Literature Review 5315, Malick, S.

Preface

The previous assignment for 5315 Week 2 was to outline our action research plan for measuring our innovation plan for the Digital Learning and Leading Program with support literature documentation review.

This assignment is a literature review of the pedagogical concepts and theories behind my innovation plan development and that is reflective in my action research plan. There are several references I’ve previously cited that are included herein, but my innovation plan research continues to evolve with the inclusion of additional sources and the revision of removing some sources.

Literature Review

My innovation plan research supports several concepts that I have included to enhance the learning experience of students working at the University Press (UP) utilizing e-Portfolios and the instructional foundations to encourage achievement.

The research included and the plan I’ve implemented doesn’t necessarily provide groundbreaking details, but instead offers achievable reinforcement to build successful journalism, advertising and communications learning environments in higher education.

The focus of the plan and the innovative disruption (Christensen, 1997) it introduces is technological in its structure, the plan emphasizes instructional methods as the influencer of learning.

Technology has transformed all forms of media in a revolutionary and evolutionary way rapidly, especially in the last two decades, in how content is delivered to audiences large and small (Karimi, Walter, 2015). The challenge for professionals in the field and learning institutions is how to keep pace with developing the education of new professionals entering media related career fields (ASNE, 2015).

My desire to pursue this concept is based on several years of classroom observations and numerous conversations with students, instructors and professionals regarding journalism skills for their staffs.

The heart of my plan is to affect both the classroom and the newsroom and is best summed up from Sonderman & Rosenstiel’s report to the American Press Institute (2015).

“Innovation is a product of culture. … Relatively small changes to an organization’s processes and structure can have magnified effects on its culture, which in turn can enable vital innovation in news organizations.”

My goal has always to make the approach of my innovation plan, first at the human level and then to the needs, behaviors, motivations, and problems of different types of people across the many functions of the UP and later, the Lamar University Department of Communication (LUDoC).

A second step in this process was to use the personas, as well as the insights from individual student, faculty and professional interviews and site to develop a model to help my plan advance more successfully. I always had an idea of why, what and how to do my project – but I didn’t have the words or research to construct a framework of what I wanted to do. I also knew that individual personas of students and faculty had a lot to do with the success and I wasn’t always sure how to document those interactions other than by saying vague, blanket statements like, “Howard knows a lot about grammar,” or “Andy is really good at layout and design.”

I knew that more meaning had to be applied for a concrete plan to develop and I had to identify what organizational characteristics enable innovators to thrive and organizations to evolve; identify what cultural, human and systemic obstacles get in the way of that occurring and identifying solutions to those obstacles.

What I have learned in the Digital Learning and Leading course is how to build collaboration, communication, trust and relationships with key influencers (Patterson, Grenny, Maxfield, McMillan, Switzler, 2008). I identified human challenges to be primarily about how people work with other humans in the organization. I still believe this to be the single biggest factor in empowering my colleagues to innovate.

My observations, interviews and crucial conversations revealed that much of the UP’s student and organizational success relies on a cultural expectation of excellence. This culture relies on resources of operation more so than funding, technology or extraordinary skill – it is best defined as a culture of learning and learning environment.

The several months of research I have done, has permitted this culture to to defined in four ways:

1. Learning at the UP is student-centered, authentic and experiential.
2. Learning is guided by instructors, but determined by student activity.
3. Learning and instruction is collaborative and reflective within peer groups of staff and contributors.
4. Learning is contextual and is not predetermined or preassigned; is always ongoing and adaptive.

   Reinforcing research confirms the application of Leland “Buck” Ryan’s Maestro Method (1991) and a contemporary classification that can be defined under Choice, Ownership, Voice and Authenticity as described by Harapnuik (2016) and Cummins, Thibodeaux and Harapnuik (2017).
   Journalism has certain standards of determining what is news, what are the functions of a journalist, ethical and legal standards, but how a journalist goes about accomplishing those standards as performance tasks are subjective and vary greatly in many aspects. My innovation plan is a way to compartmentalize the learning and instruction of journalism at the UP and to extend that as a collaborative effort across to the LUDoC to align goals, strategy and culture.

   There is currently no coordinated journalism structure to align the UP and the LUDoC and I see this actually as positive deviant that lends a certain element of opportunity – because there is currently no process in place for opposition (Patterson, et. Al., 2008).

   The primarily measurement for alignment is the inclusion of e-Portfolios. The UP has required all editors and staffers to produce an e-Portfolio that encompasses each semester students are on staff since the spring 2016 semester. The e-Portfolio represents 100 percent of academic credit for students in UP-related classes and is a requirement for all paid-student staff to receive payment.

   The e-Portfolio serves as a tool for several purposes toward creating a significant learning environment (Graves, Epstein, 2011; Cummins, Thibodeaux and Harapnuik 2017; Hubbell, Pearson, 2009; McWhorter, Delello, Roberts, Raisor, & Fowler, 2013):

• An assessment tool for both the learner and the teacher.
• A developing academic and professional identity for the learner.
• A collaborative reflection tool for both the learner, teacher and faculty.
• Provide a platform for ongoing content creation.
• A forum for learner and instructor communication and discussion.

Conclusion

My interpretations of constructivism evolved from the contributions of many theorists Piaget (1952) and Vygotsky (1978), among others. Knowledge, according to constructivists, is not fixed or external; it is individually constructed. Thus, understanding is derived through experience. Ideally, student-centered learning environments emphasize concrete experiences that serve as catalysts for constructing individual meaning. This premise is central to the design of many contemporary learning systems.

Journalism programs cannot forgo the traditional stardards of quality journalism and its ultimate goal: to promote a vibrant democracy via an engaged and deliberative public. Therefore, any new curriculum must continue to draw from the old paradigms by emphasizing social responsibility, significance, relevance, accuracy, and other qualities of journalism that ASNE and the API (ASNE, 2015; Sonderman Rosenstiel, 2015) laid out as the fundamental elements of the profession. Much scholarship has demonstrated the industry’s need for continued vigilance in its watchdog role for society.

Students should not leave a program today without the basics of reporting, writing, and grammar well learned and honed. These skills must continue to serve as the basis for any new pedagogical implementations.

Following the lead of Mendelson et al. (2005) and many other scholars who called for a concentration on experiential-learning, audience-centric journalism, this article also encourages e-Portfolios as a means to assess and monitor story execution to follow-up dialogue, journalism students can be taught to incorporate an understanding of “journalism as process,” and to rethink the idea that a news article is a singular, finite product.
Robinson (2013)writes:
“Any news product must help users navigate the new world via a transportive and
transactional characteristics. Individuals want informational data that allows them to
travel across mediated domains so they can “dig deeper” into their particular interest
areas and attain certain exchange benefits from the knowledge production.
Furthermore, the act of production becomes a collaborative process between journalists
and the audience. who are now active news producers on a myriad of levels. In
reworking syllabi in this manner, a journalism professor today can ground students not
just in digital tools essential for success in the communication profession, but also in an
overall paradigm that will help them feel comfortable in their worlds post-graduation as
both producer and consumer of mediated content.”

The combination of applying a student-centered learning approach within the framework of COVA and the sustainability of e-Portfolios as a learning environment enhancement needs more time to be studied, but preliminary research findings show that it is an instrument to codify learning and organizational culture in the UP newsroom.

References

ASNE Newsroom Census (2015). American Society of Newsroom Editors 28 June 2015. Retrieved February 2,  2017 from http://asne.org/content.asp?pl=140&sl=129&contentid=129

Christensen, C. M. (1997). The innovator’s dilemma: when new technologies cause great firms to fail. Boston, MA, USA: Harvard Business School Press, ISBN 978-0-87584-585-2.

Christensen, C. M., Horn, M. B., Caldera, L., & Soares, L. (2011). Disrupting college: How disruptive innovation can deliver quality and affordability to postsecondary education. Retrieved from Lamar University EDLD 5305 course Blackboard class materials from http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/labor/report/2011/ 02/08/9034/disrupting-college/

Frand, J. L., (2000) The information age mindset: changes in students and Implications for higher education. EDUCAUSE September/October 2000, pp. 14-24. Retrieved ebscohost.com June 14, 2017.

Graves, N. and Epstein, M. (2011). E-porfolio: a tool for constructing a narrative professional identity. Business Communication Quarterly, Volume 74, Number 3, September 2011 342-346 DOI: 10.1177/1080569911414555

Harapnuik, D. (2016, September 29). COVA Model [Web log]. Retrieved from http://www.harapnuik.org/?s=cova

Hubball, H., Pearson, M. L. (2009). Curriculum leadership portfolios: enhancing scholarly approaches to undergraduate program reform. Transformative Dialogues: Teaching & Learning Journal Volume 3 Issue 2 November 2009.

McWhorter, R. R., Delello, J. A., Roberts, P. B., Raisor, C. M., & Fowler, D. A. (2013). A cross-case analysis of the use of web-based eportfolios in higher education. Journal of Information Technology Education: Innovations in Practice, 12, 253-286. Retrieved from http://www.jite.org/documents/Vol12/JITEv12IIPp253-286McWhorter1238.pdf

Mendelson, A., Coleman, R., & Kurpius, D. (2005). Civic usability in Internet journalism classes. Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, 60, 202-216.

Patterson, Kerry. (Eds.) (2012) Crucial conversations: tools for talking when stakes are high. New York, New York: McGraw-Hill.

Patterson, K., Grenny, J., Maxfield, D., McMillan, R., Switzler, A., (2008). Influencer: the power to change anything. McGraw-Hill, New York, New York. DOI: 10.1036/007148499X

Phillips, R., McNaught, C., & Kennedy, G. (2011). Evaluating e-learning: Guiding research and practice. New York, NY: Routledge.

Piaget, J. (1952). The Origins of Intelligence in Children. New York: International University Press.

Ring, G. L. (2015). Implementing a peer mentoring model in the Clemson e-portfolio program. ISSN: 0040-5841 print/1543-0421 online. DOI: 10.1080/00405841.2015.1077616. Published and retrieved ebscohost.com June 14, 2017, Theory Into Practice, 54:326–334, 2015, Changing Landscapes: The Impact of e-Portfolios on Teaching and Learning. Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.

Roberts, P., Maor, D., & Herrington, J. (2016). E-Portfolio-Based Learning Environments: Recommendations for Effective Scaffolding of Reflective Thinking in Higher Education. Educational Technology & Society, 19 (4), 22–33.

Robinson, S, (2013) Teaching “journalism as process”: a proposed paradigm for j-school curricula in the digital age. Teaching Journalism and Mass Communication, Vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 1-12, Winter 2013 http://www.aejmc.net/spig/journal

Sonderman, J. & Rosenstiel, T. (2015). A culture-based strategy for creating innovation in news organizations. Published May 27, 2015 American Press Institute. https://americanpressinstitute.org/publications/reports/white-papers/culture-based-innovation/single-page. Retrieved February 2, 2017 from https://americanpressinstitute.org/publications/reports/white-papers/culture-based-innovation/single-page

Thibodeaux, T., Cummings, C., and Harapnuik, D. (2017). Factors that Contribute to e-Portfolio Persistence, International Journal of e-Portfolio, Volume 7, Number 1, 1-12. http://www.theijep.com ISSN 2157-622X

Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Yancey, K.B. (2015). Grading e-Portfolios: tracing two approaches, their advantages, and their disadvantages. ISSN: 0040-5841 print/1543-0421 online. DOI:10.1080/00405841.2015.1076693. Published and retrieved ebscohost.com June 14, 2017, Theory Into Practice, 54:301–308, 2015, Changing Landscapes: The Impact of e-Portfolios on Teaching and Learning. Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.