WFSC 681 Seminar in Cross Cultural Communication: Communities & Conservation
Chat Log: MODULES 3 & 4
Thursday, September 22, 20114:55 PM: Mengmeng Sun has entered the room.
4:55 PM: Mengmeng Sun has left the room.
4:55 PM: Liat Goldstein has entered the room.
4:56 PM: Courtney Lee has entered the room.
4:57 PM: Virginia Sanders has entered the room.
4:57 PM: Virginia Sanders: Good evening!
4:57 PM: Courtney Lee: hello hello!
4:58 PM: Virginia Sanders: Did either of you find presentation 4? It does not appear to be module 4 powerpoint.
4:59 PM: Liat Goldstein: It's in the zip file, if you download all of the parts of the module together
4:59 PM: Courtney Lee: hmmm...let me check
4:59 PM: Jane Packard (Ins) has entered the room.
4:59 PM: Courtney Lee: great!
4:59 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): HI!
4:59 PM: Courtney Lee: hello!
4:59 PM: Michael Petriello has entered the room.
4:59 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): Hi Michael
5:00 PM: Michael Petriello: Hey everyone!
5:00 PM: Virginia Sanders: Information for the workshop this weekend should be in presentation 4, but module 4 ppt does not cover the workshop....? Am I missing something?
5:01 PM: Helen Boostrom has entered the room.
5:01 PM: Mengmeng Sun has entered the room.
5:02 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): Hi Helen & Mengmeng
5:02 PM: Helen Boostrom: Hi everyone!
5:02 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): Virginia has raised a good question about what to expect at the workshop
5:03 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): Lets all go to the presentation and talk through this together
5:04 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): http://wfsc.tamu.edu/jpackard/behavior/wfsc681/Documents/1prepare/module4/presentation/Presentation4.pdf
5:05 PM: Mark Hutchinson has entered the room.
5:06 PM: Mark Hutchinson: Howdy all, sorry I am a little late.
5:06 PM: Courtney Lee has left the room.
5:06 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): Hi Mark, we are starting out with a question of how the presentation for Module 4 prepares us for the workshop
5:07 PM: Courtney Lee has entered the room.
5:07 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): Hi Courtney
5:09 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): http://wfsc.tamu.edu/jpackard/behavior/wfsc681/Documents/1prepare/module4/presentation/Presentation4.pdf
5:10 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): let’s go to slide 2, and brainstorm about the idea of the relation between workshops, collaborative learning and cross-cultural communication as it relates to communities and conservation
5:11 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): how is it that what you will be experiencing in this workshop will help you to develop the skills to facilitate communication within the conservation communities where you work (or hope to work)?
5:12 PM: Mark Hutchinson: By experiencing the multiple perspectives of our classmates, we will also experience the multiple perspectives in a real-world experience.
5:13 PM: Helen Boostrom: will practice talking with others who have different viewpoints and ideas
5:13 PM: Courtney Lee: I think understanding how to wear different lenses or at least how to be open to this idea is important
5:13 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): good points, Mark, Helen & Courtney. so the main goal of the workshop is to stimulate dialogue....we will be successful if we do so
5:14 PM: Mark Hutchinson: It would almost be like a surrogate role-playing game wherein all the backgrounds of classmates mimic perspectives of landowners, locals, conservation organizations, etc.
5:14 PM: Liat Goldstein: it's kind of like informal "practice" at group discussions/debates
5:14 PM: Courtney Lee: i have done the role playing before...it is more of a challenge when you play a role opposite your role/lens
5:14 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): the third bullet on this slide talks about how we will do this.....how would you paraphrase the process in your own words?
5:16 PM: Mark Hutchinson: In discussing each of our own experiences, everyone learns more about what situations can present themselves in the field. We "expand our portfolio of experience" through the experiences of others.
5:16 PM: Virginia Sanders: We can apply the theory of cultural communication to an actual example
5:16 PM: Michael Petriello: productive interaction through emulation, participation and experience
5:17 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): how will we actually do this in each of the modules? what will be the steps 1,2,3 that you will be learning that you could do in other groups that you might facilitate in the future?
5:19 PM: Mark Hutchinson: I'm not sure I understand the question.
5:20 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): the three steps that are outlined under "participatory approaches to stimulate dialogue"
5:20 PM: Virginia Sanders: Identify the perceived problem, identify multiple perspectives involved, evaluate the effectiveness of the enacted solution, etc...
5:20 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): hmm....are we on the same page?
5:20 PM: Courtney Lee: 1. lay out goals/perspectives and personal reasons for them 2. understand how to integrate different cultural experiences to resolve any differences in perspective 3. find some common meeting ground to make forward progress
5:21 PM: Helen Boostrom: present the "issue" to the group, break into smaller groups to share ideas on a more one-on-one level to be able to listen to other viewpoints, then share what you have learned with whole group
5:21 PM: Courtney Lee: under participatory approaches..."a presentation" "break out", and "report back"???
5:21 PM: Virginia Sanders: slide 2
5:21 PM: Michael Petriello: that's what I understood
5:22 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): yes, thanks. This is pretty standard procedure within the culture of our Society for Conservation Biology
5:22 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): Helen, have you also experienced this approach in the culture of the zoo community?
5:23 PM: Helen Boostrom: yes-breaking into smaller groups seems to help dialogue, people are more comfortable
5:24 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): and why ask for each break out group to report back to the whole group at the end?
5:24 PM: Helen Boostrom: then everyone can learn from each groups experience, sometimes a wide range of ideas are brought forward
5:24 PM: Virginia Sanders: Sharing of lessons learned
5:24 PM: Michael Petriello: to discuss what we learned from our smaller groups
5:24 PM: Mark Hutchinson: I think this allows the diverse answers from each group to take center stage and allow others to see what people came up with.
5:24 PM: Courtney Lee: increases understand others' perspective
5:25 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): excellent points!
5:26 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): in our department we have a culture of not breaking into groups, because everyone wants to hear what everyone else says, they are afraid of missing out on something
5:26 PM: Virginia Sanders: That’s funny :)
5:26 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): what can be the disadvantage of not using the break out technique when you are working with a conservation community?
5:26 PM: Mark Hutchinson: If the group is small enough, is it really necessary to do the small group thing?
5:27 PM: Courtney Lee: you just need to ensure everyone IS talking
5:27 PM: Mark Hutchinson: Ideas that would otherwise be heard go unsaid.
5:27 PM: Virginia Sanders: You have more diversity of perspectives and possible solutions
5:28 PM: Virginia Sanders: Oh, sorry.. disadvantage. Not enough time to cover all the important topics
5:27 PM: Michael Petriello: to use an over-used metaphor: the squeaky wheel gets the grease
5:27 PM: Helen Boostrom: not everyone will talk in a big group, smaller groups encourage everyone to participate
5:28 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): I agree. My experience has been that the same people who are most verbal and talk the loudest take the floor and the others who may be more reflective and thoughtful cannot get a word in edgewise!
5:28 PM: Liat Goldstein: larger groups can create confusion, when everyone wants to speak at once. "weaker" voices can go unheard
5:29 PM: Helen Boostrom: also the point brought up in discussion about not everyone saying what they really think in big groups because they are afraid of what their neighbors may think
5:30 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): good, so I will encourage you to reflect on the process that you experience and to think on how that might be useful for you as a technique to use in the future
5:30 PM: Michael Petriello: with larger groups it's also harder to establish a universal code of behavior or group etiquette (e.g., robert’s rules of order) that makes sure everyone is heard
5:31 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): I might also say that this structure of presentation/activity/group reflection is one that is recommended by our Network of Conservation Education Practitioners, which can be a valuable resource for you in the future
5:32 PM: Mark Hutchinson: Do you think there are other methods that would also accomplish the same goals? Is this what we do because we always have or because it really works?
5:33 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): Mark, as you become more experienced with the "tools of the trade", you will discover more techniques
5:32 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): Mark brought up an earlier point....since we will be a small enough group in this workshop, do we really need break out groups?
5:33 PM: Virginia Sanders: Smaller groups still allow more people to become involved
5:33 PM: Mark Hutchinson: I might just split the group down the middle this weekend rather than do pairs or something smaller. We can still use the overall model.
5:34 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): you will invent your own, which you think will work best with the particular communities where you want to facilitate dialogue
5:34 PM: Virginia Sanders: Are will splitting up based on particular eco regions?
5:34 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): I am sensing that we will want to do break out groups for Module 8 for sure, because that is where you will be thinking about applying what you learned to a specific case
5:35 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): what I read on our discussion thread leads me to think that we may want one case from ANA and one case from Marine
5:36 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): It it the role of the facilitator to watch how the first exercise works and decide from there how to adapt the next module
5:37 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): I will be asking each of you to reflect on your experiences also in answering the Delphi questions at the end of the module (what worked? what didn't? suggestions?)
5:38 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): this will be "modelling" the kind of approach that works best in communities touched by conservation, reflect, assess, fine tune as you go
5:38 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): what are your thoughts? are you up for this?
5:39 PM: Mark Hutchinson: That sounds great. I don't have any problems with it.
5:39 PM: Courtney Lee: sounds great, have the cases been posted? or is that something we get this SAT
5:39 PM: Courtney Lee: --sorry to jump the gun
5:39 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): I was hoping to come to a concensus during this chat
5:40 PM: Courtney Lee: these cases are the ones posted on the website?
5:41 PM: Virginia Sanders: One of the cases is just a video in spanish so I'm a litle confused. Do we choose from a published case story but not one of the potential?
Jane added with hindsight: Yes.You will find a variety of case studies currently linked to the website. With more seminar participants completing the follow-up modules, we hope to increase the number of case stories in the preferred format of ANA01 and Marine01. Those help to explicitly identify the stakeholder perspectives and their (sometimes diverse) opinions on the tools (one person’s fix is another person’s problem). The potential topics are ones that I hope folks will pick to write up. We talk about them in SCB, but I do not know yet of a good write up.
5:40 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): before we move on to choice of cases, I want to touch on the second bulletin on Slide 2.... what do we mean by productive dialogue?
5:41 PM: Courtney Lee: we need to establish goals of the discussion so that it is productive
5:41 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): earlier, the words "discussion", "debate" were used....what comes to mind when you compare and contrast "debate" with "dialogue"?
5:41 PM: Michael Petriello: that in order to be productive we have to be respectful about, and open with, our own and others opinions
5:42 PM: Helen Boostrom: dialogue that stays on topic but that everyone feels comfortable participating in the conversation and that their ideas are heard
5:42 PM: Virginia Sanders: debate implies a winner and loser. dialogue is just a presentation of ideas, thoughts, facts without judgment
5:42 PM: Courtney Lee: debate and dialogue both allow for two parties to speak but debate is usually uncomfortable for some where dialogue is open to all
5:42 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): good, so I am hearing that it is a combination of both listening and honest expression
5:42 PM: Mark Hutchinson: Because the bullet talks about honest, clear ideas and open listening, I assume it involves removing all biases, preconceived notions, etc. that would muddy the water.
5:43 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): Mark, how could we possibly remove all biases!
5:43 PM: Jane Packard (Ins): on the contrary, it is about being explicit about our biases, and understanding where those biases come from, how they are rooted in our experiences
5:43 PM: Courtney Lee: I think this is where the lenses are really important
5:43 PM: Mark Hutchinson: It's a goal...
5:43 PM: Courtney Lee: I think maybe to state that we will be open to differences and not be closed minded-this is not honest with ourselves as there are many differences between people
5:43 PM: Virginia Sanders: Choosing our 'lens' helps us to be mindful of our biases