the more isolated we are. The connectivity/isolation paradox is manifesting itself in many aspects of our professional and personal lives and is a fundamental reason why e-learning programs can be unsatisfying to instructors and learners.

How can we design e-learning programs to overcome the connectivity/isolation paradox? A program that The Otter Group adapted for CDM from a lunch seminar and then reengineered for synchronous online delivery, demonstrates strategies for building connection, interactivity, and relationships via online learning.

Background

CDM is a global consulting, engineering, construction, and operations firm headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with more than 3000 employees in 90 offices. With project managers responsible for both large, complex projects and small but numerous ones, and with the daily client demands always increasing, the need for better conflict resolution and management became evident. To address this need, the firm developed an internal two-hour lunch seminar on conflict management. However, to reach several hundred globally dispersed managers, and to save time and expense, CDM wanted to switch to an online approach.

Enter The Otter Group.

An initial review of the lunch seminar found it lacking in a number of critical factors. For example, participants met once briefly and spent almost no time engaging with one another. There was little meaningful interaction among participants, and no opportunity for participants to practice or discuss applying the ideas they were learning. Participants left the event without a clear understanding of potential next steps or any sense of a learning community. By

The proposed e-learning solution had to maintain the high-touch level of the face-to-face seminar within the constraints imposed by the physical separation of the participants and the technologies used to connect them. A redesign converted the lunch seminar into six 75-minute synchronous online sessions delivered over VisionCast (a version of Microsoft LiveMeeting provided by Premiere Conferencing) and a phone conference.

The following design elements were incorporated into the program:   

• numerous case examples from participants and their co-workers
• a team project that asked participants to apply new tactics and strategies to a real case example, which was provided by senior management    
• senior executives joined the course at the beginning and end to reinforce its importance to the company, as well as to critique work and motivate employees to integrate what they learned into their daily practice  
• extensive use of interactive features, such as polling and breakout sessions  
• an assessment tool and a survey designed specifically to generate rich profiles of each participant from which they could learn about themselves and their co-workers. The resulting data was woven throughout the course to connect theory with practical reality.   

The redesign proved successful in overcoming the constraints of physical separation and the limitations of distance learning technology. In the most recent cohort to complete the redesigned conflict management program, 100 percent of the participants rated it as “valuable to highly valuable.” In addition, 100 percent of the participants found that the course helped them recognize and deal with their own and others' conflict styles. Participants cited scheduling flexibility as an obvious advantage, but they also valued the interactive communication tools that were built into the program design. One participant said, “I am the last person normally to be impressed with computer technology, but I have to admit the technology was extremely impressive and effective.”

Critical Success Factors

In dealing with the connectivity/isolation paradox, The Otter Group has defined a number of critical success factors, most of which are basic common sense.

Manage expectations. Participant expectations must be managed on a number of levels. First and foremost, participants need to know what the company expects them to achieve, as well as what the instructor expects from them. On a practical note, participants need to know what the technology can do and what it cannot. This aspect should be reinforced periodically to ensure that participants don't forget about particular interactive features when they aren’t using them (for example, sending questions privately). Lastly, but very important, they need to know how much time the program requires before they commit. Possibly, the most common complaint heard from people is “no one told me how much time it was going to take.”

Be sure to educate participants that the course is of great importance to senior management--and to the company’s bottom line. CDM considered that crucial to setting participants’ expectations from the outset. It wasn't enough to include a welcome letter in the front of the materials packet; senior managers were invited to introduce each course.

Critical Success Factors Manage expectations. Create a common base of knowledge before the course starts. This may consist of new readings/exercises or refreshers of previous ones. Make it extremely clear how and when participants will communicate. Demonstrate the technology at the outset and reinforce throughout the course. Do not let anyone slip through the cracks. Make synchronous sessions highly interactive.    Let students generate the data and examples used in the course.    Include a collaborative project.     Bring closure to the material and provide a plan for next steps.

To that end, The Otter Group coached senior executives on both the content and effective presentation styles. For example, we encouraged one executive to identify people in the class he knew by name and thank them personally for participating. He spoke from his own experience and gave specific examples of when skills covered in the course were instrumental in resolving a serious problem. He also gave at least one example of an unsuccessful conflict resolution, which led to a discussion of what strategies would have been useful. The senior manager also supplied the case studies used for the team project and he attended the final session of the course and critiqued the participants’ work.

Indeed, it raised the stakes for participants by an order of magnitude when employees learned that a senior manager cared enough about the outcome of the program to make time in his schedule to participate in person. This is more easily accomplished with an e-learning offering, as the senior manager can participate from any location.

Make synchronous sessions highly interactive. Successful interactivity in a synchronous distance learning session results from a combination of the instructor’s skill at managing and engaging the class, a curriculum design that emphasizes learner input and feedback, and technology that makes everything seamless and fluid.

Typically, a two-person team of moderator and subject matter expert or faculty is highly effective. The moderator focuses on maximizing interaction by calling on participants, filtering/answering text chat questions, and operating polls while the subject matter expert focuses on the content.

The CDM course made use of multiple means of connecting the participants with one another: polling, discussion, participant feedback (ratings/ranking), simulations, and breakout sessions. For example, the moderator made frequent use of the platform’s polling capability, which stimulated participants’ thinking and showed them whether their classmates were thinking the same way. The polls provided a quick way to assess the group’s experience after a breakout session and also enabled the company to record participant perceptions at the beginning of class and compare them to answers at the end of class.

Including ways for participants to ask questions publicly and privately during and between sessions is a good idea. Be sure to explain when they can volunteer examples and how you will use them. Regularly redirect interaction from instructor-to-participant to participant-to-participant.

For CDM, the environment needed to approximate the flexible and dynamic qualities of a live classroom, so they used a pre-arranged conference call to rapidly shift participants into breakout sessions and then back to the full group on the instructor’s cue. Using this technology, the instructor could give participants a role-play scenario, send them off to work in pairs, visit the pairs to coach them and answer questions, and then bring everyone back for a group discussion. It was the virtual equivalent of “turn to the person next to you and take the role of….” It also enabled instructors and manages to predetermine pairings, ensuring that participants had a chance to meet and work with nearly every other member of the class.

Use learner-generated data. The original seminar had participants complete a survey that evaluated their individual conflict style. Unfortunately, the data had limited use during the learning session. Program evaluations confirmed that learning about their conflict style was the part of the course that learners liked best and wanted to see expanded.

The redesigned course asked participants to take the Thomas Kilman Instrument (TKI) (www.cpp-db.com/products/tki/index.asp) before the first session, as well as a specially designed survey eliciting perceptions of how conflict occurs and is managed within the company. The Otter Group summarized the results of the TKI profiles and presented them in a series of charts, sometimes polling participants about their perceptions before revealing the data. CDM employees claimed that they gained a richer view of their learning community and were able to compare their individual results to the aggregate through this process. The summary of the conflict survey offered a clear picture of conflict management across the company. Finally, instructors correlated the results and wove the two sets of data throughout the course as a means of connecting theory to individual and group practice.

Also, as part of the redesign, developers conducted interviews with employees in similar positions and with others in the company with whom they were most likely to share conflict. These interviews generated a number of mini-cases rich in detail, which lead to much discussion and encouraged participants to volunteer their own examples. Hearing the breadth of examples from across the company emphasized the importance that even small changes in conflict management behavior could make when multiplied across the company.

Combining the profile and survey data with detailed personal examples demonstrated for participants that peers with very different profiles are addressing similar problems and that sometimes one approach is more effective than another. This reinforced the core lesson of the class: It is possible to consciously choose a strategic approach to dealing with conflict.

Collaborative projects should focus on application. To ensure that participants came away from the course with a clear understanding of how to apply what they learned, the course assigned a project that gave participants direct experience in application. Pairs of learners collaborated on a strategic plan for dealing with a conflict scenario that had been provided by senior management. Because the project required work outside the session, it strengthened relationships between participants. In the final session, a senior manager reviewed and critiqued each plan. As a result, participants were able to garner visibility in front of senior management, an important motivating factor for participation.

Monitor progress with a learning director.  The Otter Group regularly uses a person from within the company and coaches them on how to perform the role of learning director. The learning director is there to make sure that each participant understands what he or she is expected to do, responds to work conflicts and company-wide issues, and acts as a liaison with senior management. Ideally, the learning director is also familiar with the course content and plays a supporting role throughout the course. Their interaction reinforces the value the company places on the course.

Include closure and next steps. If the course is conducted entirely in a distance learning format, develop a closing online session that gives participants the greatest opportunity for interaction with one another and senior management. The CDM course used the review of team projects as a starting point for discussion and asked the senior manager to comment on the profile data to reinforce that incremental improvement in conflict resolution skills across the company could result in large improvement to the bottom line. In addition, instructors asked participants for examples of current situations in which they could envision applying what they learned in the class. This tactic brings current issues into the discussion and, with the presence of the senior manager, gives participants the sense that they are experiencing a unique opportunity to talk about the company rather than just taking a course.

By applying all of these techniques, CDM was able to achieve a dynamic, interactive learning environment in which participants could achieve mastery of the material while building relationships with one another and the firm. As part of ongoing skills development within this company, participants are tracked six months out to see how well they are doing. Past participants continue to cite great value from the program. CDM views it as a great investment in time and resources--and a model for e-learning initiatives.  

Published: May 2004