29 Oct 2009: Crucial Conversations

"Give me a lever long enough ... and I shall move the world." - Archimedes

If I have an issue, do I want someone to tell me about it?
- Yes, in the right way.
- In the right setting.

Why don't you tell someone their trousers are undone?
- We may be afraid - the other person's attitude is challenging
- Past experience may inform a resistance to doing this

What are the costs of not taking on a crucial conversation
- parking lot veto (watercooler veto)

Everyone (93%) workes with an untouchable - someone dishonest, incompetent, bullying, conniving
- More than half say he's done if or more than 4 years
- They damage moreale, hurt customers, sap productivity
- Fewer than 1 in 8 are willing to talk about it

- 44% say they put in only effort required
- 75% say they could be more effective

Silence Fails
Five Crucial Conversations for Flawless Execution
* 150+ hrs of observation

Results
- Fact-Free Planning
- AWOL sponsors (need to check in regularly and often)
- Skirting
- Project Chicken (escalate and see who flinches first - choosing a whipping boy)
- Team Failures

- overbudget
- missed deadlines
- poor quality of functionality
- damaged morale
- no work-life balance

Wbat if people deal wit the crucial confrontation?
- cut dollar impact
- reduce cost savings

Leadership Skill
1) What results do you want that you're not getting?
2) What crucial conversation is ot being held or not being held well that perpetuates your problem?

When emotions kick in, you're unlikely to do your best.
As soon as a conversation changes, the motive changes. (No longer about project, but about winning the conversation - I'm going to dominate you!)

Identify:
1) What do I want for myself?
2) What do I want for the other person?
3) What do I want for our relationship?

What do I want to be better or different after this conversation.

We see facts and interpret them with a narrative (tell ourselves a story).
We generate an emotional response to our story - and act accordingly.
People see our reactions to emotions that are caused by a story not understood by the other.

Thoughts are electrical, but emotions are chemical.
Emotions have a shorter half life.
Identify if things aren't working and say, "Can we talk about this in 20 minutes?"

"The measure of success is not whether or not you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it's the same problem you had last year
- John Duluth

"What you can't communicate runs your life." - Dr. Robert Anthony
"Don't trade the possibility of an uncomfortable conversation for the certainty of bad relationshipas and results."

We are left to deal with the most complex and challenging conversations of our lives with the same set of skills we would use to deal with a salivating predator. (Blood leaver our brain and goes somewhere else when we're frustrated.)

Start with the Heart
- Learn to look (make it safe, master my stories)
- State my path (explore others' paths, move to action)

So what happened today?
- look for more facts to build a more complete story
- the more mutual respect, more shared goals, the safer we all feel

If someone said something that wasn't true, we should try to understand why someone would think that and understand their point of view. (Joseph Smith)

Name the game and take away the power the other peson is using against you.

Motives that Kill Dialogue
- save face
- look good
- keep the peace (artificial stability/remedy)
- avoid conflict
- win
- be right
- punish

If you're trying to deal with "the hog" through external controls, you never solve the problem.

Why do I need to identify my motive?
The motive you can't see controls oyu
you aren't that good an actor
If you can see it, you can't fix it
Questions provoke the brain

Learn to look for silence and violence
silence, withdrawng, avoiding, masking, DIALOGUE, controlling, labeling, attacking, violence

The sooner you notice you're not

IT IS AS HARD TO SEE ONESELF AS TO LOOK BACKWARDS WITHOUT TRUNING AROUND.

Present facts, not opinions
State motives

People never become definsive about what you're saying. People become definsive because of why they think you're saing it.

You know I care about your goals
You know that I care about you.
With enough safety you can talk about anything.

If safety is at risk, don't water down the content,
Can one person who disagrees respectfully make it safe for the entire group?
19/20 yes!

You cannot run away from a weakness. You must fight it out. Why not now, where you stand?

All my life I've wanted to be somebody. Now I see that I should have been more specific.: Search for signs of Intelligent life inthe Universe

If I can change, it will improve the relationship.
a lot of evidence shows that if 1 changes, then the relationship improves

The Bonds that Make us Free

if each person wakes up each morning with an anxious concern for the other, then you're going to get good places. (Pres. Hinckley)

22 Oct 2009: Continuing the Budget Discussion

F&A Federal Administration - 42%

70% of F&A stays at top Bridge funding
30% of F&A goes to college
10% of college funds goes to department
any left over funds go to the PI

F&A at BYU stays at the top (VP for Research)
Some gets channeled in several different colleges
Different colleges decide what departments to help and within depts which professors to support

The mission of BYU is undergraduate teaching
BYU Emphasis on student mentoring
2 avenues: faculty funding mentoring ($500) and student funding ($1500)

Fast lane NSF
Cover Sheet
Table of Contents
References Cited
Budget (Including Justification)
Facilities (In Kind goods and what the facility offers you)
PI CoPI Info (Put in system by Grants Administrator at BYU)
suggested Reviewers
Project Summary
Project Description
Bio Sketch
Facilities
Current and Pending
Supplementary Docs (Evidence)
Deviation Authorization (Money can't be spent in certain ways)
Additional Single Copy
Resubmission details - reviewer

There are different categories:
Gifts cannot have F&A attached
Research accounts are all separated
Grant Manager (name them by name)
Name the name and salary and qualifications

Grant Timeline Revisited

- Meet with grant writing team at Department of Education of McKay School
- Talk with IRB (and find out timeline)
- Email Manohar & phone
- Email Mulmiji
- Email Mahabir Pun
- Get HLCIT update

- Submit funding proposal to Erika
- Run proposal by Erika Feinauer
- Run proposal by Randy Davies
- Run proposal by David Wiley

- Question
- Narrative
- Lit Review (Spencer)
- Budget
- F&A Indirect Costs
- Evaluation
- CV (Tiffany, Wiley, Davies, Manohar, Mahabir)

20 Oct 2009: Aaron Popham: Grants & University System Details

Government Grants
Any federal contract would have to go through www.grants.gov (searchable, key word search)
Federal Registration: any entity or action that is passed through govt is recorded in registry
RFPs and RFAs (Federal Registry Announcement & Dept Description of that information)
Federal Registry is best place to find details about funding grants.

NSF website has a nice engine for investigating RFAs www.nsf.gov (get number and search on grants.gov)
National Department of Education
Go to State Govt website and search for grants. You need to know someone in order to be alerted.
IRIS database (Illinois Research Institute System) - BYU pays for a subscription

All university grants need to go through approval process of department and university first
All grants that have work with human subjects need approval of IRB

30-60 days is release of announcement of RFP

Grant writing is different than scholarly writing
Need for scholarly support
Write to a distinct set of criteria (which means different language)
A faculty member that tries to go it alone may leave out essential nuances of the grant lingo

BYU's F&A On Campus Indirect Cost is 50% Off-Campus Indirect costs is 28% (>120 days away)
Budget
Personnel
Benefits
Capital Equipment >$5,000 per item
Supplies <$5,000 per item
Travel (Air tickets, food, hotel)
Stipend (Training for participation, subsistence allowance)
Contractual (consultants)
F&A (Facilitites and Administration)

BYU uses a modified indirect costs (BYU only takes FA on the first $25K of the total of all contractual work); there is no F&A on stipend. Put as much into contractual embed travel costs in the contractual agreement.

Division at BYU dedicated to grant disbursement

13 Oct 2009: CV Preparation

C.V
Most recent first (reverse chronological)

2 page abbreviated
Presentations - up to 5
Publications - up to 5
list of recent collaborators

Name
Contact Info
Education (Degrees & Process)
Profile
Publications
Other Writings
Employment
Presentations
Memberships (Current and Recent)
Skills? (provide context for reader)
Grants
Awards
Teaching
Service
Leadership
Languages
Research Agenda & Interests (current)

Cover Letter
Objective
Names of References

8 Oct 2009: Gaining confidence in writing

Ether 12:23-25
- the Gentiles will mock at these things
- our weakness in writing
- awkwardness of our hands
- when we write we behold our weakness
- my grace is sufficient for the meek, that they shall take no advantage of your weakness
- i give unto men weakness that they may become strong

Literature Reviews
- key words
- establishing credibility
- marching down the

- choosing the write key words for searching for docs and for RFPs:
scaling up
sustainable
open
developing countries
Nepal
Himalayas
education
OER
open education

- read and refer to what is already written by program officer and/or key authors by RFP
- key question/point is the starting point for the upside-down funnel whereby we open it again.
- appropriate humility is part of credibility
- if my approach is already "the best" approach, what is the point of my research?
- i'll learn more if i present it as a possible solution to the question.
- spell out where you searched and how you show that there are holes in the research
- i searched 23 key words in 16 databases and there is very little published in this areas

- different kinds of information have different kind of half life
- balance: stuff that's current & what is seminal (foundational to the effort)
- email faculty to get 2-3 seminal articles related to the work that you're doing

Rachel Windham through library

Search:
Google (cast the new widely)
Google Scholar (cited by - see how many times)

David Wiley 2002 (learning objects)

ERIC
ProQuest
WilsonWeb
Scopus
IT Forum
ELDIS
tictocs.ac.uk
Upload file to google docs

OER, literacy, developing countries

* Make sure nobody else has done it
* Make sure that you build off what has gone before
* Starting from scratch is the #1 problem

- help people believe that this problem is important and that we really do need to solve it
- the goal of the lit review is to convince them that I am the right person to do this study ( i know what i'm doing and i know what has and hasn't been done)
- for a proposal, you only get 1-2 pages for the lit review

* if we are creating new things, we may have to use new names
* reappropriate old terms

IRRODL (Wiley) new issue Nov 2009
Ask David for this link

THE TEAM
Establishing Credibility

Being able to find a useful question gives credibility
Successful tour of literature
Names of people who will do the work
Grantwriting is never a blind process
-Vitas of people
-Things not default

Vita
- Conferences
- Articles

Get key people according to skills and key words cited
literacy
developing countries
quant (Erika)
qual
software
design
Nepal

6 Oct 2009: Lit Reviews & Grants

SO WHAT? WHY DO I CARE?

scope and sequence.
choosing the right blocks, but arranging them the right way and filing in the mortar (story) the best way possible.

Lit review is also a narrative (it mirrors & scales the outline I posed in my one page intro)
Write for an intelligent non-specialist; your spouse should be able to read it.

more nepal.
more focus.
i should know more about my topic than anyone else in the world.

Get to the hook quicker.
Entice, tantalize the reader.
Prepare the reader for the main point earlier; everything builds to the main point.
Avoid filler
Make the intro 1 page; keep it concise.
Include only what relates.
Embed everything in context.

The world's knowledge is a public good.
How do we sustain giving things away for free and take it to scale?

WHAT IS MY CADENCE?
direction, inevitability, progression toward the last (pinnacle) chord
lit review follows this same orchestration (outline) of points
strategic planning and editing, find the right quotes, give appropriate commentary
commentary on what is missing

avoid "no literature exists on this" - unless you can show your search and why you never found it
(transparency, terms, databases) - explain process fully

Pres. Kim Clark's forum address

If you feel personally tied to the topic, take on a less formal voice.
Add more personal.
Focus more on the hook.

Justin Johansen: next Weds 8am, 351
Open courseware for BYU Independent Study pays for itself

Rich Sudweeks: Research Synthesis
USU Open Courseware Lit Review course
ocw.usu.edu

Create a story with the lit review
Find a narrower topic to find relevant articles/books for my lit review

Why?
Support your argument.
Create context
Establish timing on the stage.
Provide validity.
Show that you are informed/qualified.
Show where the holes are.
Demonstrate that you fill a gap.
Critically evaluate existing work. (So what?)
Make purposive choice under constraint.

Clear organization is not necessarily clear argument. Need a narrative.
Keep it interesting.

What is the story?
100,000 literate Pakistani women, but no libraries or reading material to continue:
"What about us?"

If I don't care, why should the reader care?

Researcher subjectivity.
Life impact map.
Depending on audience & what am I accomplishing?

Oct 27 (Kennedy Center)

Three cups of Tea

1 Oct 2009: Funneling & Sharpening my Introduction

A very large ship can be benefited very much by a very small helm.
Mutual purpose and mutual respect will guide "crucial conversation" - core of donor relatnshp?

Thoughts:
- Don't constrain yourself with false limitations
- Design: making purposive choice under constraint
- Writing a dissertation, proposal, grant is a HAIKU
- Precision is an increasingly lost art
- The onus is on ME to do the work, not to expect others to do it
- Control the scope (avoid scope creep - getting bigger and bigger)
- Get good quotes, current research, verify all references
- What are the indicators, what is the baseline and how far do you think you'll move it?
- It must be measurable - child mortality/unemployment THEN and NOW (what caused it?)
- Anecdote is the singular form of data - need quantity

Funnel Thought Process & Sharpening
1) reading helps eliminate poverty and increases quality of life
2) but 1m+ people don't have access to ed opportunity or reading materials
3) even after participating in literacy classes, accessing reading tools is difficult
4) reading materials are too expensive & dissemination is hampered in hard-to reach areas
5) need increased access to quality content to revolutionize ed in rural developing countries
6) are OC4D tools an effective means to increase content in rural developing countries
7) focus on ProLiteracy materials tailored at change agents in Himalayan Kingdom of Nepal

QUESTION:
What impact do OC4D tools have on access to critical content
targeted at lower-literates in Himalayan villages?


Although education is a human right, over one billion adults are still illiterate. (World Bank, 2009) Eliminating various forms of poverty in the developing world (economic, social, physical, spiritual) is directly linked to improving opportunities for education (UNESCO, 2009). Increasing access to educational opportunity in developing countries requires a continuous focus at removing obstacles (political, geographic, social) that stand in the way of the right to education (Tomsasevski, 2006).

Improving education in rural developing countries is most likely to be achieved through a holistic approach with concerted focus on sustainable and context-sensitive literacy programming conducted by locals for locals with particular regard to tailored content collection and dissemination (REFLECT, 2007). Research reveals that local literacy facilitators and change agents desire to develop skills that allow them to access and tailor educational tools through knowledge, creativity and freedom (Chambers, 2000; Curtis, 2990; Freire, 1977).

There are many in developing countries who lack an education only because they lack access to educational opportunity. Accessing reading tools is difficult because they are too expensive to buy and libraries are nonexistent. Dissemination of educational material is hampered in hard-to reach areas because of government bureaucracies, inefficient management systems, and geographical barriers. Instruction is hampered because local teachers and facilitators don't have access to new and relevant information to support learning. (Aga Khan Pakistan, 2006)

Even in communities where literacy programs have been supported by outside donors, inadequate attention has been given to these questions: “How do we sustain momentum after funding dies? How do we cultivate environments that can ensure lifelong literacy progress?” (World Education, 2006)

The OER movement focuses on increasing access to freely available educational tools free of charge. OER aims to expand and realize the right to education for all learners; but most tools are targeted at higher education learners with highly specialized information and in technical formats. There is little, if any, content available in simplified formats tailored for lower-literate people, available in local languages focused on problems related to international development.

Although OER has been lauded as the means for revolutionizing educational opportunity in developing countries (Abelson, Brown and Lerman), very little has been done for lower-literate learners in rural context. There is discussion about ways that OER players may build capacity in developing countries for effective use of OER, extension of these tools to lower-literate groups is nascent at best and nonexistent at worst.

Abelson, Brown, Lerman: "We expect OCW to be of particular value in devleoping countries that are trying to expand their higher education systems rapidly. These countries have disproportionately young populations, and their college instructors often have limited teaching experience., high teach loads, and limitd exposure to the curricula at top-flight universities (p.14)


The Open Content for Development (OC4D) initiative builds upon the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement (Hewlett, 2007) a more specific focus on lower-literate learners in rural developing countries. These context-sensitive tools focus on "literacy for social change" principles and content driven to solve problems faced by two-thirds of the world's population (e.g. agriculture, conflict resolution, environmental conservation, health/hygiene, human rights, HIV/AIDS prevention).

6) are OC4D tools an effective means to increase content in rural developing countries (Nepal)?

ProLiteracy Worldwide (PLW), an international NGO based in New York, supports a global network of over 130 NGO partners in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. These partners are connected through the use of ProLiteracy’s FAMA pedagogy anchored in participatory dialogue.

Although these partners share the same theoretical approach of “literacy for social change” (Curtis, 1990), they have not been connected to one another except through ProLiteracy Headquarters in New York (Anderson, 2009).

PLW has facilitated the aggregating of critical content tools from several sites that face similar dilemmas (e.g. AIDS prevention, infectious disease, environmental conservation, health/hygiene, micro-enterprise, and conflict resolution).

PLW has sometimes facilitated the sharing of content between partners and has often funded the localization of critical content developed in one region in order to increase utility and effectiveness in other regions.

PLW has also occasionally assisted in the dissemination of critical content through local partners according to specific donor objectives (e.g. AIDS awareness and family planning).

However, the majority of accessing, localizing and sharing of critical content between ProLiteracy Partners around the world has depended on funding from external donor organizations.

Sustainability of literacy programming at the macro and micro levels depends upon availability, affordability, and accessibility of appropriate content tailored (linguistically and culturally) for lower-literates and tethered to real-world issues.

Building from ProLiteracy’s partner base is an effective way to work within an existing structure to bolster the expansion of educational opportunity through access to open content tailored for the neediest learners.

Although many predict that OER is a panacea that will afford great educational benefit in areas where resources are scarce, limited research has been done in lower-literate rural environments. If these tools have the potential to revolutionize access to the right to education in developing countries, then it is imperative to find out what impact OER has in such environments and why.

Answering these questions will expand the focus of the OER movement toward the billion people across the world who are currently deprived the right to education. Are OC4D tools an effective means for sustaining access to quality learning materials for lower-literates in developing country contexts, particularly in the hard-to-reach rural villages of Nepal?