[ba-ohs-talk] Thinking about asynchronous IBIS (possibly longish, sorry)

[Jack Park <jackpark@thinkalong.com>]

At http://groups.yahoo.com/group/unrev-II/message/40
I mentioned the idea of a Glass Bead Game.  Certainly not an original idea 
of mine; rather, it came from Hermann Hesse, and has been picked up in a 
lot of places (just google it to find out!).    (01)

Briefly, a GBG is one in which there is a BeadMaster -- a kind of 
facilitator.  As I understand the GBG, the BeadMaster has a lot of power 
over the direction of the game.  As I have watched Jeff Conklin 
facilitating IBIS discussions, I tend to believe that a facilitator is not 
in the act of exercising power over the direction of the discussion, 
except, perhaps, to try to keep it on track and seduce buy-in from the 
participants from time to time.  In contrast, a BeadMaster analyzes the 
"moves" offered by the participants, and decides on the next directions for 
the game.    (02)

I've been following the arguments that IBIS does not work well (fails?) 
when done in non-face-to-face, asynchronous activities.  Because I am 
interested in taking the IBIS formalism into classrooms situated in 
widely-different time zones, I am motivated to ponder this stated weakness. 
I am imagining three scenarios that try to describe the differences in 
possible approaches.    (03)

Situation A: asynch unfacilitated IBIS at a web site
	A question is posed
	Students post responses
	Responses go straight to the web site
	Students later respond to responses
	continue    (04)

Situation B: asynch facilitated IBIS at a web site
	A question is posed
	Students post responses
	Responses go to a hidden site for evaluation by facilitator(s)
	Facilitators post responses that are, indeed, responsive
	Students later respond to responses
	continue    (05)

Situation C: asynch BeadMaster-facilitated IBIS at a web site
	A question is posed
	Students post responses
	Responses go to a hidden site for evaluation by facilitator(s)
	Facilitators summarize responses and post new question
	Students later respond to new question
	continue    (06)

Now, I'm looking for excuses to pursue Situation C.
Thus far, I am able to generate the following positive responses:
	This kind of "facilitation" allows facilitators (teachers in an education 
scenario) to track outcomes in the learning process
	This kind of "facilitation" forces the discussion to stay on track
and the following negative responses:
	Requires a huge amount of work on the part of the facilitators
	Provokes a potentially long response time, with consequent loss of 
pedagogic value in the process    (07)

Contrasting to Situation B, but in relation to C:
positive:
	Takes less effort on the part of the facilitators
	Opportunity for quicker response time
negative:
	Less opportunity for track and evaluate progress and outcomes
	May not achieve "convergence" in the direction of desired outcomes as 
quickly (if ever)    (08)

I've ignored Situation A, because it is the situation most capable of 
allowing for chaotic results and poor learning outcomes. Of course, 
Situation A is really a "quick and dirty" way to get things started, but at 
what cost?    (09)

At the meta-level, it seems that there is more to say about Situations B and C.
In both cases, it's possible to archive and make available (at the end of 
the learning session) *all* responses, and all discussions taken between 
the facilitators.  Indeed, the facilitators (assuming a group of > 1 
teacher) could/should be operating in their own IBIS session, one that 
cycles the same question dealing with evaluation of the present round of 
learner responses.  I offer the conjecture that there is a huge amount of 
information in such archives from which entire learning activities centered 
on *critical thinking* can happen.    (010)

Returning to my comparison of Situations B and C, I remain interested in 
experimenting with Situation C, the combination of BeadMaster behaviors 
with the facilitation of IBIS-like discussions.  I base that bias on the 
notion that the tradeoff between response-cycle time and achievement of 
desired outcomes weighs (in my naive judgement) in favor of improving 
response time with experience making Situation C a desirable exercise.    (011)

A couple of EUROs on the table.
What?    (012)

Jack    (013)